Grapevine

Could natural, underground hydrogen be a gusher of clean energy in Alaska?

Alaska geologist Mark Myers hopes that underground reserves of hydrogen could fuel a new state energy industry.

His dreams were launched by a well drilled in the African country of Mali that yields enough hydrogen to fuel a village electric power plant.

Myers is hopeful that hydrogen deposits also exist in Alaska in a metamorphic rock called serpentinite, which is often found in subduction zones where one plate of the Earth's crust is pushed underneath another.

"Do we have those source rocks?" Myers asked. "The answer is all over the place. But the big question is how much of this hydrogen gets created—and preserved. We don't know."

Myers' push to find hydrogen reservoirs is driven by his concerns about climate change spurred by fossil fuel combustion. He is convinced that scientific models of a warming Earth are accurate, and justify a concerted effort to move off coal, oil and gas.