Chris Nelder 🤘Jul 14, 2023

Today's exemplar of the classic form in mass media coverage of energy: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/13/white-hydrogen-disrupt-global-energy-net-zero

Let's break it down:

The headline: "Limitless ‘white’ hydrogen under our feet may soon shatter all energy assumptions"

The lede: "disruptive technology ...entirely changes the future of the global energy system"

At 100 words: "the very real possibility that vast reserves of natural hydrogen lie under our feet "

The end: "Nobody has yet made a commercial discovery ready for the market"
🤡

Limitless ‘white’ hydrogen under our feet may soon shatter all energy assumptions

There’s a real possibility that vast reserves of this clean fuel can be extracted at competitive costs

The Telegraph
Show threadChris Nelder 🤘
But if you want to actually understand what we know at this point about naturally occurring hydrogen, this Science article (which was likely the basis for the Telegraph piece) does a great, non-hypey job: https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-vast-stores-renewable-carbon-free-fuel (h/t @brianvastag)
Hidden hydrogen: Earth may hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel

Overlooked by the oil industry, natural hydrogen could power society for thousands of years

Jul 14, 2023 at 6:27pmWeb
Show threadIcanbobJul 14, 2023

@brianvastag @chrisnelder Reminds me of deep geothermal. Science tells us that internal heat beneath the earth is nuclear in origin. Essentially the earth is a very dilute nuclear reactor. Natural hydrogen seems to be a thermochemical reaction involving water and this nuclear geothermal heat. How about just coupling molten salt reactor heat to an above ground version of this process?

#moltensaltreactors