Tuesday, 15 October, 2024 / Edition 29

Last week's AI-focused webinar was a success and SO MUCH FUN! If you missed it, you can register to receive a recording here.

Our two panelists from NVIDIA and ROGII were great, and I cannot express enough gratitude to them! The audience had some fantastic questions as well, so thank you to all who registered, listened, and participated!

I’ll work to incorporate some of the comments and questions we received in these upcoming newsletters, but first, let’s talk about hydrogen!!

Sarah Compton

Editor, Enspired

A Topic That's White Hot...

Fohroni/Shutterstock.com

A promised land of clean energy, and potentially the map to get there, exists in Bourakébougou, Mali, where the world’s first and (thus far) only free-flowing, maybe self-recharging, hydrogen well provides the village nearby with emissions-free electricity.

Context:

• Montreal-based company Hydroma discovered the well in 1987 while looking for water, but the well didn’t produce until 2014.

• The well currently produces around five tonnes of hydrogen annually.

Recent developments: Now, several other similar projects have begun popping up around the world.

• At the close of 2023, one of the largest deposits of hydrogen was discovered in France. It’s estimated to contain 250 million tonnes of hydrogen total.

• Hydroma researchers were scheduled to search for hydrogen in Canada this summer, as much of the country’s terrain is covered in similar rocks to those of the source rocks in Mali.

• Metal mining company Fortescue recently purchased a 39.8 percent interest in Australian company HyTerra for 21.9 million. HyTerra is currently forming an expanded exploration and drilling program at its Nemaha project in Kansas.

• A few weeks ago, a LinkedIn post by Allegra Hosford Scheirer mentioned ocean floor exploring tools (gravity and magnetics) used to find rocks with the potential to house natural hydrogen accumulations.

I snagged an interview with Scheirer, a science research specialist at Stanford University, and the discussion left me with similar feelings geoscientists may have had around the time the Drake Well was drilled: This emerging field has a lot of risks and hopefully as many opportunities.

How hydrogen procurement works:

• Green hydrogen is produced by electrolysis from “green” or renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. This industry, Scheirer says, has nearly collapsed due to the expense of production.

• Hydrogen can also be sourced from methane using steam reforming, and whether or not the CO2 emitted from this process is captured impacts the color associated with it. Still, CO2 capture or not, you’ve got to source the methane for this process.

• Natural hydrogen, called white hydrogen, is the natural accumulation of hydrogen.

Looking back to move forward:

• Since we (petroleum geoscientists) thought hydrogen wouldn’t accumulate, we didn’t look for it.

• It’s possible that even if we had looked for it, we wouldn’t have found it, because it’s likely not in the types of rocks we often sniff around.

• Natural hydrogen likely resides mostly in “hard rocks” like serpentinites you’d find on the ocean floor (hence Scheirer’s use of ocean floor exploration tools to find hydrogen).

More growth is coming: People have built entire companies, especially in our industry, around looking for things others have missed. And more projects searching for white hydrogen are almost surely in the works.

Though the rocks might differ, the basic requirements of a source and trap still apply, and our toolsets from oil and gas make petroleum geoscientists uniquely positioned to help explore for more—and economic—natural hydrogen sources.

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Webinar Q&A Continued: AI in Oil and Gas

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We had some great questions around “where to start” with using AI tools during the recent webinar, so I wanted to hit some highlights from our panelists and share my own thoughts.

Question: How should I start to learn to use AI tools?

Start small: Nefeli Moridis from NVIDIA made a great point to just start with the problem in front of you. Don’t feel any pressure to “start at the beginning.” The field is moving too fast for that, and it’s not necessary anyway.

Use plenty of the resources out there:

• If you thrive with self-directed learning, there are a lot of free resources available. I’ve mentioned in a previous newsletter that you should begin with learning Python, and python.org has a lot of free ways to get you started.

• EdX, MIT, Coursera, NVIDIA, and Microsoft also have free resources that provide more structure. They offer services such as certificates, access to professors and class discussions, assignment review, etc. if you’d prefer not to wing it.

• And there’s always the traditional, brick-and-mortar route. Sign up for classes, certificates, or degrees from your local college or university. This is obviously the most expensive option, but it’s tried and true.

It could be professional development: Make sure you review your benefits through H.R. or your boss, since many companies will pay for at least a little bit of training.

I hope these few tips were a helpful jumping off point, and I encourage you to watch the webinar recording for more information. If you have a specific question, feel free to send in my way by emailing editorial@aapg.org. I may even answer it in a future edition!

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