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The team from the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) took samples of natural hydrogen gas found in One Pute Jaya Village, Morowali Regency, Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, 23 October 2023.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

A global gold rush is underway for a long-overlooked resource that advocates say could play a significant role in the shift away from fossil fuels.

Geologic hydrogen, sometimes referred to as white, gold or natural hydrogen, refers to hydrogen gas that is found in its natural form beneath Earth’s surface. It is thought to be produced by high-temperature reactions between water and iron-ich minerals.

Hydrogen has long been billed as one of many potential energy sources that could play a pivotal role in the energy transition, but most of it is produced using fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, a process that generates significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Green hydrogen, a process that involves splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity, is one exception from what’s known as the hydrogen color rainbow. However, its development has been held back by soaring costs and a challenging economic environment.

It’s within this context that momentum has been building around geologic hydrogen. Exploratory efforts are now underway in countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, France, Spain, Colombia, South Korea and others.

A photo taken on April 27, 2023 shows gauges that are part of the electrolysis plant of the geological hydrogen H2 storage facility ‘Underground Sun Storage’ in Gampern, Upper Austria.

Alex Halada | Afp | Getty Images

Research published earlier this month by Rystad Energy showed that 40 companies were actively searching for geologic hydrogen deposits by the end of last year — up from just 10 in 2020.

The consulting firm, which described the pursuit of geologic hydrogen as a “white gold rush,” said the hype stems from hopes that the untapped resource could be a “gamechanger” in the clean energy transition.

“I would say this is something relatively old and new in a way,” Minh Khoi Le, head of hydrogen research at Rystad Energy, told CNBC via videoconference. “The first project that found hydrogen was a while ago, but it never picked up from there, right? People never seriously tried to go for exploration.”

An accidental discovery

The initial discovery of geologic hydrogen occurred in 1987 in a small village roughly 60 kilometers (37.3 miles) from Mali’s capital of Bamako. A failed attempt to drill for water by Canada’s Hydroma hit upon an abundance of odorless gas that was inadvertently found to be highly flammable. The well was soon plugged and forgotten.

Almost two decades later, subsequent exploration at the site found geologic reservoirs containing nearly pure hydrogen gas. Today, the resource is being used to provide power to the Malian village of Bourakébougou.

Last year, researchers found what may be the world’s largest geologic hydrogen deposit to date in France’s eastern Lorraine region. The unexpected discovery further boosted interest in its clean energy potential.

A man is seen in a pirogue on the Niger River in Bamako, Mali on January 26, 2024.

Ousmane Makaveli | Afp | Getty Images

Geoffrey Ellis, a research geologist at the Energy Resources Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), told CNBC that there could be a vast amount of naturally occurring hydrogen buried in underground reservoirs around the world.

Based on current understanding, Ellis said there is likely to be about 5 trillion metric tons of geologic hydrogen in Earth’s interior, although most of this is likely to be too deep or too far offshore to be economically recovered.

Nonetheless, Ellis said that just a few percent of geologic hydrogen recovery might well be enough to supply all projected demand for 200 years.

“The potential is there but we’ve got to do the work,” Ellis said via videoconference, adding that more investment is necessary to accelerate early-stage research and development.

The U.S. Department of Energy last month announced $20 million to support 16 projects nationwide to advance the natural subsurface generation of hydrogen. It said the energy resource could potentially produce zero carbon emissions when burned or used in a fuel cell.

If some of these numbers that certain institutes, like the USGS, about the potential volume that you can extract … come true, it can actually play quite a significant role.

Minh Khoi Le

Head of hydrogen research at Rystad Energy

“Natural hydrogen has created a lot of excitement at the moment but in terms of potential I think it is still a little bit uncertain because none of these projects have actually started producing or extracting hydrogen — except for that one in Mali,” Rystad Energy’s Le told CNBC.

Le said there were still “a lot of question marks around the whole story about natural hydrogen,” but there appeared to be “some substance” behind the hype.

“If some of these numbers that certain institutes, like the USGS, about the potential volume that you can extract … come true, it can actually play quite a significant role,” he added.

‘Sometimes we want to run before we can walk’

Not everyone’s convinced. Some have expressed skepticism about the clean energy potential of natural hydrogen.

“Sometimes we want to run before we can walk,” Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, an energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told CNBC via videoconference.

The first near-term priority for hydrogen, Jaller-Makarewicz said, should be looking for ways to replace so-called grey hydrogen with green hydrogen.

Grey hydrogen — produced using natural gas and the most common form of hydrogen production — leads to large greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, the Carbon Trust has estimated that less than 1% of current global hydrogen production is emission-free.

“Don’t confuse the idea of ‘we need to find the solution’ with the reality,” Jaller-Makarewicz said.

This photograph shows Lhyfe floating hydrogen production unit (R) past the Floatgen floating wind turbine (L), at the SEM-REV experimentation site off Le Croisic, western France, on June 26, 2023.

Sebastien Salom-gomis | Afp | Getty Images

Separately, the Hydrogen Science Coalition, a group of academics, scientists and engineers seeking to bring an evidence-based view to hydrogen’s role in the energy transition, said in a recent blog post that geologic hydrogen discoveries currently supply the world with less daily energy than a single wind turbine.

What’s more, the coalition says there are environmental concerns about the extraction process, and transportation and distribution challenges mean geologic hydrogen is not likely to be found where it is needed most.

“Considering findings to date, what we know about geologic hydrogen systems, and the fact that favourable settings appear rare, the odds of finding geologic hydrogen that can be extracted at the scale of large natural gas developments looks relatively slim,” the coalition said on March 14.

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Biden’s $635M good-bye, Trump’s DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

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January 15, 2025

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Biden's 5M good-bye, Trump's DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

On today’s episode of Quick Charge we explore the uncertainty around the future of EV incentives, the roles different stakeholders will play in shaping that future, and our friend Stacy Noblet from energy consulting firm ICF stops by to share her take on what lies ahead.

We’ve got a couple of different articles and studies referenced in this forward-looking interview, and I’ve done my best to link to all of them below. If I missed one, let me know in the comments.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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In December, EV sales were still up and incentives were still sweet – Kelley Blue Book

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January 15, 2025

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In December, EV sales were still up and incentives were still sweet – Kelley Blue Book

December-EV-salesKelley
Chevy Equinox EV (Source: GM)

EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.

December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.

Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.

EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.

(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)

Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.

However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.

What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.

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Tesla claims Cybertruck is ‘best-selling electric pickup’ without even confiming sales

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January 15, 2025

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Tesla claims Cybertruck is 'best-selling electric pickup' without even confiming sales

Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.

There’s a lot of context needed here.

As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.

Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.

For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:

You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.

There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.

This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.

Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:

It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.

Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.

However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.

First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.

However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.

Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.

Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.

Electrek’s Take

Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.

Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.

Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.

Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.

The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.

As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.

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