How much energy we use and where it comes from is the central problem of the climate crisis. A new discovery of vast reserves of hydrogen hiding under Earth’s surface could help address that problem, but it’s unclear how much of a difference it could make.
Geologic hydrogen is formed during natural geochemical processes inside Earth and, so far, has been discovered in just a few places, including Albania and Mali. But a new study estimates these reserves stretch all around the globe.
The researchers behind the study suggest that if we were able to extract just two per cent of this geologic hydrogen, it could provide us with 1.4 × 10 16 joules of energy. This may sound impressive, but it’s only equivalent to 35 minutes of the global population’s energy consumption.