What if the Earth has been hoarding a massive energy stockpile right under our noses? That’s the provocative idea in a new study from Science Advances (December 13, 2024), Model predictions of global geologic hydrogen resources, by Geoffrey Ellis and Sarah E. Gelman. They propose that natural hydrogen—formed by geological processes deep underground—could dwarf today’s proven natural gas reserves in scale. Before we start imagining a new energy golden age, let’s unpack what this study claims, what it doesn’t, and why it might matter to anyone who cares about energy that actually works.
The researchers used a mass balance model to estimate how much hydrogen might be locked in the Earth’s subsurface. Their figures are jaw-dropping: a range from 1,000 to 10 billion million metric tons (Mt), with a “most probable” value of 5.6 million Mt. If just 2% of that—about 100,000 Mt—were extractable, it could meet a projected global hydrogen demand of 500 Mt per year (by 2050) for two centuries. Energy-wise, they calculate it at 14 quadrillion megajoules, nearly double the 8.4 quadrillion MJ in all known natural gas reserves.
That’s a number to make you sit up. But here’s the catch: most of it might be too deep, too scattered, or too tough to grab with today’s tools. Still, the authors argue that even a small chunk could shake things up—if we can find it and make it practical.
This may not be pie-in-the-sky stuff. Geologic hydrogen forms through natural processes like serpentinization (water reacting with iron-rich rocks) or cryptic reactions deep in the crust. Take Mali, where a field pumps out nearly pure hydrogen, or look at hydrogen seeping from Albanian mines and bubbling up in Russia and Brazil. These aren’t one-offs; they’re clues to a resource we’ve maybe just missed.
The model pegs annual hydrogen generation at 15 to 31 Mt, though the authors speculate it could soar to 25,000 Mt if deep mantle sources check out. Most of it either escapes or gets munched by underground microbes, but some might linger in reservoirs, ripe for the taking—if we can crack the puzzle.
Don’t get too cozy with those big numbers—the uncertainty is glaring. That 1,000 to 10 billion Mt range spans seven orders of magnitude, and the “most probable” 5.6 million Mt is a guess, not a drilled-and-proven reserve. Finding it? Good luck. Unlike shale gas, where the target was known and the trick was extraction, hydrogen’s hiding spots are a mystery.
Then there’s the practical side. Hydrogen’s tiny molecules leak like crazy, and while the study likens it to helium or CO₂ (which can stay trapped for ages), microbes or shaky seals could drain it before we arrive. Residence time in reservoirs is the make-or-break factor—if it doesn’t hang around, those grand totals crumble.
The study slots geologic hydrogen alongside “green” hydrogen (from electrolysis, tethered to sprawling wind or solar farms), “blue” hydrogen (from fossil fuels with shaky carbon capture), and overlooks the heavyweight: nuclear. Fission’s track record shows it can pump out steady, massive energy without the hiccups of renewables or the convoluted plumbing of carbon sequestration. Hydrogen might join the lineup, but it’s not dethroning nuclear anytime soon.
The authors suggest it could lighten the load on blue hydrogen’s carbon capture pipe dreams or green hydrogen’s land-grabbing renewable sprawl. Fair point—but energy isn’t about chasing climate unicorns; it’s about keeping the grid humming. At a “renewable” refill rate of 5 Mt per year, geologic hydrogen barely dents the 500 Mt demand by 2050. Nuclear, meanwhile, could scale up now without breaking a sweat.
So why give this a second glance? If it pans out, geologic hydrogen could be a wild card that boosts energy abundance without the baggage of wind farms, solar deserts, or endless green gimmicks. It’s not about some low-carbon crusade—it’s about raw potential. A resource that might double natural gas’s energy punch deserves attention, especially if it dodges the politics of renewables and the headaches of carbon capture.
For now, it’s a tantalizing “maybe.” The authors call for more research, and they’re right—too much is up in the air to bank on it. Think early shale gas: a long shot that hit big, but only after years of grind and breakthroughs. Hydrogen’s got no such playbook yet. It could be the next energy frontier—or just another overhyped distraction to keep the grant wheels turning.
Could this be a shale-style revolution, or is it another shiny object for the dreamers? The answer’s in the rocks—and a few well-aimed drills.
Isn’t “model predicts” exactly how we got into this mess in the first place?
Well, playing along for now, we just need to solve the storage problem to get the hydrogen from the drill site to where it’s needed without leakage, explosions, or laying hundreds of thousands of miles of new pipes.
We’ll have it done by tea-time, I’m sure.
If true, there should already be large hydrogen discoveries trapped much like helium under rock formations, unable to reach the surface.
I went and read the abstract. Uncertainty in the ‘models’ ranges 7 orders of magnitude! Useless. So what was the purpose of this new paper?
”Study results demonstrate that further research…is merited.”
Send green dollars, please.
The earth has huge deposits of hydrogen. Millions of tons of it float upwards into the atmosphere each day, bound to oxygen.
Drilling has been going on for some time, with little result – in Nebraska for example. There is a witch doctor in Africa seen blessing a drilling site. Perhaps that helps.
It is routine now to drill to 5 km, but 12 km is still the record, the Kolya Borehole in Russia.
If you could get H2 anywhere and everywhere and use it ‘in situ’, that might be useful.
But, so far the transport and storage of H2 has defied solution – now for 50 years. The issues may be solved next year, of course.
H2 is not a direct greenhouse gas, but reactions of fugitive H2 create greenhouse gases, with a GWP ~50 times that of CO2 (according to chemical models). Net Zero 2050 suggests 500 MT of H2 will be produced annually by 2040 (they better get going!). At least 10% of that becomes fugitive H2 via transport and use, That is equivalent to 2.5 BT of CO2 released. CO2, at least, pays for itself by enabling and enhancing plant growth. H2 has no such value.
In fact to replace hydrocarbons, easily 10x MORE H2 (than the 500 MT) is required, in turn, easily displacing CO2 as the major greenhouse gas (after H2O, of course).
The reality is that we need to MAKE hydrocarbons as fuel, as we run out, in spite of the thermodynamic costs. Hydrocarbons are by far, the best carrier of chemical energy.
”Model Predictions”. Oh-oh.
Just ran across this, gas has lots of definitions. 6. slang: something that gives pleasure.
https://www.louisianafirstnews.com/news/louisiana-news/lawsuit-challenges-louisianas-approval-of-co2-pipeline-in-maurepas-swamp/
“The lawsuit targets Air Products’ Blue Hydrogen Clean Energy Complex…” Such pipelines are of course not new since used for enhancing well production. Another example of environmental concerns colliding? One might argue that the Louisiana coast already has enough gas bubbling into the atmosphere and too many cracks and faults in the sediments to trust this.
From Chatgpt:
The fact that deep methane is observed, along with the relative scarcity of free hydrogen, supports this theory. Methane can form deep in the Earth through both biological (methanogenesis) and geochemical (such as the reaction of carbon and hydrogen) processes. Once formed, methane can be trapped in pockets or released through geological events like volcanic eruptions.
Thus, in these environments, hydrogen likely reacts with available carbon and oxygen, creating methane or water, depending on the specific conditions. The lack of free hydrogen in the deep Earth is consistent with these reactions, where hydrogen is either consumed in forming methane or water, leaving little to exist freely in its elemental form.
As far as I’m aware, nobody is taking direct hydrogen seriously, even for automotive applications.
The problem in fuel cell vehicles (even if H2 can be sourced at volume and reasonable cost) is on board storage. Solid state requires a cryogenic system, compressed is dangerous and gas is a non starter.
That’s not even getting into the cost of the membrane, membrane degradation from radicals generated via Fenton reactions on impurities leeched from the bipolar plates, carbon ‘corrosion’ (oxidation), catalyst detachment, sintering and Ostwald ripening, poisoning by CO and ammonia on pt catalysts (requiring expensive ultra pure H2), promises of ruthenium/cobalt/pt alloys and other materials that never materialised (pardon the pun), etc etc
The storage problem and gas diffusion layer flooding was why there was much interest for a while in direct methanol but the power density was too low and methanol crossover was a problem that couldn’t be overcome with high performance membranes like nafion
Direct combustion is only in an admixture with methane, at 10% usually, or I think up to 20 in Germany, or maybe it’s 15
Like many things ‘low carbon’ it sounds like a nice idea until you give it 5 minutes of thought
For some people, it requires 50000 minutes before they come to their senses
Absent from this article is that hydrogen is very difficult to work with. It contains less than half of the energy of an equal volume of natural gas. It can be liquified for shipment but the temperature has to be within about 20 degrees of absolute zero and kept there, a possible but very expensive process. It takes much more energy to compress hydrogen than natural gas and as pointed out, it leaks through most anything, even metals. Enthusiasts like to point out that hydrogen was the main flammable ingredient in “town gas”, made from coal, used in the late 1800s and beyond but neglect to mention that town gas was delivered by very large pipes operating at very low pressures. As a for-example of the inefficiencies of using hydrogen as a fuel, it would take about a dozen semi-tractor trailer trucks of compressed hydrogen to deliver to a “gas” station the same amount of energy that is delivered today by a single gasoline tanker. And the station or truck would need a hydrogen compressor to transfer the load to the station’s tanks. Before anybody gets hot and bothered by the hydrogen-as-a-fuel idea, a careful engineering analysis of the requirements for managing such a fuel needs to be made.
If such wells are feasible and practical, I think it prudent to consider making methane onsite from the H2 by adding CO2 (Sabatier reaction). New technologies are under development that would allow this process to work at 100 C.
Methane is much easier to store and transport and the generating stations using methane already exist. Seems, without any numbers to back it up, that this would be more economical than coming up with the means the store and transports H2 and bypasses most of the risks of handling H2.
Wouldn’t any hydrogen coming to the surface just continue on its way to outer space? It is the lightest molecule so any not captured is gone. Stupid is what stupid does.
Using geologic hydrogen is a terrific idea…. when it’s already attached to a carbon atom. Solves lots and lots of energy problems and is easy to deal with.
Pretty sure the models show this too.
They can do whatever they want with hydrogen just keep the government out of it.
Is this related to “abiogenic oil”?
It seems like some yokel should have shot the ground and blown up Texas if there was a Hindenburg’s worth under them thar hills..
Latest shiny thing to keep they myrmidons from thinking about all the problems with past shiny things.
free hydrogen gas would still be useless … its too explosive, too hard to store and way to hard to pipe …
It was another tax credit play and now it is a mirage. Bill Gates can always explore the moon for clean hydrogen under some future WH regime.
I think Gilligan may have found a seep. They were going to use it for balloon lifting gas, but sadly something went wrong and the island escape didn’t pan out.
The Darling fault on the Perth coast is said to have significant seeps. But inconsistent testing data simply showed that more ‘work’ (resource money) is needed to be sure of the potential.
There’s not much point in geologic hydrogen when real, cheap, more dense, useful fuels are much easier to get at. With cheap energy, we can make all the hydrogen we’ll ever want from resources close at hand. The least expensive way to plentiful hydrogen for the foreseeable future will be fission generated electrical electrolysis or thermal separation, and probably best stored and handled as methane or ammonia.
Discover a cheap and plentiful source of energy and the world will beat a path to your door. Until then, frac on and drill, baby drill.
I’ve looked at hundreds of DST’s in the Western Sedimentary Basin…Drill Stem Tests from drilling rigs going as deep as 10,000 feet that had hit a gas zone. Oil and Gas Company Clients wanted to know roughly what processes would be needed to make the gas meet sales quality and how much hydrocarbon liquids they can extract and sell separately from the gas, (There isn’t really enough quality flowrate data at this point but that’s the way it is) or very occasionally to see if it has enough Helium to economically extract. These analyses generally contained not even 1% Hydrogen, often .1%, some contained a half a percent Helium but usually.1 or .2%, some contained a couple of percent N2, often 5% or so CO2, anything from 0 to 30% H2S ( Mother Nature’s nerve gas), but the most common gas by far was methane, typically over 90%, ethane at about 5%to 10% , maybe 3% to 5% propane, and fractional percentages of butanes, pentanes, etc, up to octane. So anyone thinking there’s enough geological hydrogen down there somewhere to be a vast energy reserve for humanity….I’d say is experiencing a seriously delusional case of wishful thinking.
So, digging up fossilised carbon and turning it into CO2 is bad for the environment, but digging up fossilised hydrogen and turning it into water vapour – a much more potent greenhouse gas – will be good for us?
If you want hydrogen: Pyrolysis of methane gives hydrogen and black carbon.
We need a play-based approach: source rock, extraction pathways, reservoir rock and caprock, seal or trap.
That and only that gives you the required volumes.
If it pans out, geologic hydrogen could be a wild card that boosts energy abundance without the baggage of wind farms, solar deserts, or endless green gimmicks.
Yeah, it’ll be a real boon to that hydrogen economy that doesn’t exist. Like nuclear fusion power plants, it’s always just 30 years away.
Should exploitable deposits be located I suggest that much like geothermal energy it should be utilized to generate electricity essentially on top of the energy supply. To continue, in the quite likely event that exploitable deposits are not conveniently located with regards to consumers of electricity then the hydrogen must be sufficiently abundant and economical to extract as to incur the additional costs of long-distance DC transmission.
So far there seems no reason to get excited as it bears great similarity to methane hydrate which was pushed as the great new energy source more than twenty years ago. The estimations of potentially exploitable methane hydrate seem far more certain than those made for hydrogen.