Meet the boffins and buccaneers drilling for hydrogen

“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.” So wrote Jules Verne in 1875. Visionaries and cranks have long searched for cheap ways to manufacture hydrogen, with limited success. Now the world is once more hyperventilating about the simplest element, but with a twist. Some modern visionaries don’t want to make it; they want to drill for it. A rush is starting for colourless gold.

Unlike actual gold, hydrogen is spectacularly useful. As a fuel, in theory it could power cars, buses, planes and ships. It could be burned in power plants, generating electricity. And because, unlike fossil fuels, it emits no greenhouse gases, it could help curb climate change (so long as it is cleanly obtained).