Gold Hydrogen

Updates

Technical Articles

Corporate Governance

Corporate

Announcements

Our Vision

Home

Poppins

Gold Hydrogen Investor Hub

Contractors will soon conduct a second round of drilling on Gold Hydrogen’s Yorke Peninsula project.

upload.jpg

Leading scientists are continuing to back the potential of natural hydrogen to have massive impacts on the world’s clean energy push.

In a new report, the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of sciences and the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, says natural hydrogen "could be a game changer" for carbon zero goals.

As more results come in from international exploration plays, the Royal Society has produced a report on the potential of natural hydrogen as a future energy source.

It says its review of the data shows worldwide levels of natural hydrogen are likely to be less than some reports tout, but that even at those levels it will have a significant impact if it can be commercialised.

"Discoveries of such significant accumulations of natural hydrogen in the continents, in traps that are sustained by hydrogen fluxes of this magnitude, could be a game changer," the report says.

"Even capturing a small proportion for commercial use could enable natural hydrogen to play a significant role in the coming years."

The scientific backing for natural hydrogen comes as hopes fade of the near-term chances of man-made, or green, hydrogen being economically viable.

The report notes that the carbon emissions of natural hydrogen exploitation are "likely to be similar to or lower than green hydrogen".

It also takes a conservative view on the price advantages of natural hydrogen, which some experts predict could be as low as a sixth of green hydrogen costs.

"The true cost of natural hydrogen remains to be proven, as it has yet to be produced and sold in quantity.

"Given a large enough reservoir of high purity hydrogen with easy access, published cost estimates suggest that natural hydrogen could be competitive with other colours of hydrogen."

The report looked at exploration taking place in France, Spain, Australia, USA, Finland and Canada.

It noted the impact of finds would depend on the scale of the discovery, its location relative to potential markets and the purity of the hydrogen.

"Initial targets for economic exploitation of hydrogen may be most favourable in regional concentrated industrial hubs co-located on the same geologic settings where hydrogen accumulations have most often been found (e.g. iron-rich or iron-magnesium rich rocks that are already the hubs for mining of gold, copper, nickel, diamonds or critical minerals)."

It noted transport infrastructure was key to commercialisation, something Gold Hydrogen’s geologists have long noted was an advantage with its South Australian play, thanks to the forward thinking of the SA Government, which is setting up a hydrogen hub.

The report says: "In regions with existing infrastructure and industrial demand, natural hydrogen could be a low-cost, low-carbon alternative to manufactured hydrogen sources."

The society’s full policy briefing can be found here.

Meanwhile, the latest major global media brand to dedicate time to investigating the natural hydrogen phenomenon is the BBC.

In a lengthy article on the exploration boom, it reported US estimates of gas reserves, saying: "If just 2% of this white hydrogen was recoverable, it could meet projected global hydrogen demand for around 200 years."

In other natural hydrogen news, a first geological reconnaissance programme has been completed in Nova Scotia, Canada, identifying key fault zones and structural features critical for natural hydrogen exploration.

The next phase will be testing of 1000 gas samples across the Cumberland Basin.

In the Philippines, a study by the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute found high hydrogen concentrations in the Nagsasa Seep, Luzon.

Initial estimates said the electricity that could be generated by the seep would supply as much as 42% of the town of San Antonio’s power demand. About 40,000 people live in the area.

In India, a recent study assessed the potential for naturally occurring underground hydrogen by analysing the geology around known iron ore deposits.

Karnataka, a state in South India, emerged as the most promising state, with Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Jharkhand also showing good potential.

India has also seen a natural hydrogen discovery on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands off the eastern coast of the country.

‘Game changer’ – natural hydrogen report