Researchers in Nebraska are exploring the Midcontinent Rift’s potential to produce renewable, carbon-free hydrogen, possibly meeting energy needs for centuries.
Around 1.1 billion years ago, the North American continent almost split in two, leaving a 1,200-mile stretch of volcanic rock called the Midcontinent Rift. This geological feature holds the potential to produce substantial amounts of natural hydrogen, which could provide a vast supply of clean energy.
University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers are studying the rift — which runs from beneath Lake Superior through parts of Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas — to determine how best to access that hydrogen.
Hydrogen is potentially a key player in the effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. It produces no carbon emissions and, unlike oil and gas that can take millions of years to generate from organic deposits, it is constantly renewing underground when water interacts with the volcanic rock.
But there is much to learn.
“Our understanding of processes governing the production, migration, and accumulation of evasive natural hydrogen in the continental deep subsurface is still in its infancy,” said Seunghee Kim, Charles J. Vranek Associate Professor of civil engineering and one of the project’s principal investigators.
Testing the Rift’s Viability
To test the viability of hydrogen production in the rift, a test well was drilled in Nebraska five years ago. So far, the data is promising. Scientists believe it is possible the geomechanical and biogeochemical conditions in the rift limit the loss and consumption of this naturally generated hydrogen, which could leave trapped hydrogen “at an economically meaningful scale in the mid-continent subsurface.”
The Midcontinent Rift is estimated to be 3,000 to 5,000 feet underground.
“It could be deep enough to be stored but shallow enough that we can access it,” said Karrie Weber, professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences and biological sciences and another project investigator. “The geology is in our favor.”The U.S. Geological Survey estimates between tens of millions and tens of billions of megatons of hydrogen are in Earth’s crust. But much of that would be inaccessible to humans because it is either too deep or too far offshore, or present in amounts too small to exploit. That is what makes sites like the Midcontinent Rift so important. Other subsurface rifts in the world — located in France, Germany, Russia, and the African continent — could also produce hydrogen, Kim said.
Global Implications for Hydrogen Energy
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there might be enough accessible natural hydrogen under the Earth’s surface to meet global energy needs for thousands of years.
Kim said the Nebraska team will explore several questions surrounding hydrogen flow and seepage from the subsurface to the surface; the feasibility of storing hydrogen naturally or in engineered storage systems; how hydrogen reacts with existing fluids and rock minerals in the subsurface; and how fast and how much hydrogen could be consumed by microorganisms.
Kim is approaching the questions from a civil engineering perspective, while Weber and another co-principal investigator, Hyun-Seob Song, are exploring the biogeochemical and microbiology implications.
“This has not been well-studied so far,” said Song, associate professor of biological systems engineering and food science and technology. “We aim to predict the microbiomes’ behavior at this subsurface level.”
Song will develop computational modeling tools to integrate and assess that data that Weber provides.
The project is funded by a five-year, $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE) initiative. It is one of 19 projects funded this year.
The research builds on previous work funded by the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research.
Weber said the university’s role in this research is another instance of the state’s potential leadership in what is called “the hydrogen economy,” which refers to the role hydrogen could have in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and serving as a clean energy source.
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7 Comments
“Clean,” like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Hydrogen, whatever its source, is not the panacea that it is touted to be. If used in the transportation industry, the water vapor by-product from combustion (and even fuel cells) can be expected to increase urban humidity, leading to an increase in the Heat Index, wet roads and accidents, mold growing in undesirable places, and rust becoming a problem in places where it isn’t currently of concern. More frequent accidental explosions can be expected, particularly since hydrogen has an undesirable characteristic of embrittling steel containers, pipes, and valves; hydrogen has the widest range of explosive mixtures with atmospheric oxygen of any known gas.
Compare that to the vast areas already adversely affected and contaminated by petroleum, coal, and nuclear processes and accidents and your argument sounds pretty benign. Have we forgotten about the irreversible environmental and fiscal damage that has been caused by our use reliance on domestic and foreign oil, the radioactive environmental contamination at Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl, or the global warming and pollution that burning coal has caused? With the savings in expenditures that would result, many of the issues with hydrogen power issues could be remediated.
Oddly, you are twerking that angle, Clyde. As I have always considered water a by-product, we omit that fact as a positive argument, particularly in arid regions that are becoming more arid. People are speculating about ramping up some mega projects to transport water from the eastern US to the western US when using hydrogen and whether emitting the resulting water into the atmosphere or collecting it for use would benefit the local economy. Maybe considering where we directly use the hydrogen and combine it with CO2 to make more transportable, more energy-dense fuels, possibly blending some fossil fuels in an all-of-the-above, the less selfishly extremist approach would be more rational. I imagine industrial, job-producing hubs forming around H2 well-heads.
Those who adhere to the past won’t be able to cope with the future.
Willy Brandt
Burning hydrocarbons releases water.
That water has not caused problems. What makes you think water from burning pure hydrogen will be worse?
How are they gonna make plastic stuff out of hydrogen?
They can make plastic out of hemp ..hemp could take over the plastic industry and much much more ..plus the plastic that comes from hemp can be decomposed in land fills ..so there you would get rid of the majority of the oil pollution and business but will the elites allow this.. probably not it would take courage and everyone demanding it..but there is so many other ways we could make things but the elites want the cheapest way to make things but don’t care about the environment like they say they do because most don’t live in the areas that are effected by these means.