Hydrogen project in Lorraine offers hope for cleaner transport

Scientists who discovered underground hydrogen in Lorraine are waiting for government go-ahead to sink a 4,000m-deep well this summer to see if the gas is available in viable commercial quantities.

The discovery of the hydrogen, announced in 2023, opens the possibility of a source of clean, decarbonated energy, including for transport.

Numerous wells, previously dug to explore for methane, showed traces of hydrogen all over the Lorraine geological basin, raising hopes of vast reserves of the gas.

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Nicknamed “white” hydrogen, the underground gas has been exploited at only one site, in Australia, where it is used to generate electricity.

“If we are able to develop techniques to get it to the surface in the quantities we expect, we think the major uses will be in the steel industry, where hydrogen can replace coal in the making of steel,” Dr Jacques Pironon, one of the geologists who made the 2023 discovery told The Connexion.

“It could also be very useful in decarbonised transport, either in fuel cells to make electricity or directly as a fuel in an internal combustion engine.”

Hydrogen has been promoted by Airbus to potentially be used in aircraft, using fuel cells and batteries to power electric motors.

However, plans to sell hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2035 have now been pushed back to the late 2030s, after experiments proved the technology was not yet ready.

Dr Pironon said using the gas to make electricity was likely to be less profitable but added: “There is no market price for white hydrogen because it is not sold yet, so we will have to see how we can price it.”

The discovery of the hydrogen was made using sensors built by Dr Pironon and his team.

They are also building a machine which they hope will be able to extract the hydrogen from the water underground, rather than pumping the water to the surface. The latter could cause environmental problems, as well as leaving a cavity in the earth.

Although the well is expected to be 4,000m deep, the machine will be installed at around 3,000m where the water has a temperature of around 100C and is at a pressure of 300 bar.

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Using semi-permeable membranes, the machine should be able to extract the gas while leaving the water in place.

“We have patents in place for the machine and are effectively the only people in the world with anything similar,” said Dr Pironon, who is a member of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) research institute and based at the GeoRessources laboratory in the University of Lorraine.

Dr Pironon said if all goes well commercial projects could start in five years.

But he warned that bureaucracy could still slow things down: “We have been working on the paperwork since the summer of 2023, and are still not sure we will get approval for our test in the summer of 2025.”