Limitless white hydrogen under our feet may soon shatter all energy assumptions(telegraph.co.uk)
telegraph.co.uk
Limitless white hydrogen under our feet may soon shatter all energy assumptions
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/13/white-hydrogen-disrupt-global-energy-net-zero/
13 comments
Non pay-walled link: https://archive.ph/3c7Hs
The gushing Telegraph article is mainly riffing off of earlier work and the recent April 2023 USGS featured story.
Hydrogen found in Earth's crust is 'limitless fuel supply'
The Potential for Geologic Hydrogen for Next-Generation Energy
The context for the sudden resurgence in interest can likely be traced back to an Australian energy kite looking to raise capital with no solid technical reports yet:
https://www.goldhydrogen.com.au/updates/natural-hydrogen-fin...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/exc...
https://www.goldhydrogen.com.au/updates/gold-hydrogen-may-sh...
Hydrogen found in Earth's crust is 'limitless fuel supply'
( we just need to drill nearly twice as deep as we've ever drilled before )
The Potential for Geologic Hydrogen for Next-Generation Energy
“Using a conservative range of input values, the model predicts a mean volume of hydrogen that could supply the projected global hydrogen demand for thousands of years,” Ellis said.
However, he quickly cautions,
“We have to be very careful in interpreting this number, though. Based on what we know about the distribution of petroleum and other gases in the subsurface, most of this hydrogen is probably inaccessible."
The context for the sudden resurgence in interest can likely be traced back to an Australian energy kite looking to raise capital with no solid technical reports yet:
https://www.goldhydrogen.com.au/updates/natural-hydrogen-fin...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/exc...
https://www.goldhydrogen.com.au/updates/gold-hydrogen-may-sh...
Plants can at least convert CO2 combustion products back into carbon compounds and molecular oxygen, but what chemical pathway exists to free up the oxygen consumed by burning subsurface hydrogen in our atmosphere? Wouldn't this deplete the atmosphere of oxygen relatively quickly, and in a way that's not easy to reverse?
No it wouldn't.
When you burn carbon (coal) and produce CO2, you get about 400 kJ for each mole of CO2 produced. When you burn hydrogen, you get about 300 kJ for each mole, but one molecule of water H2O contains half the oxygen of one molecule of CO2. So you get 600 kJ for 2 moles, which contain the same amount of oxygen as one mole of CO2. In other words, when you burn hydrogen you produce 50% more energy than when you burn carbon for the same amount of oxygen removed from the atmosphere.
Since the start of the industrial revolution we've increased the CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 420 ppm, or an increase of 140 ppm (parts per million). Which means we've reduced the oxygen in the atmosphere by 140 ppm (each molecule of CO2 produced removes a molecule of O2). A quick google shows me there's 20.947% of oxygen in the atmosphere. Which means before the industrial revolution we had 20.947% + 0.014% = 20.961% oxygen. If we wave a magic want, and rewrite history so that all coal and fossil fuels were replaced by pure hydrogen, then we would have removed only about two thirds of the oxygen, or about 90 ppm. So we would have had more oxygen, not less. By about 0.005%, or 20.952%.
In any case, I don't think any impact on life would be felt whatsoever if the concentration of oxygen is 20.952% rather than 20.947%.
When you burn carbon (coal) and produce CO2, you get about 400 kJ for each mole of CO2 produced. When you burn hydrogen, you get about 300 kJ for each mole, but one molecule of water H2O contains half the oxygen of one molecule of CO2. So you get 600 kJ for 2 moles, which contain the same amount of oxygen as one mole of CO2. In other words, when you burn hydrogen you produce 50% more energy than when you burn carbon for the same amount of oxygen removed from the atmosphere.
Since the start of the industrial revolution we've increased the CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 420 ppm, or an increase of 140 ppm (parts per million). Which means we've reduced the oxygen in the atmosphere by 140 ppm (each molecule of CO2 produced removes a molecule of O2). A quick google shows me there's 20.947% of oxygen in the atmosphere. Which means before the industrial revolution we had 20.947% + 0.014% = 20.961% oxygen. If we wave a magic want, and rewrite history so that all coal and fossil fuels were replaced by pure hydrogen, then we would have removed only about two thirds of the oxygen, or about 90 ppm. So we would have had more oxygen, not less. By about 0.005%, or 20.952%.
In any case, I don't think any impact on life would be felt whatsoever if the concentration of oxygen is 20.952% rather than 20.947%.
I think it's underappreciated that an increase in co2 levels is also a decrease in o2 levels. They don't have to drop much for there to be wide-ranging consequences.
Plants can help balance that, but we're also busy deteriorating plant life.
Plants can help balance that, but we're also busy deteriorating plant life.
Plants don't split oxygen out of CO2, they bind it into carbohydrates along with hydrogen stripped out of water.
Oxygen is the waste product of obtaining hydrogen from water.
Oxygen is the waste product of obtaining hydrogen from water.
Photosynthesis produces oxygen from water. Burning hydrogen creates water. So, plants are the answer.
Exactly, as long as there's CO2 to use (the inputs to photosynthesis are 6H2O + 6CO2). With atmospheric CO2 now over double the pre-industrial concentrations, there's plenty of that! And water would only be more available, by a tiny fraction, with lots of hydrogen burning.
Oxygen is highly reactive so there's a replenishment mechanism at play to maintain the 21% we know and love in the atmosphere. Of course, if the phytoplankton give up the ghost that will end poorly for anything that likes to respire, but that's a completely different problem and would be as much of an existential issue with or without "white hydrogen" energy.
In terms of scale, you'd have to burn around 1 trillion tonnes of hydrogen to bind 1% of the atmospheric oxygen into water (i.e. reducing the concentration from 21% to 20.79%: the same effect in terms of oxygen partial pressure as being 85m above sea level). This releases 40 billion GWh of energy, or as much energy as humans use, from all sources combined, in 225 years at present rates.
Oxygen is highly reactive so there's a replenishment mechanism at play to maintain the 21% we know and love in the atmosphere. Of course, if the phytoplankton give up the ghost that will end poorly for anything that likes to respire, but that's a completely different problem and would be as much of an existential issue with or without "white hydrogen" energy.
In terms of scale, you'd have to burn around 1 trillion tonnes of hydrogen to bind 1% of the atmospheric oxygen into water (i.e. reducing the concentration from 21% to 20.79%: the same effect in terms of oxygen partial pressure as being 85m above sea level). This releases 40 billion GWh of energy, or as much energy as humans use, from all sources combined, in 225 years at present rates.
> Wouldn't this deplete the atmosphere of oxygen relatively quickly, and in a way that's not easy to reverse?
Then that brings rise to an industry producing and selling breathable air! Think of all the jobs this would create and how it would boom the economy!
It would also end all crime, because the government simply could forbid selling breathable air to criminals. Think of the amount of money we all could save without prisons existing!
Then that brings rise to an industry producing and selling breathable air! Think of all the jobs this would create and how it would boom the economy!
It would also end all crime, because the government simply could forbid selling breathable air to criminals. Think of the amount of money we all could save without prisons existing!
The telegraph shattered my spam-paywall-popup-ads everywhere-ragequit limit to a point where I genuinely wonder if they actually manage to convert traffic with such agressive tactics?
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To save anyone the trouble, "white hydrogen" here means "geological hydrogen", i.e., hydrogen that for some reason can be found deep within the Earth, and that can be extracted by means of drilling and fracking.
"Geological" is a totally reasonable adjective by which the noun "hydrogen" can be modified.