As of: February 15, 2024, 10:59 a.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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Hydrogen should help with the climate-friendly restructuring of the economy.
A reservoir recently discovered in Albania could contribute to this (symbolic image).
© Imago/Zakariya Yahya/Zuma Wire
Breakthrough in the energy transition?
Researchers recently discovered a huge hydrogen reservoir in Albania.
Environmentally friendly energy could now become cheaper.
Bulqiza – Hydrogen should play a key role in the energy transition to help with the climate-friendly restructuring of the economy.
When using this energy source, no climate-damaging carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct.
At first glance, the conditions seem good: H2 is the most common element in the universe.
However, it is almost always present as a compound - for example in water - and therefore has to be dissolved out.
This is usually complex, expensive and sometimes not environmentally friendly.
However, the discovery of a huge hydrogen reservoir in Albania could now be a turning point.
Hydrogen reservoir in Albania is one of the largest natural deposits discovered to date
Natural sources of hydrogen gas are actually rare.
But a research team led by Laurent Truche from the University of Grenoble discovered a suspected huge source of hydrogen gas inside a chromite mine in Bulqiza, Albania, about 50 kilometers from the capital Tirana.
"At least 200 tons of H2 are emitted from the mine's tunnels annually, representing one of the largest H2 flow rates recorded to date," the researchers reported, according to the study published in February.
The quality of the discovered source is also groundbreaking: an increased outgassing rate of hydrogen of 84 percent by volume was found.
The outgassing consists of almost pure hydrogen.
The research team recorded the hydrogen leaks at the mine for around six years.
Hydrogen deposits in Albania could also open up sources in the future
A success was not only the discovery of the specific deposit, but also the prospect of developing further sources in the future.
The large hydrogen flow is likely due to long-term accumulation in the reservoir, the research team said.
“Places with similar geology should be good targets for searching for other natural sources of hydrogen.”
The mine lies in ophiolite rock.
This consists of originally oceanic crustal rock that once lay on the seafloor but migrated due to shifting plate tectonics.
This type of rock could “host economically viable H2 gas accumulations,” according to the study.
About the study
The study “A deep reservoir for hydrogen drives intense degassing in the Bulqizë ophiolite” by the team of authors led by Laurent Truche from the University of Grenoble Alpes was published on August 8th February 2024 in the scientific journal
Science
.
Link to the study
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Ophiolite rocks may be the source of hydrogen: “Commercially viable”
The potential is obviously huge: “The ophiolite belt stretches over more than 3,000 kilometers from Turkey to Slovenia,” the researchers report, according to the science magazine
Scinexx
.
Specifically, the hydrogen could have been created by geochemical reactions of minerals and accumulated in the pores of the rock over a long period of time.
“Ophiolites therefore have the potential to contain rich reservoirs of high-quality hydrogen gas.”
Such an environmentally friendly energy source would obviously also be economically profitable.
“Hydrogen could be extracted commercially profitably in such geological contexts because the gas is trapped and concentrated in fault zones,” the research group estimates.
“It could actually be possible to collect this hydrogen and use it in a gas turbine,” suggests Truche.
What the discovery of the hydrogen reservoir in Albania could mean for the energy transition
Climate researchers agree: humanity must drastically limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate the consequences of climate change.
Green hydrogen could reduce the carbon footprint of numerous industries, but is currently too expensive.
The discovery in Albania could suddenly make the environmentally friendly energy source financially attractive.
Hydrogen would be the new oil.
“It could disrupt geopolitics, in many good ways, because the hydrogen will be where the oil and gas are not,”
Science
quoted University of Texas researcher Michael Webber as saying in a news article.
If you look for it, you will find hydrogen.
The latest findings on rapidly advancing climate change show that time is of the essence.
In the Paris Climate Agreement, the EU committed itself to being climate neutral by 2050.
In order to achieve this climate target, the production of around 100 million tons of low-emission hydrogen per year would be necessary by 2030, as the International Energy Agency calculated.
Or – as the study by Truche’s research team now shows – possibly simply the development of further natural hydrogen sources.