Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
- Magnetite iron ore produces oxygen when exposed to water under extreme temperatures and pressures, and the northern Pilbara region in Western Australia happens to be filled with the stuff.
- A new study replicated the conditions of the banded iron deposits in this region and found that powdered magnetite produced five times more hydrogen than geological slabs.
- Paired with calculations of the water access needed to sustain the reaction, these findings could narrow the search for natural hydrogen reserves.
At first glance, hydrogen fuel looks like the one-size-fits-all solution to the climate crisis. After all, hydrogen burns like oil and gas but releases only water instead of carbon dioxide. Hydrogen fuel technology could help clean up industries, such as air travel or international shipping, that can’t easily rely on electrification to supply their energy needs. Of course, dig a bit deeper and this rosy picture gets murkier pretty quickly. The challenge with hydrogen becoming a major global fuel source is the manufacturing process. More than 95 percent of the hydrogen produced today comes from electrolyzers powered by either coal or natural gas.
Despite hydrogen being colorless, it’s often described in various hues to denote all the different ways to manufacture it. Coal and natural gas-powered hydrogen are labeled “gray” and “blue” respectively, whereas “green” refers to hydrogen manufactured using renewable resources, which MIT estimates makes up less than one percent of the world’s total hydrogen production. This limitation has inspired scientists and engineers to search for more natural ways to produce green hydrogen in the hopes of making it economically competitive—and their efforts are bearing fruit.
In early 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released the first-ever map of potential geologic hydrogen reserves in the U.S. Then, a study published this year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) detailed how the Precambrian bedrock of the Canadian Shield could contain natural hydrogen deposits to rival famous reserves like France’s Lorraine Mining Basin and Bourakébougou, Mali. Now, scientists from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Western Australia have similarly discovered a natural way to coax out the Earth’s plentiful hydrogen reserves.
In a study published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, researchers at ECU explored if magnetite locked in vast iron-ore deposits in the Pilbara region—a dry expanse in Western Australia—could produce hydrogen gas underground. Magnetite’s ferrous iron is known to strip oxygen from water, yielding ferric iron and hydrogen gas. However, this only occurs under much higher temperatures and pressures than those on the planet’s surface. But under the surface? Well, that’s a different story.
“Australia could be sitting on a massive, untapped energy reserve—and the potential is enormous,” ECU’s Alireza Keshavarz, the senior author of the study, said in a press statement. “There is enough hydrogen for Australia to benefit for generations, and potentially enough for us to become a major exporter of clean energy to the rest of the world.”
The researchers didn’t go drilling in Western Australia, but instead recreated its geological conditions in the laboratory by exposing magnetite to water at temperatures around 200 degrees Celsius and under immense pressure. Powdered magnetite, they found, released five times more hydrogen than solid slabs. Not only does powder expose more surface area, but the slabs also developed a crust of hematite, a dense iron oxide that blocked water from reaching the magnetite underneath. This suggests that water access is key for hydrogen production, so the best place to search for reserves might be in areas with porous rock. The scientists also calculated the conditions necessary to sustain hydrogen production, including how easy it is for water to reach these banded-iron formations through fractures and pores. The study concludes that “zones affected by brecciation, deformation, or intense alteration that create abundant fresh surfaces and higher permeability” will create conditions similar to magnetite powder.
“Western Australia has some of the world’s largest banded iron formations,” ECU Ph.D. student Kaveh Moghanirahimi, the lead author of the study, said in a press statement. “If we can unlock this resource at scale, it could be transformative for our energy future.”
That’s the conundrum of hydrogen power: the universe’s most abundant element is the one we can’t easily reach. But between newfound reserves, booming renewables, and electrolysis processes that don’t rely on freshwater, hydrogen power promises to have a major role to play in our clean energy future.
Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.
