Scientists have cracked the code for locating natural hydrogen hidden deep in Earth’s crust—offering a game-changing, carbon-free fuel source to power our future without emissions.
Key Points at a Glance
- New study outlines geological recipe for finding natural hydrogen
- Natural hydrogen could supply clean energy for 170,000 years
- Key ingredients include specific rock types, water, and isolation from microbes
- Viable hydrogen systems are common and globally distributed
- Discovery paves the way for clean, emission-free hydrogen exploration
In a world racing toward carbon neutrality, a new answer to one of the energy sector’s biggest challenges may lie just beneath our feet. Scientists from the University of Oxford, Durham University, and the University of Toronto have published groundbreaking research that defines—for the first time—the key geological ingredients needed to find accumulations of natural, clean hydrogen gas locked within the Earth’s crust. This new understanding could revolutionize global energy supply, unlocking a vast, untapped, and carbon-free fuel source.
Hydrogen is a cornerstone of modern life. It’s critical in the production of fertilizers that support half of global food production and is central to emerging clean energy systems. Yet today’s hydrogen is mostly made from hydrocarbons, contributing to about 2.4% of global CO₂ emissions. As global demand for hydrogen soars—from 90 million tonnes in 2022 to an estimated 540 million tonnes by 2050—the race is on to find clean, scalable alternatives.
Until now, clean hydrogen production has largely focused on energy-intensive methods like electrolysis using renewable power, or reforming natural gas with carbon capture. Both are expensive and not yet widespread. Enter natural hydrogen—a form of the gas produced by Earth itself, over geological time, and stored within the crust. The question has always been: how do we find it?
The new study, published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, answers that question. Led by Professor Chris Ballentine from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford, the research maps out what it calls a “hydrogen exploration recipe.” It includes the rock types that generate hydrogen, the pathways it travels underground, the traps that allow it to accumulate, and the conditions that prevent it from being consumed by hydrogen-hungry microbes.
Getting this right, Ballentine says, is like baking a soufflé. “Get any one of the ingredients, amounts, timing, or temperature wrong and you will be disappointed,” he explained. “One successful exploration recipe that is repeatable will unlock a commercially competitive, low-carbon hydrogen source that would significantly contribute to the energy transition.”
Importantly, the researchers show that these ingredients aren’t rare. In fact, they’re found across a range of common geological settings—some ancient, some geologically young, but all distributed globally. This finding dismisses the hype around exotic or mantle-derived hydrogen sources and puts the spotlight back on more accessible crustal systems.
Key to preserving these underground hydrogen reservoirs is avoiding areas where microbial life thrives, since these organisms can consume hydrogen before it ever reaches the surface. “We know for example that underground microbes readily feast on hydrogen,” said study co-author Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar. “Avoiding environments that bring them into contact with the hydrogen is important in preserving it in economic accumulations.”
The research offers both a scientific roadmap and an industrial opportunity. Historical hydrogen measurements have been sparse and localized, but this work sets the stage for systematic global exploration. That ambition has already taken form with the launch of Snowfox Discovery Ltd., a company founded by the study’s authors with the mission of finding commercially viable hydrogen deposits.
The scale of the opportunity is staggering. According to the researchers, Earth’s continental crust has produced enough hydrogen over the past billion years to power human civilization for at least the next 170,000 years. While much of it has been lost or consumed, what remains could still play a defining role in the world’s transition to clean energy.
The implications for industry and climate policy are profound. If this exploration framework leads to repeatable success, natural hydrogen could become a foundational pillar of global energy supply—offering a truly sustainable alternative to fossil fuels without the emissions or economic hurdles of current hydrogen production methods.
As the world searches for scalable clean energy solutions, this new understanding of hydrogen’s subterranean secrets may prove to be one of the most important scientific developments of the decade. After all, when it comes to solving climate change, sometimes the answers really do lie underground.
Source: University of Oxford
