Was Jules Verne Right About an Inexhaustible Source of Energy?

The Quest for Energy’s Holy Grail

By Gary J. Wells, Sr., 1/19/2024

“I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen, which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light.” Jules Verne 1875.

Was Jules Verne wrong, or was he just ahead of his time by almost 150 years? Today, if we ask the Magic Eightball these questions, we likely will get “ask again later.” However, Faraday’s work on electrolysis in the 1830s doesn’t help Verne’s case of being a clairvoyant, but it does boost his case as someone on top of the scientific news of his day. On the other side of the ledger, fossil fuels were in the process of displacing whale oil as the predominant energy source after Edwin Drake succeeded in drilling the Titusville, Pennsylvanian, oil well in 1859, perhaps eclipsing the thought of extracting energy from water.

To understand where we stand, we’ll consider how we acquire and utilize hydrogen and oxygen. While we use both elements commercially, replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen as the go-to energy is society’s current focus, and that will also be the primary focus here. Finally, considering today’s status of our never-ending scientific curiosity, we appear to be near the end of the wait for a judgment of Verne’s statement, resulting in either energy flowing like water in an environmentally friendly manner or, perhaps even better, flowing without the upfront need of water.

Is the Wait Over?

Since 1875, several techniques have been developed to produce hydrogen and oxygen commercially. Unfortunately, the most common ways we currently use don’t fit Mr. Verne’s prediction because extracting hydrogen and oxygen from water isn’t the starting point. For example, over 95 percent of commercial hydrogen production utilizes hydrocarbons as the starting point, emitting atmospheric carbon in the process. A typical way of producing oxygen involves cooling and compressing air until it becomes a liquid. The liquid is then allowed to reheat slowly. As the different air components begin to warm, they turn back into gasses one by one, allowing each gas to be siphoned off separately. See NREL for research trying to find alternative ways of producing hydrogen. Once commercial hydrogen and oxygen are produced, their uses include hydrogen: refining oil, fertilizer manufacturing, food production, and fuel cells; oxygen: steel manufacture, healthcare, water treatment, and chemical production.

However, Mr. Verne’s forecast does describe one method of isolating hydrogen and oxygen — electrolysis — where electricity is used to separate water into its components. So, from an environmental perspective, this is a preferred, green method if the electricity used comes from a renewable source. It should be noted that a fuel cell is electrolysis in reverse. With electrolysis, one starts with water and electricity, ending up with hydrogen and oxygen, while a fuel cell begins with hydrogen and oxygen, ending up with water and electricity. Unfortunately, the cost of the large quantity of electricity required for electrolysis poses a problem. Fortunately, much research is being conducted to reduce the cost with the goal of becoming competitive with the less environmentally friendly commercial techniques currently using fossil fuels.

However, what if we could eliminate the need to extract hydrogen from other compounds? That is, if we can find a source of natural hydrogen that offers the potential to significantly lower the costs of acquiring commercial hydrogen and eliminating many environmental problems in the process, then the outdated idiom “cooking with gas” would be even more outdated.

Drilling for Hydrogen

While known by a few for some time but mostly ignored by the majority for even longer, geologic or natural hydrogen gas deposits (H2) are available and buried in much the same way fossil fuels are, offering the potential for a clean energy source. While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, the common belief was that most or all hydrogen found in nature was locked in molecules with other elements (e.g., fossil fuels) due in part to hydrogen’s propensity to share its one electron with other elements, thereby completing its outer electron shell in the process. Of course, water (H2O) is a prime example of this electron sharing along with ammonia (NH3) used in agricultural fertilizer. Nonetheless, hydrogen has been found in nature as H2 without bonding with other elements. In this case, each pair of hydrogen atoms share their single electrons, allowing both to complete their outer electron shell.

To aid in natural hydrogen exploration, the USGS is developing a survey of likely hydrogen deposits in the lower 48. This survey may entice entrepreneurs to utilize this neglected capability as we move away from fossil fuels toward hydrogen as the energy source of choice, eliminating the need for expensive electrolysis for many of our future green energy applications. Meanwhile, pure oxygen can be generated via electrolysis, perhaps utilizing the hydrogen we “mine” in a fuel cell to generate the electricity necessary for the electrolysis.

It looks like it’s nearly time to try the Magic Eightball again.