Clean electricity generation offers so many opportunities that it would be impossible to name them all. From doing it at the bottom of the sea (as in New York) to on the roofs of buildings (as in California), we have found numerous options. One of them, however, has just attracted the interest of the entire international community. We have found rocks with infinite energy, white and 100% renewable, that could become the “gold” mine we have been looking for centuries.
Rocks with infinite energy? America doesn’t need photovoltaics, we have something better
The search for cheap, clean forms of energy has been an ongoing effort, and one of the most interesting breakthroughs that has arisen has come out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Professor Iwnetim Abate is heading a group to develop a process to extract hydrogen from rocks, which could open a vast new source of carbon-free energy.
Natural hydrogen, particularly white hydrogen, is generated from the reaction of water with iron bearing rocks; the iron corrodes to release hydrogen. It takes place in the Earth’s crust, allowing the formation of pure hydrogen bubbles that have not been investigated previously (something similar to the project in Albania, as you already know).
Other resources, such as water, have been estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to contain perhaps billions of tons of geologic hydrogen trapped within the Earth’s crust. This availability, coupled with the prospect of hydrogen being a clean energy vector, has attracted interest from researchers as well as governments across the globe.
From its unprecedented power to its unexpected cost: Why extracting hydrogen from rocks could be a good idea
The electrochemical reduction of CO2 is still in the development stage, especially under a neutral pH condition. Abate’s research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who conducted research to guide the electrocution of CO2 and create a sophisticated flexible carbon-based material supported by $1 (yes, it’s that cheap).
In an effort to determine the ideal conditions for hydrogen synthesis underground using millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy amounting to $3 million, it is hoped that a number of conditions that would make the process more efficient can be identified. Their objectives are to halve the cost of the electrolysis of water or find some other better way.
- Catalyst Development: The team is working to create a slurry with water as the primary component; the team is experimenting with many catalysts that could speed up the hydrogen-generating reaction.
- High-Throughput System: Scientists are planning to create an intelligent system with robots that will allow comparing different compositions of catalysts and modeling their impact on rocks originating from various areas.
- Parameter Optimization: Hydrogen yield and efficiency of various microorganisms are planned to be studied with the ultimate goal of defining the best conditions for hydrogen production – temperature, pressure and pH.
Is it blue? Is it green? America has invented a new hydrogen color, and it’s extremely cheap
In regard to the various methods of hydrogen production, each one falls under a particular color category based on the level of environmental impact and how the hydrogen is produced. Nonetheless, geologic hydrogen is sometimes described as ‘white’ or ‘gold’ hydrogen based on its origin and its prospects to be a green fuel source.
While ‘gray’ hydrogen is derived from natural gas or coal and ‘green’ via water electrolysis with electrical energy from renewable sources, ‘white’ hydrogen needs little processing, and may be less carbon-intense. Such classification makes it fit to be referred to as a sustainable energy source.
The existence of white hydrogen in rocks in America was something that had been predicted for years, but no one had found a truly stable and powerful enough source to allocate millions of dollars in funding. This time we have succeeded, and everything points to it becoming, along with geothermal energy, the mining of the future, a far cry from the non-renewable and polluting sources that are still being explored in states like Alaska (and which take us further away from our climate goals for the year 2030).
