The University of Oxford has found reservations of an energy source for 170,000 years. And he has the recipe to exploit them

In a world that seeks to leave behind fossil fuelsthere is a gas that has begun to be outlined as the promise of A clean future. Its potential as an inexhaustible source of Green energy It has aroused both enthusiasm and frustration: producing it without contaminating is still expensive and technologically complex. However, a group of scientists could have found the key to hydrogen under our feet, from the very depths of the earth.

Clean gold underground. We have told it On other occasions. Hydrogen has been long promoted as a key piece in the transition to a future without emissions, but also as an essential resource for modern life: in addition to being a clean fuel, it is indispensable for produce fertilizers that support half of the world’s population.

The problem? That 99% that is used today It comes from hydrocarbonswhich represents around 2.4% of global carbon dioxide emissions. With a projected demand of 90 million metric tons in 2022 to some 540 million in 2050the challenge is monumental. Until now, cleanest solutions (Like electrolysis with renewable energies or carbon capture) have failed to be economically competitive. Here appears the new Oxford study Posted in Nature: The earth could have solved the problem for us millions of years ago.

An unexplored reservoir. In this way, Oxford researchers together with professors at the University of Durham and Toronto have revealed that the continental cortex of the Earth has generated, throughout the last geological millennium, sufficient hydrogen amounts to supply the energy needs of humanity For at least 170,000 years. This immense reserve, natural and emission free, remains largely trapped undergroundintact.

Although until now the measurements were sporadic and scattered, the New job It offers for the first time a coherent framework, a “map” if you want, to locate these reservoirs: a “Exploration recipe” (They call it) that details the types of rock, temperatures, fluids and geological conditions necessary for hydrogen to form, migrate and be trapped in exploitable deposits. The approach is not theoretical: it is designed to guide the commercial search for natural hydrogen globally, with the potential to radically transform existing energy models.

Ingredients, processes and threats. Such as Professor Chris Ballentine explained in a statementleader of the study at the University of Oxford, finding hydrogen in the earth’s crust is like baking a sufflé: if one fails in any component (quantity, temperature, time or type of rock), the result will be useless.

The study Identify the factors that allow a geological hydrogen system to be viable: from the chemical reactions that generate it, to conditions that destroy itlike the presence of certain underground microorganisms that feed on it. This biological threat, indicated by the co -author Barbara Sherwood Lolar, forces to avoid areas where underground bacteria can consume hydrogen before it can accumulate in usable concentrations.

Ubiquitous, diverse and list source. There is much more, since The work It also disassembles previous myths on the origin of hydrogen, discarding as unfeasible the sources from the mantle terrestrial and focusing attention on common formations of the continental cortex.

These can be both recent (of some millions of years) as an eldest, and are distributed globallywhich greatly expands the geographical exploration potential. Plus: the crucial, They sayIt is not to find a specific type of rock, but to understand the interaction between the chemical, thermal and historical conditions that favor the generation and storage of gas.

From theory to action. Aware of the strategic value of their findings, the authors have founded the Snowfox Discovery Ltd.a company dedicated to locating natural hydrogen reserves with social impact. Its objective is clear: to find competitive, clean and sustainable sources of hydrogen, capable of replacing highly polluting current production and feeding the global energy transition without the need for expensive industrial processes.

Yes Geological recipe Developed by these researchers, it can be repeatedly repeated in different regions of the planet, we would be facing the closest to an energy revolution … underground. One that does not require new futuristic technologies or dreams of merger, but simply learn to hear THE SECRETS THAT THE EARTH He has been whispening For hundreds of millions of years.

Image | Rita Willaert

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