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Welcome back to Current Climate. The realization that clean, carbon-free hydrogen is produced naturally underground rocked the energy world a few years ago, with the U.S. Energy Department estimating there could be trillions of metric tons sitting in underground pockets around the world. The challenge has been finding large enough deposits that drilling for the universe’s most abundant element is worth the effort.

Koloma, an energy startup that emerged from stealth four years ago, has been the leader in the hunt for geologic hydrogen, backed by $400 million from investors including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Amazon. It’s been scouring the globe for promising sites, sampling rock and geologic conditions at sites in the U.S., Australia and other parts of the world the CEO Pete Johnson declined to identify. But last week, its attention shifted to the Philippines, where the country’s government granted it access to develop potential hydrogen well sites in Zambales Province, west of Manila. That region, once home to two massive U.S. military bases, is geologically active and famous for Mount Pinatubo, the powerful volcano that devastated the area when it erupted in 1991.

“The Philippines has the largest natural hydrogen seeps anywhere on the planet,” Johnson said. “We have reason to believe that these seeps are connected to very large accumulations.”

The 4,100-square-kilometer sections of Zambales that Koloma has permission to explore aren’t “right on the shoulders” of Pinatubo, but in the general region, he said. Though it may turn out to be Koloma’s first commercial production site, confirming how much hydrogen can be extracted there will take at least two years, he said. If Koloma finds the quantity it’s looking for, it would be a breakthrough for the natural hydrogen industry and a huge help to the Philippines, which is heavily reliant on imported energy.

“It’s the fastest-growing country in Asia, with an economy that's growing really fast and modernizing really fast. And their incremental unit of power is made by burning diesel,” he said. “If your alternative is importing diesel or expensive LNG and you've got hydrogen that competes head-to-head against LNG costs, that's going to make sense. The next step........

© Forbes