The French energy company has announced the discovery of significant reserves of natural hydrogen in the Lorraine mining basin. Estimates put the figure at 46 billion tonnes, or half of the world’s current annual hydrogen production.
This may be a turning point in the French hydrogen sector. A few weeks ago, the French energy company (FDE), which produces energy with a negative carbon footprint, announced an exceptional discovery. CNRS researchers from Lorraine have indeed found large quantities of white hydrogen in the basements of the mining basin around the Folschviller shaft. The latter is the subject of a drilling program as part of the Regalor research project (REssources GAzières de LORraines) launched four years ago by scientists from the University of Lorraine and the CNRS with the support of the EDF.
Invited on the set of BFM Business this Friday morning, the general manager of Plastic Omnium Laurent Favre explained this particular form of hydrogen: “White hydrogen is natural, native hydrogen. Unlike green hydrogen or gray that we produce and which is the hydrogen used in large quantities today, the white is somewhere on the planet and there is a lot of it available. It is usable as it is, it may be the tomorrow’s oil.”
“We have discovered it in the United States, Mali, Australia and recently in France, so it is potentially a very strong accelerator for the development of hydrogen in transport and in industrial infrastructure in general.”
The hydrogen content increases with depth
Enthusiasm is all the greater among researchers and other players in the sector as this discovery is almost the result of chance. Originally, this research project was to study methane, present in large quantities in the Lorraine subsoil, and more particularly the famous “firedamp”, this layer gas in the subsoil resulting from the degradation of the layers of coal. and which could cause deadly explosions in mines.
In order to quantify this methane in the Lorraine coal basin, the researchers designed an exceptional probe capable of descending to more than 1,000 meters deep in a well only six centimeters in diameter. From the end of 2022, they discover a small quantity of hydrogen at a depth of 600 meters but note that this increases as the probe penetrates into the basement: one kilometer underground, the hydrogen concentration exceeds 15%. “The deeper we go, the more oxygen decreases until it disappears, Jacques Pironon, director of the GeoRessources laboratory at the University of Lorraine, told France 3. The more oxygen decreases, the more the other gaseous species, namely hydrogen will be present.
“Underground ferrous minerals have the ability to separate oxygen from hydrogen in water molecules by absorbing it. In very deep geological layers, there is no more oxygen at all. We then have high chance of finding hydrogen.”
Additional research on other wells
The strong presence of iron minerals in the Lorraine subsoil encouraged Jacques Pinoron to consider with France Bleu the existence of “a real hydrogen factory under our feet”. According to the researchers, the hydrogen content could even exceed 90% at 3000 meters depth so that the reserve could eventually contain around 46 million tonnes of natural hydrogen, which corresponds to more than half of the world’s annual production. hydrogen today.
However, these hypotheses will have to be confirmed by further deeper drilling in the region. It is with this in mind that the FDE submitted an application last March for the granting of an exclusive mining exploration permit known as the “Trois-Évêchés Permit” for the exploration of natural hydrogen (H2) in the mining basin. Lorraine. This request covers an area of 2254 km², in the departments of Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle. The Moselle company also plans to carry out new measurements of hydrogen concentration in three other wells to enrich studies on the mechanisms of formation, transfer and production of white hydrogen in the Lorraine geological context.
Feeding the MosaHyc pipeline to Germany
These studies will make it possible to identify a pilot site on which local production and recovery of natural hydrogen will be initiated in the Grand-Est. But there is still a long way to go on the issue of production to determine how to extract the resource. “With a view to the industrial exploitation of this resource, we must forget the conventional models of exploitation of the gas and oil industry and invent everything”, underlines Jacques Pinoron who gives himself two years to “develop a reliable industry model” . Currently, there is no technology to separate hydrogen from other gases deeper than one kilometer.
“Some people think that there is enough white hydrogen on the planet, in the oceans and in many countries like France to supply the whole planet with hydrogen”, insists Laurent Favre.
The projections remain no less radiant for the Française de l’Energie, which plans to produce white hydrogen continuously without rejecting the slightest gram of CO2. With France 3, the director general of the FDE Antoine Forcinal already anticipates a future major use for the extracted resource: “We are close to the MosaHyc pipeline project which will connect Germany to the Grand Est region in order to supply mainly industrialists and convert them to white hydrogen. This is a very good point because it is not enough to build a pipeline, you still have to fill it.”
