They actually found a hydrogen well.😲
Yep!.................
“They actually found a hydrogen well”
Geological hhydrogen is not uncommon. Where you have mafic rock, that is hot and under pressure introducing meteoric water causes the mafic metals in the rocks to strip oxygen atoms from the water as those metals have a higher affinity for oxygen than the hydrogen in the water. You get metal oxides and H2 under pressure. Th at H2 then needs to migrate upwards and be trapped somehow. Shales do a good job as do tight sandstones. It’s little surprise they found trapped hydrogen with and while looking for natural gas the trap structures are.identical. This is also how you find helium produced from radioactive decay of uranium in granitic rocks. Look for the natural gas traps and test it to see if it also trapped helium.
White hydrogen has great potential in rift systems as you have mafic rocks shallow and with access to meteoric water. The USA has a huge former rift system right down the middle of it. The Mississippi River flows down the heart of the rift system. It failed to complete its rift but the mafics are there and so should the hydrogen be as well. It boils down to what is the drilling and production costs. The traps will certainly be tight so hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling will be needed for sure, neither is cheap.
The cost calculus will be, what is cheaper using off peak electrons and increasingly more curtailment electrons when there is too much power on the grid to split water into hydrogen or directional drilling and fracking it out of the ground. Texas has gone negative power rates into the minus $10 range multiple times in the last two weeks for 6+ hours at a time due to the wind howling in West Texas flooding the grid with so much power they where paying people to take it. Earlier in the week at noon Texas was 74% wind and solar combined for the entire 60,000MW ERCOT.grid it went above 70% 4 times in the last week as well. We had two major frontal systems bringing 50mph winds across the whole state. This is what gold hydrogen must compete with. If you can get 1 or 2 cent power ,and use modern precious metal free electrolysis at capex of $300 or less per KG then you get 55 cent to $1 per KG H2 that is a tough price to beat with drilling and fracking. You don’t even need freshwater in fact brackish works better freshwater won’t conduct ions. It’s a race to see which is going to scale to be cheaper in production price.
The USA has huge brackish water reserves right where the wind and sun is.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/WR006i005p01454
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs075-03/
https://newatlas.com/energy/geologic-hydrogen-gold-rush/
It makes zero sense to use hydrogen to make synthetic fuels. One KG of H2 has the lower heating value of one US gallon of petrol. About 130MJ...the molar ratios for FT hydrocarbons synthesis with CO is 1:3 CO/H2 with CO2 you must first split CO2 to CO + H2O so it’s 1:4 CO2/H2
One KG of H2 takes 55.2 kWh to make and it takes at 99% FT process eff 1.38KG of H2 plus 8.5KG CO2 per gal of octane.
It should be immediately obvious why it is a terrible idea to use hydrogen from any source for FT hydrocarbons synthesis.One gallon of octane which would send your average sedan 30 miles down the road.
Only direct hydrogen use makes sense a fuel cell vehicle will send a sedan 75 miles on a KG this is still pikers compared to just using the electrons directly.
55.2 kWh of electrons into the pack sends a 5 passenger Model 3 Tesla 220 miles at 250 watt hours per mile which is high I have seen as low as 90 in city gridlock traffic and 180 wh/mi is typical for urban run about with the A.C. Running.
I doubt geological hydrogen will hit $1 KG at $2KG before taxes,profit,distribution,and retail fees FT synthesis would cost $5.4-5.9 per gallon. Cutting the hydrogen in half doesn’t half that price either.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212982021000263