Scientists said on Tuesday that they have developed a way of extracting hydrogen from oil without releasing greenhouse gases - a breakthrough they hailed as a "silver bullet" for cleaner energy and the climate.
Unlike petrol and diesel, hydrogen produces no pollution when burned. It is already used by some auto manufacturers to power vehicles and may also be burned to generate electricity.
But until now, the wide-scale use of hydrogen technology has been prohibited by the high cost of separating it from hydrocarbons.
Currently the vast majority of hydrogen used for vehicles is derived from natural gas, the extraction process of which produces planet-warming methane.
Now a group of Canadian engineers say they have come up with a method of getting hydrogen directly from oil sands and oil fields, while leaving carbon dioxide and methane in the ground.
The team behind the research, which was unveiled at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona, said the technology had the potential to supply Canada's entire electricity requirement for the next 330 years - all without releasing any greenhouse gases.
"Low-cost hydrogen from oil fields with no emissions can power the whole world using mostly existing infrastructure," said Grant Stem, CEO of Proton Technologies, which is commercializing the extraction method.
"This is the silver bullet for clean energy and clean climate."
With global energy demand rising in lockstep with emissions, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change says the world needs to work rapidly to curb greenhouse gases or risk dangerous temperature increases.
Strem said the method could produce hydrogen at between $0.10-0.50 per kilogram, compared with the current production cost of around $2 per kg.
Even abandoned oil fields still contain significant amounts of oil. Strem and the team found that injecting oxygen into the fields raised their underlying temperature, freeing hydrogen that can be filtered from other gases.
"The only product in this process is hydrogen, meaning that the technology is effectively pollution-and emission-free," said Strem.
Experts greeted the possible breakthrough with guarded optimism.
"Making hydrogen from hydrocarbons using oxygen is nothing new: The trick is not releasing the CO2 to the atmosphere," said Jeremy Tomkinson, Company Director and CEO at NNFCC The Bioeconomy Consultants.
Editor:Cherie
