The next big thing in hydrogen could be underground
The next big thing in hydrogen could be underground
氢能的下一个风口可能在地下
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY There’s a hunt for new sources of hydrogen, and the gas (or at least the right conditions to make it) could be hiding beneath our feet. Hydrogen can be used as a fuel in everything from large trucks to planes to steelmaking. It’s often hailed as a climate solution because when burned, it produces water and oxygen—none of the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. 执行摘要 人们正在寻找氢能的新来源，而这种气体（或者至少是产生它的适宜条件）可能正隐藏在我们的脚下。氢气可以用作从大型卡车、飞机到钢铁制造等各种领域的燃料。它常被誉为气候解决方案，因为氢气燃烧时只产生水和氧气，不会排放导致气候变化的碳。
In a new story for our latest print issue, freelance reporter James Dineen took a look at the 21st-century gold rush for naturally occurring hydrogen gas. This is an area of research I’ve been fascinated by lately, so let’s take a look at the potential and the questions that still linger. 在我们最新一期的印刷版杂志中，自由撰稿人詹姆斯·迪宁（James Dineen）探讨了 21 世纪对天然氢气的“淘金热”。这是我最近非常着迷的研究领域，因此让我们来看看它的潜力以及依然存在的疑问。
Today, hydrogen is overwhelmingly made using fossil fuels, generally natural gas. And most of it is used in petroleum refining or goes on to make fertilizer and other chemicals. But in recent years, many in the climate world have imagined a future where its production is clean too. 如今，氢气绝大多数是通过化石燃料（通常是天然气）制成的。其中大部分用于石油精炼，或用于制造化肥和其他化学品。但近年来，气候领域的许多人设想了一个氢气生产同样清洁的未来。
If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have said the race for clean hydrogen was between methods that use electrolyzers powered with renewable electricity and operations that use established, fossil-fuel-based approaches cleaned up with carbon capture. But both those methods have struggled to gain ground, largely because of their high cost. 如果你几年前问我，我会说清洁氢能的竞争是在使用可再生电力驱动的电解槽方法，与使用成熟的化石燃料方法并辅以碳捕集技术之间展开。但由于成本高昂，这两种方法都难以取得进展。
Lately, there’s been momentum in a new field: geologic hydrogen. Companies have found naturally occurring hydrogen resources across Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America. The US Geological Survey publishes a map of hydrogen prospectivity in the country (basically, where the gas is most likely to occur naturally). 最近，一个新领域出现了增长势头：地质氢。各家公司已在非洲、亚洲、欧洲、澳大利亚和北美发现了天然氢资源。美国地质调查局发布了一份全国氢能勘探潜力图（基本上标明了这种气体最可能自然存在的地方）。
One hot spot is the Midwest—specifically the Midcontinent Rift, winding from Kansas to Michigan. The planet’s crust was stretched and split there about a billion years ago, causing molten rock to push up through the crack. The result today is a lot of iron-rich rock, which can react with water to readily form hydrogen. 一个热点地区是中西部，特别是从中堪萨斯州延伸到密歇根州的中大陆裂谷。大约十亿年前，地球的地壳在那里被拉伸和分裂，导致熔岩通过裂缝向上涌出。如今的结果是存在大量富含铁的岩石，它们可以与水反应并轻易形成氢气。
HyTerra, an Australian company, is searching for hydrogen across Nebraska and Kansas, and it’s already found samples of gas with hydrogen concentrations up to 96%. Koloma, one of the most capitalized companies in the space with total funding over $400 million, is prospecting in the region as well. 澳大利亚公司 HyTerra 正在内布拉斯加州和堪萨斯州寻找氢气，并且已经发现了氢浓度高达 96% 的气体样本。该领域资金最雄厚的公司之一 Koloma（总融资额超过 4 亿美元）也正在该地区进行勘探。
One of the major questions these companies have is just how much hydrogen is produced by natural processes, and whether it can be effectively captured. Hydrogen is an incredibly light gas with a small molecular weight, so it can slip through even tiny cracks in rock. 这些公司面临的主要问题之一是，自然过程究竟能产生多少氢气，以及它能否被有效捕获。氢气是一种分子量很小的极轻气体，因此它甚至可以从岩石的微小裂缝中溜走。
As James covered in his story, there are some promising signs. Researchers examined a few dozen boreholes at a mine in northern Ontario and found that each one released eight kilograms of hydrogen per year. Given that there are more than 14,000 boreholes at this one site alone, that’s a lot of potential hydrogen to capture. 正如詹姆斯在报道中所述，目前有一些令人鼓舞的迹象。研究人员检查了安大略省北部一个矿区的几十个钻孔，发现每个钻孔每年释放 8 公斤氢气。考虑到仅这一个地点就有超过 14,000 个钻孔，这意味着有大量的潜在氢气可以捕获。
Rather than hunt for a natural source, some companies are taking matters into their own hands and helping reactions along. The idea behind so-called stimulated geologic hydrogen is to find a spot where there are favorable conditions for hydrogen production but no accumulated resource. By adding water, a catalyst, or some other factor needed for the reaction, it’s possible to kick-start the process. 一些公司没有去寻找天然来源，而是采取主动，通过人工手段促进反应。所谓的“刺激型地质氢”背后的理念是：寻找一个具备氢气生产有利条件但尚未形成资源聚集的地方。通过添加水、催化剂或其他反应所需的因素，就有可能启动这一过程。
Vema Hydrogen is a Texas-based company looking to produce hydrogen from subsurface rocks by drilling wells and injecting water and catalysts into them to stimulate reactions. The company is testing its process in wells in Quebec and hopes to start full-scale production in 2028. 总部位于德克萨斯州的 Vema Hydrogen 公司正试图通过钻井并注入水和催化剂来刺激反应，从而从地下岩石中生产氢气。该公司正在魁北克的油井中测试其工艺，并希望在 2028 年开始全面生产。
Other companies are tackling different aspects of hydrogen production: Eden GeoPower, for example, is using electricity to form fracture networks in rocks, creating more routes for water to get in. (The technology could also be useful in enhanced geothermal projects.) 其他公司则在解决氢气生产的不同方面：例如，Eden GeoPower 正在利用电力在岩石中形成裂缝网络，为水进入创造更多路径。（这项技术在增强型地热项目中也可能很有用。）
There are still a ton of unanswered questions here: Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to move around and store, requiring either a lot of space or super-low temperatures to force the gas to become liquid. But if the engineering and logistics work out, this could spell a new beginning for hydrogen. 这里仍有大量未解之谜：众所周知，氢气的运输和储存非常困难，需要巨大的空间或极低的温度才能将其液化。但如果工程和物流问题能够解决，这可能意味着氢能的新开端。