Hydrogen treasure hidden 1,500m deep under a billion-year-old crack

The Midcontinent Rift Zone in North America has the potential to become a huge source of natural hydrogen production, meeting the world's clean energy needs.

About 1.1 billion years ago, the North American continent nearly split in two, leaving behind a 1,900km-long stretch of volcanic rock called the Midcontinent Rift Zone . A team of scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is studying this rift - which runs from under Lake Superior through parts of Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas - to determine the best way to access the huge amount of hydrogen below, SciTechDaily reported on November 15.

Hidden deep beneath Lake Superior is a rift zone containing huge amounts of hydrogen. (Photo: iStock).

Hydrogen could be a key element in efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Hydrogen has no carbon emissions and is also different from oil and gas, which can take millions of years to form from organic sediments. Instead, hydrogen is constantly being formed underground as water interacts with volcanic rock.

To test the possibility of hydrogen production in the fissure, scientists drilled a test well in Nebraska five years ago. So far, the data has been promising. They believe that the geological and biogeochemical conditions in the fissure may limit hydrogen loss, allowing it to be captured at an economic scale.

'This place could be deep enough for storage but still shallow enough for us to reach. The geology is on our side,' said Karrie Weber, professor of atmospheric, biological and earth sciences.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that there are tens of millions to tens of billions of megatons (1 megaton is 1 million tons) of hydrogen in the Earth's crust. But much of it is inaccessible to humans because it is too deep or too far from shore, or in quantities too small to mine. That's why places like the Midcontinent Rift are so important. Other underground fissures around the world, such as in France, Germany, Russia, and Africa, could also be sources of hydrogen.

The Nebraska team will explore a number of questions around the flow and seepage of hydrogen from underground to the surface, the ability to store hydrogen naturally or in engineered storage systems, how hydrogen reacts with underground fluids and rock minerals, and the rate and amount of hydrogen consumed by microorganisms, according to civil engineering professor Seunghee Kim. They have now been awarded a $1 million, five-year grant through the National Science Foundation's Advanced Research in Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE) initiative.