From Sifted.eu, March 28:
If the hydrogen deposits underground are large enough and can be safely extracted, they could prove world-changing
In 1987, in the remote Malian village of Bourakébougou, an engineer digging a water well lights up a cigarette and, in doing so, sets off an explosion.
He had inadvertently hit upon a deposit of naturally occurring hydrogen: a colourless, odourless gas, which — as he came to realise — is highly flammable. In 2011, Canadian energy company Hydroma started extracting hydrogen from the site to help power Bourakebougou.
Similar deposits could be sitting elsewhere. And — if they’re large enough and can be safely extracted — they could prove world-changing.
A quantum leap?
Hydrogen is a clean fuel when burned — water is its only byproduct. The catch: the majority of the hydrogen used today is grey hydrogen, produced by splitting methane (CH4) using fossil fuels. Green hydrogen, which is produced using renewables, is expensive.“The price of green hydrogen is estimated to be $4 to $6 a kilo,” says Alexandre Flamant, investor at HCVC. Estimates suggest a producing tonne of green steel would need 50kg of hydrogen, costing $200-$300. That’s made technologies that rely on hydrogen, like tech to decarbonise heavy industry, a trickier investment case, Flamant says.
“We've always kind of struggled to see what quantum leap is going to happen in the industry that could make that change,” he says.
And then Flamant came across natural hydrogen. Sometimes called white hydrogen, it is produced when groundwater reacts with minerals, splitting water into hydrogen.
“If this exists, it's fantastic,” Flamant says, estimating that natural hydrogen could cost a dollar or less per kilo. “It gives much needed momentum to all the existing companies that are leveraging hydrogen: sustainable aviation companies, green steel or clean shipping,” he says.
This possibility could buoy up the parts of the climate tech world which rely on hydrogen — it’s also triggered a number of stealthy exploration startups to pop up.
Bill Gates gets involved
It’s been a busy time in the natural hydrogen world. Last year, scientists at the University of Lorraine found a deposit in north-east France while searching for methane — a discovery which has sparked growing interest in natural hydrogen.Then, in February this year, American startup Koloma, which is working on exploration to find natural hydrogen, raised a big $245m round (it costs roughly $10m to dig a single hole into the Earth’s crust).
Koloma’s raise came from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, United Airlines and Energy Impact Partners. Gates’ comments to The Economist at the end of last year sum up much of the feeling around natural hydrogen: “It could be gigantic or it could be a bust, but if it’s really there... wow!”
An industry insider tells me the Koloma fundraise was exciting because to raise the amount it did, the company is likely to have strong evidence of a large deposit and a plan to extract it safely. News out of Koloma is hotly anticipated....
....MUCH MORE
