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Scientists said Tuesday that they had developed a way to extract hydrogen from the oil without releasing greenhouse gases – a breakthrough that they hailed as a "solution." miracle "for cleaner energy and climate.
Unlike gasoline and diesel, hydrogen does not produce pollution when it is burned. It is already used by some car manufacturers to power vehicles and can also be used to produce electricity.
But until now, the large-scale deployment of hydrogen technology was prohibited by the high cost of its separation of hydrocarbons.
Currently, the vast majority of hydrogen used in vehicles comes from natural gas, whose extraction process produces methane, which warms the planet.
Now, a group of Canadian engineers say they have developed a method to get hydrogen directly from oil sands and oil fields, while leaving carbon dioxide and methane in the soil.
The research team, which was unveiled at the Goldschmidt conference on geochemistry in Barcelona, said the technology could meet all of Canada's electricity needs for the next 330 years, all without release greenhouse gases.
"Low-cost hydrogen from emission-free oilfields can feed the world using mainly existing infrastructure," said Grant Strem, CEO of Proton Technologies AG, the Swiss company that markets the technology. extraction.
"It's the miracle solution for clean energy and clean climate."
As global energy demand rises as emissions rise, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world needs to act quickly to reduce greenhouse gases. or endanger dangerous temperatures.
Strem said the method could produce hydrogen between $ 0.10 and $ 0.50 per kilo, compared with current production cost of about $ 2 per kilogram.
Even abandoned oil fields still contain significant amounts of oil. Strem and the team found that oxygen injection into the fields increased the underlying temperature, releasing hydrogen that could be filtered from other gases.
"The only product in this process is hydrogen, which means that the technology is effectively free of pollution and emissions," Strem said.
Experts welcomed this progress with cautious optimism.
"Producing hydrogen from hydrocarbons using oxygen is nothing new. The problem is not to release CO2 in the atmosphere, "said Jeremy Tomkinson, director of the company and CEO of NNFCC, The Bioeconomy Consultants.
"It would be really exciting if they had found a way … to make sure the carbon gases stay locked up underground – letting them go into the atmosphere would not make any difference to burning the oil." above ground with a much lower energy burden. "
Professor Brian Horsfield of the German Geoscience Research Center for GFZ in Potsdam said extensive field trials would be needed to see how the system works on an industrial scale.
He nonetheless described the project as "very innovative and exciting.
"The deterioration of oil infrastructure should now take a new breath."
AFP
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