The first natural and renewable hydrogen field in Europe is located in Spain
To this day, most experts agree that hydrogen will play a key role in decarbonizing Europe. Although batteries may eventually prevail in applications such as light transport, hydrogen will play an important role in the chemical industry in heavy transport and stationary storage.
We can distinguish numerous types of hydrogen, the three most important being green (produced using electricity from renewable sources), gray (produced from natural gas), and blue (produced from hydrocarbons in a process that captures and stores carbon dioxide to reduce emissions into the atmosphere).
A little-known alternative to all of them is natural hydrogen that accumulates in the depths of the planet. Although its reserves could be large until now it had gone unnoticed due to the difficulty in detecting it among the emissions generated in the wells.
Unlike oil and natural gas, natural hydrogen is potentially renewable since it is formed from the reactions of water with certain minerals in the subsoil at high temperatures; In addition, its production is free of emissions, so it is a more sustainable fuel than gray hydrogen. However, it is not yet clear if its regenerative capacity is sufficient to establish a continuous supply.
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The first well in Europe will be located in Spain, specifically in Huesca (Aragon). The company Helios Aragón, a startup created by geologists Chris Atkinson and Ian Munro, wants to start drilling in 2024 and exploit the deposit from 2028 for two or three decades. The founders rule out that these reserves will be renewed fast enough so the bags can be used to store green hydrogen.
The well could generate 400 direct jobs and 1,500 indirect ones. It is estimated that it will produce 1.1 million tons of hydrogen (55,000-70,000 tons per year), for whose extraction the same technology as with natural gas will be used. Although Spanish legislation does not allow this type of exploration, it is expected that an exception will be made with natural hydrogen.
France already modified its legislation last year for this purpose, so the Spanish authorities will probably follow suit since the Helios Aragón project is the first of its kind in the old continent. Taking into account that our country seeks to become the main European supplier of sustainable hydrogen, the most certain thing is that this initiative will be well received.
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