How much hydrogen awaits us underground?
Researchers are investigating underground geologic hydrogen as a potential source of clean, zero-carbon fuel. While the Earth's crust contains vast amounts of hydrogen, current exploration efforts are still in the early stages of determining if it can be economically recovered.
Why it matters
Tapping into natural hydrogen reservoirs could revolutionize the energy sector by providing a sustainable, low-emission alternative to fossil fuels.
The global gold rush for underground stores of hydrogen fuel continues. But researchers are still sorting out how much of the stuff there is.
In the 1990s, Barbara Sherwood Lollar descended into the Kidd Creek mine in northern Ontario, which cuts more than three kilometers into the ancient root of North America. There her team of geochemists found water that had been confined underground for more than a billion years. This ancient brine turned out to be a habitat for living microbes that feed on the hydrogen produced in reactions between the water and the rock.
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