Speaker
Description
Naturally occurring, geologically sourced hydrogen has recently emerged as a promising low-carbon energy resource, prompting growing exploration and evaluation efforts across regions including North America, Australia and European Union. Despite this momentum, current cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) assessment approaches rely heavily on retrospective field data, limiting their applicability for early-stage project screening, system design, and policy alignment.
In this study, we present a simulation-informed, system-level analysis framework that explicitly couples subsurface reservoir behavior with surface production and processing configurations. By integrating techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) within a unified modeling platform, we simultaneously quantify the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) and associated GHG emission intensity (GHG EI) for both naturally accumulated hydrogen resources and engineered stimulation-based production pathways.
Results indicate that hydrogen production from natural accumulations can achieve an LCOH of approximately US$0.95 per kilogram with a corresponding GHG EI of ~0.34 kg CO2e per kilogram when accounting for incentives such as the U.S. 45V hydrogen production tax credit. In contrast, stimulation-driven pathways exhibit substantially higher costs and emissions, driven primarily by increased energy and material demands required to induce serpentinization reactions.
Overall, this work addresses a critical gap in early-stage geological hydrogen evaluation and provides a decision-oriented analytical framework to support technology developers, policymakers, and investors in assessing the viability and climate performance of geological hydrogen within the evolving hydrogen economy.
| Country | United States |
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