Natural hydrogen trapped in the Earth’s crust could power humanity for millennia, and without emissions.
Scientists from the University of Oxford, Durham University, and the University of Toronto have identified the key geological ingredients needed to find natural clean hydrogen beneath the Earth’s surface.
This natural hydrogen is produced by the Earth over millions of years and can accumulate underground in the right rock formations.
This new research could help industries discover and tap into natural hydrogen reserves, offering a cleaner alternative to current hydrogen production methods that rely on fossil fuels.
With that blueprint in hand, industry can start hunting for clean hydrogen reserves worldwide, offering a potential game-changer for energy and climate goals.
Humanity could be powered for millennia without emitting any emissions from natural hydrogen that is trapped in the Earth’s crust. How to locate it is mapped out in a new strategy.
Researchers from Durham University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Oxford have determined the essential geological components required to locate clean, natural hydrogen beneath the surface of the earth.
The Earth has been producing this natural hydrogen for millions of years, and it can build up underground in the appropriate rock formations.
The study demonstrates that this is a truly global opportunity because the conditions for trapping hydrogen are present in many regions of the world.
Producing fertilizer and other vital chemicals that sustain modern life, hydrogen is already a $135 billion global industry.
With the market predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2050, it is also a key component of upcoming clean energy systems.
With the aid of this new research, industries may be able to identify and access natural hydrogen reserves, providing a more environmentally friendly option to the current fossil fuel-based hydrogen production techniques.
Nature Reviews Earth and Environment published the findings on May 13.
In today’s world, hydrogen is essential.
More than just a clean fuel, hydrogen is the mainstay of most plans for a carbon-neutral future and powers fertilizer production, which helps feed half of the world.
However, nearly all hydrogen produced today comes from hydrocarbons, which contributes to around 2.4 percent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. It is crucial to figure out a way to produce hydrogen without adding more CO2 because demand is predicted to skyrocket from 90 million metric tons in 2022 to roughly 540 million tonnes by 2050. Electrolysis driven by renewable energy sources and carbon sequestration can be beneficial, but they are not yet economically viable.
Below our feet is a natural hydrogen solution.
An underappreciated solution is the Earth’s own crust, according to a research team from the Universities of Oxford, Durham, and Toronto. The continental crust has produced enough hydrogen over the last billion years to sustain human energy needs for about 170,000 years. A large portion of that gas is kept underground, unaltered, and emission-free.
Scientists have so far only made sporadic measurements of the locations of natural hydrogen accumulations. A clear “exploration recipe”—the kinds of rocks, temperatures, fluids, and geological histories that permit hydrogen to form, migrate, and become trapped in reservoirs that are within our reach—is laid out in the new study. Now that industry has that blueprint, it can begin searching for clean hydrogen reserves across the globe, which could revolutionize energy and climate goals.
Initial Concepts and the Hydrogen System Architecture.
“We have successfully developed an exploration strategy for helium, and a similar ‘first principles’ approach can be taken for hydrogen,” says Professor Jon Gluyas, co-author of the study from Durham University. “.”.
This study describes the essential components that should guide an exploration plan to identify various “hydrogen systems.”. This covers the amount of hydrogen generated, the kinds of rocks and their environments, the way the hydrogen moves underground from these rocks, the circumstances that lead to the formation of a gas field, and the circumstances that lead to the hydrogen’s destruction.
The Hidden Problems of Hydrogen, Rocks, and Microbes.
For example, we know that underground microbes easily consume hydrogen, according to study co-author Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar of the University of Toronto. The preservation of hydrogen in economic accumulations depends on avoiding situations that expose them to the gas. “.”.
The authors list the areas where knowledge of these components is strong and point out areas that require further research, like rock reaction efficiencies and how geological histories can combine the appropriate rocks with the water that reacts with them.
Young, Old, and All Around: Crust-Based Hydrogen.
Numerous theories and exaggerations have been stoked by certain sources of hydrogen gas, such as the Earth’s mantle, but this study demonstrates that these are not reliable sources. Rather, the authors demonstrated that the components of a full hydrogen system are present in a variety of typical crustal geological environments. Geologically speaking, some of these can be relatively young, forming hydrogen “recently” (millions to tens of millions of years), while others are genuinely ancient (hundreds of millions of years old), but they are crucially present all over the world.
Cooking Hydrogen: The Recipe for Exploration.
Cooking a soufflé is similar to combining the ingredients to find accumulated hydrogen in any of these settings; if you get any one of the ingredients, amounts, timing, or temperature wrong, you will be disappointed, according to lead author Professor Chris Ballentine of the University of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences. We have the necessary experience to put these components together and discover the recipe for a successful, repeatable exploration process that will unlock a low-carbon, commercially competitive hydrogen source that would greatly aid in the energy transition. “.”.
The foundation of Snowfox Discovery Ltd. was inspired by the possibility of natural geological hydrogen. seeks to locate naturally occurring hydrogen accumulations that have societal significance.
Citation: Chris J.’s article “Natural hydrogen resource accumulation in the continental crust.”. Ballentine, Jon G., Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Rūta Karolytė, and Anran Cheng. Michael and Gluyas C. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Daly, May 13, 2025.
The DOI is 10.1038/s43017-025-00670-1.
