ECO FRIENDLY HYDROGEN BEGINNING TO BE A BIG ENERGY PLAYER

Hydrogen will be an “essential fuel in years to come”, because it does not produce CO2 when used as a fuel or in industrial processes. But the “big drawback”, according to the Carbon Trust, is that less than 1% of current global hydrogen production is emissions-free. Currently, we have to make hydrogen ourselves, which involves using energy and producing pollution. Grey and blue hydrogen are produced by splitting methane into carbon dioxide and hydrogen, with the CO2 captured and stored in the latter case. Black hydrogen is produced by partially burning coal and there’s also pink hydrogen, made using nuclear energy. Green hydrogen, “that elusive 1%”, is created through the electrolysis of water into oxygen and hydrogen, but it is “relatively expensive and in short supply”. So this is where gold hydrogen could come in. New geological research suggests that “cheap and plentiful supplies” of naturally occurring hydrogen could be “found right under our feet”, wrote David Waltham, a geophysics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. Gold hydrogen, also sometimes known as white hydrogen, is a naturally occurring gas trapped in pockets under the ground – in much the same way as oil and natural gas. It is produced when the gas occurs naturally deep underground and can be harvested through drilling, with no need to expend energy on synthesis. It is “colourless and odourless”, explained New Scientist, and has “good environmental credentials” because it “burns cleanly, producing nothing but water”. It can be easily linked into existing piping systems and when compressed stored.