Aragon could have the solution to the great problem of clean mobility: a hydrogen well

With diesel and gasoline condemned to death in Europe and the multiple challenges posed by the electric car, hydrogen has been postulated as one of the best alternatives for the future of the automotive industry.

More and more manufacturers are working on fuel cell cars or hydrogen-powered combustion engines. But the problem of always remains unresolved: how to obtain green hydrogen in a viable way.

Cheaper than green hydrogen

Of all the types of hydrogen that exist, green is the most interesting because its process of obtaining it through electrolysis is completely sustainable thanks to the use of renewable energy and does not generate emissions. However, it is also the most expensive.

Its cost is expected to drop as the prices of renewable energies and electrolysers drop, and it also contributes to this as more and more money is invested in its development and in the infrastructure necessary to produce it on a massive scale, such as the plant that Cummins is building in Guadalajara or the two production centers that the multinational MAERSK intends to open in Spain.

But everything is easier when there is a reserve of pure hydrogen, the only one that does not need to be produced from other elements and is ready for commercial use. One of these deposits is in a town in Mali, in Africa, and it seems that there is another in Spain, specifically in the province of Huesca .

According to the ICEX Spain news portal, it is the first natural hydrogen well to be found in Europe, specifically in Barbastro and Monzón . The deposit was discovered in the 1960s, but it is now that a company has decided to exploit it.

It is the Spanish-British company Helios Aragón PTE . On June 1, 2020, it received two licenses for the exploration of hydrogen and helium in this field for a period of six years.

Later, in August 2021, Helios Aragón and the regional government signed a memorandum of intent that “values ​​the Helios project for its ability to lead to the production of low-cost, low-carbon hydrogen and to boost the Spanish economy. of hydrogen”.

The objective of Helios Aragón PTE is to carry out an investment of 900 million euros to commercially exploit Huesca's hydrogen from 2028. The company's plans include creating 400 direct jobs and, according to El Confidencial, the deposit it would be enough to produce 1.1 million tons of pure hydrogen .

But before that happens, the company must solve a problem: Law 7/2021, of May 20, 2021, on climate change and energy transition, stipulates in its article 9 that new exploration authorizations cannot be granted in national territory, hydrocarbon research permits or exploitation concessions for them. And this legislation considers natural hydrogen to be a hydrocarbon.

For this reason, Helios must obtain a special permit from the Government of Aragon and the Government of Spain to carry out the first drilling in 2024 in order to explore this deposit. The next step would be for Spain to follow in the footsteps of France and consider that natural hydrogen is an exception in the aforementioned climate change law in order to exploit it.

Once this is done, Helios could exploit the deposit to extract the 1.1 tons of hydrogen found in Huesca for decades. He should do it with conventional techniques, never fracking.

By not requiring an electrolysis process, like green hydrogen, natural hydrogen would be much cheaper on a commercial level. Given that price is one of the big drawbacks of cleaner hydrogen, with this field and others like it spread around the world, a step forward could be taken to use this energy on a large scale.