A 2025 study from the U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS, mapped out areas around the country with a lot of potential for buried hydrogen, with Michigan identified as a bright spot. That’s because the state sits on top of what’s called the Midcontinent Rift. It’s where the North American continent started splitting apart more than 1 billion years ago, then stopped.
“This represents, potentially, a pathway for which deep hydrogen can come up closer to the surface and be collected and extracted,” Schrenk said.
While it definitely looks promising to use hydrogen for the no-carbon benefits, you do still have to wonder about other environmental impacts. What’s going to happen to when the hydrogen pockets empty? Land subsidence could potentially be a problem, so I think more research about possible side effects is absolutely necessary before any large scale extractions happen.
I have the same concerns over geothermal fracking right now. We’re only willing to find out how much we can disrupt the underlying rock by going too far a few times, deliberating over the acceptable death and damage toll, and then deciding to stop doing that whenever ~40% of the country agrees it’s time to stop.
Yup. Unfortunately under capitalism, it’ll be drill now, worry about the repercussions never.