Explorer looks to tap ‘natural’ hydrogen opportunity
ASX listed Gold Hydrogen is looking to tap into the potential of hydrogen as an environmentally sustainable fuel, not by manufacturing it, but by extracting it from the ground.
The company expects to start drilling for hydrogen at its Ramsay project in South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula in mid-October – a project that could replace some of South Australia’s natural gas and power electricity production.
Gold Hydrogen CEO Neil McDonald (left) and chairman Alexander Downer.
Hydrogen, which produces only water and oxygen when burned, has long been touted as an alternative to fossil fuel. Most of the focus has been on green hydrogen – which is produced by the electrolysis of water using renewable electricity, or blue hydrogen – which is made from natural gas but has carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
By contrast, natural hydrogen is formed through the combination of iron-rich rocks, water and heat, which together split the water into component parts of oxygen and hydrogen. If the hydrogen is unable to percolate to the surface, it sits underground in much the same way natural gas does.
Chief executive Neil McDonald said there are environmental and commercial advantages to natural hydrogen.
It is accessed by drilling from a six-inch wellhead and occupies only about 4 by 4 metres of land.
“We don’t need to do open cut mining. The amount of mining to go to electrification is going to be enormous,” he said. “We do not have to manufacture the solar panels or the wind farms, and then we do not have to construct hundreds of millions of dollars of hydrolysis equipment.”
ASX-listed Gold Hydrogen believes it will be able to supply hydrogen at $1 per kilogram before transport, compared with a current cost of about $6 per kg for green or blue
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