Turning old gas fields into clean hydrogen sources

Hydrogen is considered one of the clean fuels of the future, but producing it in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way has remained a big challenge.

A new Norwegian technology could transform how we produce clean hydrogen, by tapping into underground gas fields instead of building expensive surface plants.

ETN-member Hydrogen Source AS has developed an innovative method called Hydrogen Generation from Hydrocarbons Sub-terrain (HGHS). This process generates hydrogen directly underground, using natural gas and other hydrocarbons inside the reservoir.

With their technology, clean hydrogen can be produced from depleted and non-commercial gas fields that are otherwise difficult or too expensive to produce.

– This could be a game-changer in how we think about hydrogen and the future of energy, sais Leonid Surguchev, Chairman & CEO of Hydrogen Source.

The HGHS process resembles cooking food underground, generating heat and catalytic reactions (with chemicals that speed up hydrogen generation) inside the gas fields.

Once the temperature is high enough, the remaining natural gas underground is converted to hydrogen.

– The hydrogen, which is light and almost non-visible in water gas, naturally rises and can be collected trough wells while the heavier, unwanted gases like CO₂ are retained inside or gets re-injected back into the reservoir, sais Surguchev.

This way, there’s no release of harmful emissions to the atmosphere.

Hydrogen Source’s method isn’t limited to traditional gas fields, however. It can also be used in “brown”, depleted natural gas fields, tight reservoir gas fields, gas-condensate and gas-oil fields, and coal bed methane.

In short, this technology opens the door to using huge global resources that are currently left unused because they’re too costly or technically difficult to exploit.

Clean, cheap, and tested

Hydrogen Source has spent years testing this technology together with top research institutions, like NORCE Research Centre, IRIS, Weatherford Laboratories in Norway and Imperial College London. Static and dynamic lab experiments at small and large scale at reservoir conditions show impressive results:

• Up to 90% of methane can be converted to hydrogen at high temperatures.

• Hydrogen separates effectively from other gases underground, especially in the presence of water.

• The process is energy-efficient and makes use of heat-generating chemical reactions, occurring with injection of air, oxygen, steam or using microwaves or thermite reactions (a chemical fire) down in the reservoir or in the well.

Why it matters

According to Hydrogen Source, up to 10 billion tons of clean hydrogen can potentially be generated from from global depleted, noncommercial /stranded gas resources of about 50 TCM with the HGHS process.

This would be enough to power a hydrogen energy transition for 100 years.

And the best part? The estimated cost is just 10 to 50 cents per kilogram, which is much cheaper than any surface-based hydrogen production method available today.

By producing hydrogen underground and keeping harmful gases trapped below the surface, the HGHS process can deliver zero-emission hydrogen - a major step towards a clean energy future.