Companies are drilling exploratory wells to look for geologic hydrogen thousands of feet below Iowa's surface. This photo shows a well near Vincent, just northeast of Fort Dodge, in September 2024. Photo provided by Ryan Clark, Iowa Geological Survey.
Quick look
As companies search for geologic hydrogen deep below Iowa's farms, towns and cities, university scientists are starting to discuss how they could help the state develop a hydrogen economy.
AMES, Iowa - The geologists spoke in apocalyptic terms about Iowa's distant past:
"A rift developed deep in the Earth, magma came up and tried to split the continent apart," said Elizabeth Swanner, a professor of Earth, atmosphere and climate at Iowa State University. "This happened about a billion years ago in what is now Iowa, spreading from Kansas and Nebraska, then up and around Minnesota and Michigan."
Yes, said Ryan Clark, the associate state geologist for energy and minerals with the Iowa Geological Survey based at the University of Iowa, there was molten rock flowing across Iowa.
"We don't think of Iowa having volcanoes," he said. "But a billion years ago this rift ran right through Iowa."
This rift, now known as the Midcontinent Rift System, formed when "the North American continent almost ripped in half," Clark wrote in an essay for the December 2024 IGS Geode, the Iowa Geological Survey's annual report.
That magma cooled and crystallized into iron-rich rocks that were buried by thousands of feet of younger sedimentary rock and eventually by glacial sediments. Clark describes them as "mafic igneous rocks that contain the mineral olivine, an iron-magnesium silicate."
Iowa has a lot of those black rocks thousands of feet below farms, towns and cities. When hot groundwater mixes with them, a chemical reaction called serpentinization causes the iron to bond with oxygen from water molecules, releasing hydrogen gas underground. That gas is known as geologic hydrogen.
Now, in what one headline called a "hydrogen rush," a few companies are beginning to drill exploratory wells, take seismic readings for subsurface mapping and otherwise look for geologic hydrogen under Iowa.
If stores of geologic hydrogen are found trapped underground or can be stimulated by pumping water down to the iron-rich rock, that could be the beginning of a clean hydrogen economy for the state.
Geologic hydrogen could be a source of clean energy powering fuel cells which mix hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity while exhausting heat and pure water vapor. Geologic hydrogen could also be used as a local feedstock for fertilizer production, a valuable commodity for Iowa farmers. It also has uses in industry and transportation.
Scientists at Iowa's research universities are starting to discuss how researchers could help develop a hydrogen economy.
Blue on the 'prospectivity map'
Geoffrey Ellis, a research geologist with the Central Energy Resources Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey and a hydrogen expert, started with two charts showing global hydrogen supplies of today and tomorrow.
He spoke to about 40 people - including Iowa State President David Cook and other university administrators, faculty, staff, students and state agency representatives - as part of an April research workshop organized by Swanner and called, "Hydrogen Opportunities for Iowa."
Ellis' charts showed big gaps between actual green hydrogen production (that's the energy-intensive synthesis of hydrogen using renewable wind or solar power to split water molecules) and announced projects and goals. A January 2025 research paper published by Nature Energy estimates it would take $1.3 trillion of global subsidies to close the gap.
It would be much cheaper to harvest geologic hydrogen, Ellis said. And that would have a much lower carbon footprint.
But what kind of resource is there? And, how much does Iowa have?
Until 1987, the geological understanding was that the hydrogen molecule was too tiny to be trapped and stored in underground deposits. But then, while drilling for water near a village in West Africa's Mali, hydrogen came out of the ground and has been used to generate electricity for the residents. It was clear evidence hydrogen could naturally accumulate underground.
Decades later, Ellis flashed a slide with a map of the U.S. lower 48. It was mostly green through the northeast, down the Atlantic coast, around to South Texas then throughout the far West. There was lots of blue in the middle, with some darker blues throughout the Midwest, including a wide line from southwest Iowa to north-central Iowa.
This was the country's first map of potential areas for geologic hydrogen. The blue - the darker the better - showed the regions with the necessary geological conditions for hydrogen accumulation.
"The map, which will continue to be updated as science and exploration progress, is an important first step in understanding a resource with potential to be a significant future energy resource for the U.S.," says a geological survey news release announcing the map in January 2025.
Ellis then reported on an earlier paper he co-authored (published in December 2024 by Science Advances) that calculated if 2% of the planet's most-likely estimate of geologic hydrogen could be harvested, that would be about twice as much energy as all the proven natural gas reserves around the world.
Be ready, in case
Iowa State's Swanner, just after Ellis' visit to the Iowa State campus, updated a 13-page document she's been sharing around campus.
The title?
"Geological hydrogen is coming to (from) Iowa - let's make sure ISU is ready."
"Since 2022," Swanner's document begins, "Iowa's deep rocks have been under exploration for geological hydrogen with momentum building rapidly. This momentum reflects both global growth in the hydrogen industry and increasing recognition of the role geological hydrogen will play in the hydrogen economy, as well as unique opportunities in Iowa."
Swanner's background includes graduate studies with Alexis Templeton at the University of Colorado Boulder, a geomicrobiologist who has studied the serpentinization reactions that produce hydrogen from rock. Swanner's own research includes studies of microbial production of hydrogen and methane, particularly in small, deep lakes containing a lot of iron and very little oxygen.
Swanner said her document and work to bring Ellis to campus reflects the realization that "my professional network is getting more serious about geological hydrogen as a real thing."
If it is real, she said the state's research universities have the necessary expertise in engineering, chemistry, materials science, geology, logistics and economics to help develop a hydrogen economy.
"My professional network is getting more serious about geological hydrogen as a real thing."
Elizabeth Swanner
Questions and opportunities
Swanner stood before the research workshop and asked the mix of people and expertise at each table to discuss two basic questions about the possibilities of geologic hydrogen for the state.
1. "What are the fundamental questions that need to be answered for a hydrogen economy to develop in Iowa?"
The attendees - whose hydrogen interests included energy, economic development, natural recovery, storage, the bioeconomy, industrial applications and regulatory issues - offered initial thoughts, according to compiled results:
- "Is hydrogen present in Iowa, where is it located, and what types of source rocks or reservoirs exist?"
- "How can hydrogen be extracted safely, economically, and efficiently - including natural vs. stimulated production?"
- "What environmental, landowner, and regulatory considerations must be addressed (e.g., mineral rights, seismic effects, gas migration)?"
And 2. "What applications and opportunities do you see from a hydrogen economy in Iowa?"
- "Is the current infrastructure adequate for long-duration energy storage and emerging technologies, or does it require major upgrades?"
- "What economic benefits and workforce opportunities could arise from expanding these energy and industrial capabilities?"
- "How can cheap ammonia production and related technologies support existing industries while positioning the region as a leader in new ones?"
Knowledge gaps
From the late 1950s to the '70s, a natural gas company searched northeast Webster County, not far from Fort Dodge, for underground reservoirs that could store natural gas for winter heating. (Iowa has four such reservoirs that are filled with gas during the summer and emptied during the winter.) The company tested gas samples from different wells in 1969 and one measured 96% hydrogen, said Joe Honings, a hydrogeologist with the Iowa Geological Survey.
Clark, also of the state survey, said that legacy information is one reason he believes companies are looking for geologic hydrogen in that part of the state.
Now that several companies are actively looking for geologic hydrogen under Iowa, Clark, Honings and Matthew Graesch, a senior environmental specialist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources whose work includes drilling permits and any eventual hydrogen production, are trying to raise awareness of the potential resource.
So, they took the time to attend the research workshop at Iowa State and join a video call that covered a lot of questions.
If geologic hydrogen is found, will the state be ready? Are there adequate regulations? (Legislators, for example, in 2024 broadened the state's definition of regulatable "gas" from "natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons" to "naturally occurring gases," a change that covers hydrogen.) What about the rights of property owners, who, according to Iowa law, have property rights to the center of the earth? What drilling data and samples must companies share with the state? And how long can they keep information to themselves?
Clark said one of the companies, as required by current regulations, recently dropped off a box of core samples from exploratory drilling.
"There's literally a Ph.D. in that box," he said.
Without proven oil or gas reserves, Iowa doesn't have a long history of drilling at the depths of the Midcontinent Rift System or the related Northeast Iowa Intrusive Complex, which could be 3,000 feet to 20,000 feet below the surface. Honings said that has created significant knowledge gaps for the state "because we don't have subsurface data like Texas, Louisianna and Oklahoma."
The data don't have to be all about hydrogen. Honings said the information could also be useful for water exploration and scientific study.
If hydrogen is found thousands of feet below Iowa's surface, Graesch said there will be opportunities for landowners, communities and the state.
"Hydrogen has a ready market," he said. "You can sell it. There will always be people who want to buy it for energy or to make fertilizer."
There could also be opportunities for the state's scientists: "We're in a race to see something based here that's in a science as old as geology," Graesch said. "That's exciting."
"There's literally a Ph.D. in that box."
Ryan Clark
It will take research investments
Peter Dorhout, Iowa State's vice president for research, said Iowa State could help support the development of an emerging hydrogen economy in the state or region.
"Research universities like Iowa State should be engaged in the development and advancement of new technologies and work to support any economies that evolve," he said.
One example is Iowa State's education, research and outreach to support Iowa farmers and the state's agricultural economy.
"That's what we do," Dorhout said. "That's what a land-grant university does."
Hydrogen, though a tiny molecule of two atoms, presents big technological challenges for effective economic development. Even storage and transportation are issues.
"Hydrogen can work itself into metals, causing them to turn brittle and fail," Dorhout said. "And so, energy companies can't run hydrogen through their existing pipelines or load it on a typical tanker truck. That represents opportunity for R&D investments from everyone involved."
Despite the challenges, he added, "Hydrogen will be an important fuel of the future."
"If and when hydrogen becomes an Iowa resource," Dorhout said, "Iowa State researchers will play a role in hydrogen research and development as we have in so many areas for the Iowa economy."
