Why engineers in Alberta think they've found a way for the oilsands to produce clean fuel

As the world reaches for cleaner energy, hydrogen has long been viewed with a lot ofhope.

Often called the fuel of the future, the gas can be used to generate electricity and power vehicles.It produceswater not carbon when burned.

But among its challengesis the economics of producing the gas ina large-scale and environmentally friendly way. One of the least expensive methods for doing so, for example, usingmethane,has drawn scrutiny for its carbon emissions.

Now, engineers in Alberta believe they could have an answer a method capable of extracting hydrogen from underground resources like oilsands deposits while leaving the carbonemissions it produces below the surface.

The team turned heads with their workthis summerat theGoldschmidtGeochemistry Conference in Barcelona, making headlines from Britainto Japan.

Hydrogen can be found in many differentorganic compounds, includinghydrocarbons like oil and gas.

One of the most common ways of producing hydrogen fromnatural gas is called steam-methane reforming, which uses methane and very hot steamunder pressure to createa chemical reactionfreeingthe hydrogen and capturing it in special filters. The waste emissions are carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

"That's been an industrial technology for over 80 [years]," said Grant Strem, CEO of Proton Technologies, the private company commercializing the new process for creating hydrogen.

"What we're doing is very similar, but the big difference is, we're using the ground as a reaction vessel, so our capital cost is a lot lower, and instead of buying natural gas to fuel it, we use the unswept oil in the reservoir as our fuel."

How the process works

Through lab work and small-scalefield testing, the researchers say they foundinjecting oxygen into the fields raises the temperatureand creates a reaction that frees the hydrogen.

"You can envision that the reservoir is simply a hot, bubbling mix of oil, which some fraction of it is now combusting,"saidprofessor Ian Gates, fromhis lab at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering.

"And as it is doing so, it simply keeps producing more and more hydrogen as a consequence of its reactions."

Gates saidpalladium alloy filters then allow the hydrogen to come to surface while filtering out the other gases, like carbon dioxide or hydrogen sulfide, which stay below ground.

Conceptually, Gates said, the oil in the reservoir could later be produced.

But the expectation istheprocess can draw up "huge" quantities of hydrogen relatively inexpensively.

And Canada would be able to tap its resources.

"There's a lot of work towardrenewables, hydro and all those other things, but you still have a huge amount of assets, chemical energy, stored in oil," Gates said.

"What this is about is how do we make use of oil reservoirs or even gas reservoirs and get pure, clean energy out of it."

Gates said after proving the concept in the field last year, they will soon begin testing to see how it works on a larger scale. A semi-commercial pilot project is in the works for next year.

Proton Technologiesisworking with an engineering firm to design a scaled-up version of their demonstration facility at its site inKerrobert, Sask.

Now, the challenge willbe to see how the process works in the fieldwith all of the complexitiesof a reservoir.

"Does [the hydrogen]really transport as effectively as you predicted in your models, as you've estimated from the lab?" he said."Everything so far is supportive. Yes, we should be able to access it, but we do need to verify that."

Reservoirs that are open to the surface or very shallow would not likely be good candidates for such a system, he said.

Field testing needed

After the team'swork was presented attheGoldschmidtconference in Barcelona last month, some experts responded withcautious optimism, emphasizing the need forextensive field testing of the technology to assess how well it couldworkon an industrialscale and over time.

In Canada, Warren Mabee,the director of the Queen's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, said having a large source of hydrogen that's relatively easy to access would be an important step toward a cleaner energy future.

"There are some technologies that can use hydrogen really well," Mabeetold CBC News.

"It's very, very clean as long as there's not a lot of greenhouse gas associated with producing it, which, in this case, it sounds like there isn't.Which is a wonderful technology, if we've gotten to that point."

Significant research is being done on developing new ways ofproducinghydrogen, including microbes and solar technologies, among others.

China, Japan and South Korea have big plans to put millions of hydrogen-powered vehicles on their roads in the coming decade.

Hydrogen has had false starts

Hydrogen was also a keytopic of conversation during a July meeting hosted by theInternational Energy Agency. The Paris-based body, which advises on energy policy to its 30 member states, saidhydrogen was enjoying "unprecedented momentum," offering ways to decarbonizea range of sectors, including long-haul transportation.

"But it has experienced false starts in the past and still faces big challenges to scale up infrastructure and bring down costs," the IEA said in a release.

A lack of refueling stations forhydrogen fuel cell vehicles is often pointed to as a major barrier to the technology taking off.

The delivery process for the hydrogen including pipelines, storage facilities, compressors and trucks is alsoa work in progress when it comes to widespread consumer use.

Gates and Stremhope they can do their part to move things forward.

"I'm very motivated by the idea of taking these [hydrocarbon] resources, which are of incredible value to Canada, and pivoting their use towardhydrogen production and ultra-clean energy outcomes," Gates said.

"Inmy view, this is something that's quite exciting."