World's first drilling project to seek natural hydrogen hits a snag

In mid-March, workers began pumping water out of a 3.5-kilometre-deep hole drilled in the middle of a Nebraska corn field. It would have been an unremarkable scene if they had been in search of oil or natural gas. But the well is the first in the world drilled in search of naturally occurring hydrogen, which some think could become a significant source of clean fuel.

“We want to make a new discovery from scratch,” says Viacheslav Zgonnik at Natural Hydrogen Energy, the …