The Midcontinent Rift Zone in North America has the potential to become a massive source of natural hydrogen production, meeting the world’s clean energy demands.
About 1.1 billion years ago, the North American continent nearly split in two, leaving behind a 1,900 km long volcanic rock strip known as the Midcontinent Rift Zone. A team of scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is studying this fracture, which extends from beneath Lake Superior through several areas in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, to determine the best methods for accessing the vast hydrogen reserves below, as reported by SciTechDaily on November 15.
Deep beneath Lake Superior lies the rift zone containing vast hydrogen reserves. (Photo: iStock).
Hydrogen could play a crucial role in efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Hydrogen emits no carbon and differs from oil and gas, which can take millions of years to form from organic sediments. Instead, hydrogen is continuously regenerated underground as water interacts with volcanic rock.
To test the hydrogen production potential in the rift, scientists drilled a test well in Nebraska five years ago. So far, the data obtained is very promising. They believe that geological conditions and biogeochemistry within the fracture have limited hydrogen loss, allowing for its retention on an economic scale.
“This place may be deep enough to store but still shallow enough for us to access. The geology is on our side,” said Karrie Weber, a professor of atmospheric, biological, and earth sciences.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that there are tens of millions to tens of billions of megatons (1 megaton equals 1 million tons) of hydrogen within the Earth’s crust. However, humans will not be able to access most of it because it is too deep, too far offshore, or concentrated in too small quantities to exploit. Therefore, locations like the Midcontinent Rift Zone are crucial. Other underground fractures around the world, such as those in France, Germany, Russia, and Africa, may also serve as hydrogen production sources.
The research team in Nebraska will explore several questions surrounding the flow and processes of hydrogen from underground to the surface, the potential for natural hydrogen storage or in designed storage systems, how hydrogen interacts with underground fluids and rock minerals, and the rate and amount of hydrogen consumed by microorganisms, according to civil engineering professor Seunghee Kim. They have currently been awarded a $1 million grant over five years through the National Science Foundation’s Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Engineering and Science (RAISE) initiative.
