[Rockhounds] French drillers may have stumbled upon a mammoth hydrogen deposit

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

On the outskirts of the small town of Folschviller in eastern France stand
three nondescript sheds. One of these temporary structures has recently
become a hive of activity due to a continuous stream of visitors, including
scientists, journalists, and the public.

The shed sits above a borehole first drilled in 2006 and houses a gas
measurement system called SysMoG, which was originally developed to
determine the underground methane concentration. While the device did
detect almost pure methane (99 percent) at a depth of 650 meters, probing
further down, the borehole resulted in an unexpected and surprising
discovery: hydrogen in high concentration. “At 1,100 meters, the
concentration of dissolved hydrogen is 14 percent. At 3,000 meters, the
estimated concentration could be as high as 90 percent,” Jacques Pironon,
director of research at GeoRessources lab at the Université de Lorraine,
said.

Based on the estimates of methane resources and the concentration of
hydrogen detected so far, scientists have conjectured that the Lorraine
region in eastern France, of which Folschviller is a part, could contain 46
million tons of white—or naturally produced—hydrogen. That would make it
one of the world’s largest known hydrogen deposits.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/09/french-drillers-may-have-stumbled-upon-a-mammoth-hydrogen-deposit/