Underground hydrogen touted as ‘important’ clean energy resource in first US hearing

The Senate held the first congressional hearing on geological hydrogen, a promising new form of clean energy produced naturally underground that has attracted growing interest and investment over the past year.

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, chaired by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, heard testimony Wednesday from the Energy Department’s advanced research unit, the US Geological Survey, and Pete Johnson, CEO of Koloma, the best-funded startup in the geological hydrogen space. They agreed that more research is needed to identify the most abundant, promising sites and to develop techniques to enhance the natural production process, but were optimistic about the prospects.

“The potential for geological hydrogen represents a paradigm shift in how we think about hydrogen as an energy source,” Evelyn Wang, director of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, told senators. “This new source of hydrogen could lower energy costs and increase our nation’s energy security and supply chains.”

Federal scientists have begun working with universities and energy companies to find ways to map and locate potentially large pockets of hydrogen because current estimates are insufficient, said Geoffrey Ellis of the Geological Survey. “The estimated in-situ global geological hydrogen resource ranges from 1000 to potentially billions of megatons,” he told the committee. “Given our understanding of other geological resources, the vast majority of hydrogen is likely to be in accumulations that are either too far from marine areas or too small to ever be economically recovered. However, if even a small fraction of this amount could be recovered, it would be a significant resource.”

Hydrogen is already widely used in industry, including oil refineries, chemical plants and as a key component of ammonia for fertilizer. But almost all of this is done by extracting hydrogen from natural gas, a dirty process that emits large amounts of carbon dioxide. Like green hydrogen – a new pure form of the element produced from water and electricity, ideally from renewable energy sources – the geological variety is carbon-free. Scientists believe it forms in underground pockets of iron-rich rock in warm, humid conditions that are extremely common. Uniquely, it is an energy source that is there rather than an energy source that must be created.

(For more on Koloma, see Bill Gates backs a secret startup drilling for unlimited clean energy)

“All other forms of hydrogen require more energy to produce than hydrogen itself,” Koloma’s Johnson said. “This is incredibly clean energy. In multiple third-party life cycle analyzes and peer-reviewed journal articles, geological hydrogen has been found to have a very low carbon footprint. In addition, geological hydrogen will result in lower land use and lower water consumption than any other form of hydrogen.”

Johnson, Wang and Ellis also noted that drilling or mining for hydrogen leverages techniques used by the oil and gas industry. It is also likely to help domestic ammonia production.

“Hydrogen is an excellent raw material and is used to create ammonia for fertilizer,” Wang said. “If we could actually stimulate and extract that hydrogen and produce very large quantities at very low cost, I think that could have significant implications for helping and supporting farmers.”

Johnson did not provide details on when Denver-based Koloma, which has raised more than $300 million from investors including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners and Amazon, would begin commercial hydrogen extraction, but she is cautiously optimistic.

“This will take time, money and effort to figure out. Nobody has all the answers today,” he told the committee. “Early data looks promising, and I believe that geological hydrogen can play a very large role as we unlock the US energy economy.”