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Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. We commonly use it to manufacture fertilizer and to make certain foods shelf-stable, among other applications. What’s more, the element doesn’t produce planet-warming greenhouse gases when burned, so it’s considered a tantalizing source of “clean energy.”
But humans are currently generating most of our hydrogen from fossil fuels; we release roughly one billion U.S. tons of carbon dioxide to create 107 million U.S. tons of the sought-after substance. Hydrogen can be produced from renewable energy sources, too, but the process is often costly.
The Earth creates its own natural hydrogen, called “white hydrogen,” via chemical reactions in the crust. Now, using data collected at a metal mine in Ontario, Canada, for over a decade, researchers have found that the site annually discharges enough hydrogen to power more than 400 households each year.
More than 70 percent of the continental crust can potentially produce hydrogen, so accessing the rock layer via mines might be a way to obtain a substantial amount of the element, according to a study published May 18 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The work “suggests there are critical untapped opportunities to access a domestic source of cost-effective energy produced from the rocks beneath our feet,” says study co-author Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a geochemist at the University of Toronto in Canada, in a statement.
Scientists have known that the crust creates hydrogen through two main processes. One happens when water—made of hydrogen and oxygen—reacts with iron- or magnesium-rich rocks to release the sought-after element, and the other occurs when the decay of radioactive elements splits water.
Past research has suggested that trillions of U.S. tons of hydrogen might be hiding underground, and many start-ups are beginning to search for clean fuel there. “White hydrogen is the new flavor, something that’s being looked at around the world,” Terry Coughlan, CEO of Mongoose Mining, a mineral exploration company pivoting to white hydrogen, tells the Chronicle Herald’s Glenn MacDonald.
However, evaluations of natural hydrogen quantities are “entirely theoretical [or] based on modeling,” Sherwood Lollar tells Chemical and Engineering News’ Prachi Patel.
So, she and Oliver Warr, a geochemist at the University of Ottawa in Canada, measured the presence of natural hydrogen at Kidd Creek Mine. It’s one of the longest-running and deepest mines in North America and has metals including copper, zinc and silver. They collected groundwater from 35 boreholes located between about 1.2 miles and 1.8 miles below the surface. Some were sampled multiple times, and three were sampled regularly for 7 to 11 years.
Analysis of hydrogen gas dissolved in the water revealed that the examined boreholes release an average of 0.009 U.S. tons of the resource each year. Extrapolating that to the mine’s nearly 15,000 boreholes indicates that the entire site releases more than 150 million U.S. tons per year, which could provide 4.7 million kilowatts of energy.
This “rigorous quantitative data over a decade … is novel and important to have,” Geoffrey Ellis, a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey who was not involved in the study, tells C&EN. Mines release hydrogen into the air, he notes, so, “rather than vent it, why not utilize it?”
The studied mine and most others in Canada are in the Canadian Shield, a huge geologic formation spanning the eastern half of the country and part of the U.S. that houses some of the planet’s oldest rocks. Processes that created the landform’s rocks made them rich with metals, and the prolonged chemical activity within them has filled them with white hydrogen.
“Natural hydrogen is produced in the same rocks where Canada’s nickel, copper and diamond deposits are found, and that are currently under exploration for critical minerals such as lithium, helium, chromium and cobalt,” Warr says in the statement. “The co-location of mining resources and hydrogen production and use mitigates the need for long transportation routes to market, for hydrogen storage and major hydrogen infrastructure development.”
Currently, white hydrogen is actively extracted only at a site in the West African country of Mali, reported BBC’s Chloe Farand in 2025. The gas was accidentally discovered there in 1987 after a well-digger’s cigarette triggered a tiny explosion. The element now provides energy for the local village of Bourakebougou.
This article was originally published on Smithsonian Magazine. Read the full story here: This Canadian Mine Might Release Enough Natural Hydrogen Each Year to Power 400 Homes, Hinting at an Untapped Source of Clean Energy © 2026 Smithsonian Institution.
