The mining giants and the big leap of oil on the walking train

An increasing number of large companies, from mining giants to energy majors, adopt media threshing for natural hydrogen.

It then happens that Buzz continues to rely on the potential of a resource which, according to the defenders, could radically reshape the global energy landscape.

Natural hydrogen, sometimes known as white, gold or geological hydrogen, refers to gas hydrogen which is in its natural form below the surface of the earth. The resource next to it, for a long time, First discovered By accident in Mali almost 40 years ago, does not contain carbon and produces only water when burned.

The interest of investors in the emerging natural hydrogen sector has intensified in recent months, fueling optimism initially fired by research startups and junior exploration companies.

In the past year, some of the donors established in the sector include mining giants Red river And strong, the state energy giant of Russia, Gazprom, the venture capital branch of the British BP oil giant and the Bill Gates clean technology investment fund.

Exploratory efforts are currently underway in several countries around the world, Canada and the United States paving the way in terms of project counts in last year, according to a study published by the Rystad Energy Council.

Analysts expect the coming year to be central, industry players hoping that their exploration campaigns could soon locate elusive gas.

However, not everyone is convinced of the natural energy potential of natural hydrogen, criticism exciting environmental concerns and distribution challenges. For its part, the International Energy Agency has warned It is possible that the resource “is too dispersed to be captured in an economically viable way”.

Minh Khoi le, head of hydrogen research at Rystad Energy, said it was difficult to predict whether natural hydrogen can be up to its promise in 2025.

“I guess last year was the year when things became really interesting for the natural hydrogen space, because it was then that many companies began to plan drilling campaigns, extraction tests and we have started to see major players also start to get involved,” said CNBC by video.

“Since then, I would say that progress has been relatively slow. There are only a few companies that have really started to train,” he added.

Rystad's le, which characterized the global pursuit of natural hydrogen like “White gold rush“Last year, said that if there had been no major progress in the past 12 months, a resumption of investors' interest could help provide significant results.

“Now we are starting to see the companies invest, so they have money to finance their drilling campaigns. So, if we want to get an answer to know if this thing will work, we will arrive at this conclusion a little faster this year,” said it.

Hydrogen has long been presented as one of the many potential energy sources that could play a key role in the energy transition, but most are produced using fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, a process that generates significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Green hydrogen, a process that involves dividing hydrogen and oxygen water using renewable electricity, is an exception to Hydrogen rainbow. However, its development was retained by the outbreak of costs and a difficult economic environment.

Hyterra of Australia announcement An investment of $ 21.9 million in strong in August from last year, noting that the product would be used to fully finance the widened exploration projects.

One of the main developers of green hydrogen developers said that its thrust in the natural hydrogen sector was in accordance with its “strategic commitment to explore zero emission fuel”.

Recognizing that more work is necessary to fully assess the profile of natural hydrogen emissions, the spokesperson for strong has described technology as a “promising opportunity” to accelerate industrial decarbonization.

Elsewhere, BP Ventures, the risk capital of BP, has led a series a financing tower Of the natural hydrogen exploration startup based in the United Kingdom Snowfox Discovery earlier this year, while the start-up based in France Mantle8 recently received 3.4 million euros ($ 3.9 million) in seed financing for investors, notably BREADTHROUGH ENERGY VENTURES, a climate and technological fund founded by Bill Gates in 2015.

Eric Toone, director of technology at Breakthrough Energy, said that the fund had supported people like Mantle8 and the American startup Koloma because the promise of natural hydrogen is such that it could unlock a new era of clean and local energy “.

“Hydrogen is pure reactive chemical energy. If we have enough hydrogen and it is quite cheap, we can do almost anything. We can use it to make metals, make fuels, you can even make food and everything with much less emissions than conventional approaches,” CNBC told e-mail.

“We know that it is there and not only in isolated pockets. Early exploration has identified natural hydrogen on six continents. The challenge is now to determine how to extract it effectively, to move it safely and build systems to put it to work,” he added.

Aurian Durbuis, chief of staff of the mantle8 of France, said that the momentum seems certainly to build from the point of view of venture capital.

“There is an increasing interest, in fact, above all given the dynamics with green hydrogen at the moment, unfortunately. People are turning their eyes to other solutions, which is in our favor,” Drubis told CNBC by video.

Based in Grenoble, in the foothills of the French Alps, Mantle8 aims to discover 10 million tonnes of natural hydrogen by 2030 to complete the The objectives of the European Union.

“The question is that we can find produceable tanks, in oil and gas terminology. This is really what we have to find as an industrial,” said Durbuis.

“We think we can drill in 2028 and I hope it's the Eureka moment because if we can find something at that time, it could obviously change the situation. If we find highly concentrated hydrogen, with pressure, then that changes everything,” he added.

Hydrogen Science Coalition, a group of academics, scientists and engineers seeking to bring a vision based on evidence to the role of hydrogen in the energy transition, said that exploration of natural hydrogen is always at an “embryonic stage” – but even, the probability of locating large almost pure hydrogen finds which can be extracted on a large scale “.

The only hydrogen well in the world in Mali, for example, provides “just a fraction of the daily energy production of a single wind turbine,” a geoscientist and a member of hydrogen science Coalition told CNBC by e-mail.

“Taking the evolution of American shale shale as an analogy, even if large discoveries are made, it will probably take decades to reach industrial production,” said Everts.

In the end, the Hydrogen Science Coalition said that the continuation of the risk of distracting natural hydrogen focuses on the renewable hydrogen necessary to decarbonize industries today.