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Caribbeans

(1,074 posts)
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 03:57 PM Jan 18

USGS releases first-ever map of potential for geologic hydrogen in U.S.


Map showing prospectivity of geologic hydrogen in the conterminous United States. Public Domain. Map created by USGS.

USGS releases first-ever map of potential for geologic hydrogen in U.S.

USGS.gov | January 16, 2025

RESTON, Va. — The U.S. Geological Survey today published the first map of the prospective locations of naturally-occurring geologic hydrogen resources in the contiguous United States, reflecting a systematic analysis of geologic conditions favorable for hydrogen that draws on a newly developed methodology.

The map is the first of its kind at continental scale anywhere, showing likely underground areas to explore for geologic hydrogen. It reveals areas of interest that have the potential to hold accumulations of geologic hydrogen, including a mid-continent region that covers Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan, the Four Corners states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, the California coast, and areas along the Eastern seaboard.

“For decades, the conventional wisdom was that naturally occurring hydrogen did not accumulate in sufficient quantities to be used for energy purposes,” said Sarah Ryker, USGS associate director for energy and minerals. “This map is tantalizing because it shows that several parts of the U.S. could have a subsurface hydrogen resource after all.”

In a recent paper, USGS geologists Geoff Ellis and Sarah Gelman estimated large potential for — and large uncertainty about — the amount of hydrogen accumulations in the world. “We calculate the energy content of this estimated recoverable amount of hydrogen to be roughly twice the amount of energy in all the proven natural gas reserves on Earth,” Ellis and Gelman wrote in their recent Science Advances paper...more
https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/usgs-releases-first-ever-map-potential-geologic-hydrogen-us

Science.org: Model predictions of global geologic hydrogen resources
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado0955

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NNadir

(35,008 posts)
2. Let's assume for a pathetic second, that geologic hydrogen were available to be tapped.
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 04:58 PM
Jan 18

Would the "drill baby, drill" fantasy be a good idea in a time of rising seas?

Practically every one on the planet who hypes the hydrogen scam, is of course, really looking to greenwash fossil fuels, from which hydrogen is overwhelmingly manufactured, so the idea of squandering resources doesn't offend them at all, since they don't give a rat's ass about the environment.

For instance, one often sees them advertising for Chinese hydrogen bullshit despite the fact that how hydrogen is made in China is well known.

Subsidizing Grid-Based Electrolytic Hydrogen Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coal Dominated Power Systems Liqun Peng, Yang Guo, Shangwei Liu, Gang He, and Denise L. Mauzerall Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (12), 5187-5195

The text is clear enough.

From the introductory text:

... Currently, nearly all hydrogen in China is either produced directly from fossil fuels (55% from coal gasification and 14% from steam methane reforming (SMR)) or as a byproduct of petroleum refining (28%), with only 1% coming from water electrolysis. (2) Producing 1 kg of coal- or SMR-based hydrogen emits roughly 19 and 10 kg of CO2, respectively. (3) In 2020, hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China emitted ∼322Tg of CO2, equivalent to 25% of total CO2 emissions from industrial processes, a number expected to rise with increasing hydrogen demand. (4) Industrial processes include production of nonmetallic mineral products, chemical, and metal products, as well as production and consumption of halocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. (4)
.

The bold, italics and underlining is mine.

EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.

TrollBuster9090

(6,038 posts)
3. (Hydrogen 'Scam'). To be clear, your beef is not with hydrogen fuel per se, but with...
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 05:54 PM
Jan 18

...with hydrogen produced from either methane (steam methane reforming), or from electrolysis that comes from an electrical power grid that's powered from burning fossil fuels. Hydrogen fuel made by electrolysis, using electricity generated by renewable sources would be okay with you?

By the way, when SMR is done properly, it doesn't generate much gaseous carbon. I'm okay with it, especially if it's done with methane generated from human/animal sewage. My only problem with it is that they're advocating transporting the hydrogen around as ammonia. That would create a lot of danger to the environment.

But I agree with some of what you said. Especially the fact that the DISTANT promise of developing fuel cell powered vehicles was used for years as a distraction away from developing electric vehicles.

NNadir

(35,008 posts)
4. My "beef," such as it is, is attempting to treat this gas as a consumer product. It is an essential captive...
Sat Jan 18, 2025, 06:17 PM
Jan 18

Last edited Sat Jan 18, 2025, 07:15 PM - Edit history (1)

...intermediate for ammonia production, on which the world food supply depends, but it is exceedingly stupid to convert a gas with better physical properties, methane, (critical pressure, critical temperature, inertness to metals, etc.) to one with far worse physical properties, especially when exergy is destroyed in the process.

SMR is not acceptable to me under any circumstances, and I remain convinced, and will not be dissuaded otherwise. I understand the process very well and have been aware of all its permutations for many years. "Less" does not substitute for "none."

I believe - quixotically I understand - that fossil fuels should be banned as quickly as is possible by the use of nuclear heat.

Biogas is a trivial source of methane, and it requires significant energy to separate it from carbon dioxide. It will never be carbon neutral. Hyping it, like hyping hydrogen, itself is a proposal for greenwashing fossil fuels.

Industrial hydrogen is best made - although very little actually is - from thermochemical water splitting, the most well understood process being the SI process. Modern advances in materials science make it accessible. There are many variants of this process, some of which are reported, and others which can certainly be conceived, and there are many other types of known thermochemical hydrogen cycles, each with its own set of aficionados. Unfortunately very few high temperature nuclear reactors have been built, but attention is being paid - too little, too late - to developing modern ones.

Electric vehicles are not sustainable and as I reported with a reference, is actually dirtier than an internal combustion:

A paper addressing the idea that electric cars are "green."

In fact there is no form of the car CULTure that is sustainable over the long term, popular enthusiasm for it notwithstanding.

All in all, hydrogen is a fossil fuel promotion scam, slick perhaps, but just as useful as it was half a century ago when big time bullshit about started, waxing and waning over the decades. Even a dumb guy like Joe Romm understood this in the early 21st century. Things have gotten much, much worse since he wrote "The Hype About Hydrogen" in 2004, not that he shows any signs about waking up to the issue of primary energy.



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