It’s colorful, a revolution. In politics as in energy. It remains to be seen what color the much-heralded hydrogen color will ultimately take on. We can no longer count the promises that are struggling to be confirmed for this gas, the lightest of all chemical elements, which should make it possible to decarbonize many sectors of industry and transport. “Black”, produced with coal, and “gray”, from natural gas, both high greenhouse gas emitters, have never been considered as a solution for the future. On the contrary, according to France, “pink” hydrogen, generated by electrolysis with nuclear electricity, therefore low-carbon – a position that a certain number of European countries do not share.
If there is a hydrogen which attracts more widespread hopes, to the point of being qualified as a “revolution”, it is “green”, developed with renewable energies. But euphoria clashes with market realities. From now on, the hope of large-scale decarbonization is cloaked in “white”. Also called natural or native hydrogen, it is generated by various phenomena, such as interactions between water and certain rocks (iron, magnesium) or thanks to the radioactivity of the earth’s crust. It therefore does not need to be produced: a considerable advantage that France does not want to let slip away.
A revolution often comes down to little. That of natural hydrogen owes a lot… to chance. To an explosion caused by a Malian technician’s cigarette near a borehole in the village of Bourakebougou, in 1987. Failing to find water, he helped prove, many years later, that the Hydrogen did exist in gaseous form in its natural state. This deposit is currently the only one exploited in the world. No cigarette butt was the vector of chance in the Lorraine mining basin: serendipity did its work. In the spring of 2023, while looking for methane in the basement of Folschviller, a town close to the German border, two research directors from the GeoRessources laboratory in Nancy, in collaboration with La Française de l’énergie, instead found a potential natural hydrogen resource. It could be, according to their calculations, one of the most important in the world.
“Don’t stand idly by”
This discovery, coupled with a convergence of events, caused “a shift in the eyes of the general public but also in terms of activities”, recognizes Yannick Peysson, R & D program manager at IFP Energies nouvelles, increasingly no longer contacted by industrialists. He mentions the multiplication of exploration permits in the United States and Australia or the launch, last summer, of the first drillings in the latter. Without forgetting Bill Gates’ investment of several million dollars in an American company, Koloma, which is banking on this vein. After modifying its mining code in 2022 to include natural hydrogen in the list of exploitable resources, France also wants to move up a gear. Emmanuel Macron promised, in December, “massive funding” to explore this potential of the national subsoil. A few days earlier, the government had granted a first exploration permit, in Béarn (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), to the company TBH2 Aquitaine. Five others are waiting.
“We don’t have many natural resources in France, so when we have fairly promising geology, we must not sit idly by,” assures Isabelle Moretti, researcher at the University of Pau. Enthusiastic, the vice-president of the energy division of the Academy of Technologies remains no less pragmatic: “We will not produce more hydrogen than Qatar produces gas. It is not a miracle solution, but it will be part of the energy mix.”
Many uncertainties remain about the quantity available, its capacity for renewal underground, its exploitation, its cost – much lower than that of “green” hydrogen, manufacturers already promise – or its deployment… “Reasonably, on the horizon 2035-2040. Before, there is a lot of work and companies must have production successes,” warns Yannick Peysson. “There are still quite a few scientific and technological barriers to overcome,” confirms Olivier Joubert, director of the CNRS Hydrogen Federation (FRH2) and chemist at the Nantes Jean Rouxel Institute of Materials.
The United States and Australia invest
Although areas with high potential have been identified (Pyrenees, Lorraine, Massif Central), knowledge of geological systems containing natural hydrogen must be clarified. Hence the interest in these targeted explorations for understanding the formation mechanisms and flows, even if they present, like any similar project affecting the subsoil, issues of social acceptability. “We must continue both the field analyzes, the investment in the companies which will take out permits and the research which allows us to refine the concepts. If we succeed, we can imagine in France a source of “completely decarbonized energy which would make it possible to supply the entire share of energy demand linked to hydrogen”, projects Yannick Peysson.
The country benefits, in this race, from a privileged position to defend. The French were very present at the first three editions of H-Nat, a young summit dedicated to this resource. A sign of the quality of its research which, inevitably, attracts other nations. “Many of our young researchers are recruited by American or Australian research centers and companies,” notes Isabelle Moretti. “The money invested there is much higher than in France.” Whether public or private funds. Natural hydrogen is, for the moment, not even mentioned in the national strategy for the development of decarbonized hydrogen, which should be ratified at the beginning of 2024 – surely due to the current state of knowledge. No funding line is therefore dedicated to it, and this prospect seems even more distant after the recent slashing by the executive in the programs linked to climate and energy. Same at European level. And the French companies that are launching, often small players from large oil groups, cannot (yet) count on the portfolio of a blue-white-red Bill Gates.
“It would be a shame not to invest a few tens of millions for natural hydrogen given all the possibilities of this energy source,” observes Olivier Joubert. Research laboratories and start-ups can only agree. The “white” hydrogen revolution was not the most anticipated in France, we will still have to wait to see its color.
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