Scientists have made a list of “ingredients” to help resource exploration companies locate huge clean hydrogen reservoirs. A hidden source of clean energy could feed the earth for 170,000 years.
A map released in January suggests that the hydrogen reservoirs They are buried in the most unexpected regions in the world, including at least.
Finding these hidden reservoirs could help speed up the global energy transition – so scientists want to ‘go after’ them.
A new study, this Tuesday in Nature Reviews Earth and Environmenthe says he has the “ingredients” to locate huge clean hydrogen reservoirs.
According to the authors, the terrestrial crust has produced enough hydrogen over the past thousand million years to satisfy our energy needs for 170,000 years. What is not yet clear is the amount of hydrogen that can be accepted and extracted profitably.
Natural hydrogen reservoirs require three key elements to form: a Hydrogen source, reservoir rocks and natural stamps that hold the gas in the underground.
Within these elements, there are several ingredients.
Based on the knowledge of how other gases are released from underground rocks, the authors of the review suggest that the TECTONIC STRESS and the high heat flow They can release hydrogen in the depths of the earth’s crust.
“This helps to bring hydrogen near the surface, where you can accumulate and form a commercial resource,” he explained, to, Chris BallentineProfessor of Geochemistry at Oxford University and research leader.
Inside the crust, a wide range of common geological contexts can also prove promising for exploration companies-ranging from Complexes ofiolytics to large igneous provinces and waistlines of archeneous green rocks.
The ofiolites are pieces of the earth’s crust and the upper cloak that were once under the ocean, but later pushed to earth.
The investigation also makes other warnings about the main ingredients that companies should consider when developing their exploration strategies, including processes through which hydrogen can migrate or be destroyed underground.
“We know, for example, that underground microbes They easily feed on hydrogen, ”said co -author Barbara Sherwood Lollar, professor of land sciences at the University of Toronto, in.
For this reason, “ environments where bacteria can contact the hydrogen -producing rocks may not be good locations to look for reservoirs ”.
But the great conclusion and a reinforcement of what was already known, ”said Ballentine – is that the “Land crust produces a lot of hydrogen”.
“Now it’s a matter of following the list of ingredients to find it,” he says.
