Hydrogen Storage Potential of the Salina Group, Appalachian and Michigan Basins

Abstract

With rapidly changing technology and increasing social-political demand for decarbonization, the energy system is evolving globally and domestically. Adoption of hydrogen at scale as an energy carrier and a storage medium is a key strategy discussed by the DOE and in the literature for decarbonization of the electricity grid and the transportation industry. However, large volumes of hydrogen storage are necessary to enable hydrogen adoption at scale. Geologic hydrogen storage is expected to be a critical tool for scaled hydrogen because of its projected lower cost and higher capacity than aboveground and non-geologic storage options.

However, the existing benchmarking of cost, capacity, and geographic potential for hydrogen storage is restricted chiefly to idealized salt properties and geometries. However, the suitability of salt for hydrogen storage will vary by geologic setting. Additionally, the related costs of hydrogen storage will differ significantly with salt thickness and depth. Subsurface projects intrinsically have more uncertainty and risk than above-ground projects. Geologic characterization will be a critical part of understanding and characterizing geographic changes in the cost and availability of hydrogen storage.

This thesis focuses on salt cavern hydrogen storage through evaluation of the hydrogen storage potential and its associated costs of the Salina Group evaporites in two adjacent sedimentary basins, the Appalachian Basin and the Michigan Basin. The Michigan Basin Salina Group contains three evaporite units suitable for hydrogen storage, the A1, A2, and B evaporites. The Appalachian Basin includes a single unit, the F4 evaporite. The cost to store hydrogen within these four intervals varies much more widely than previously benchmarked in the literature, with salt thickness and depth serving as key cost drivers.

Of course, future hydrogen economics and infrastructure will play an essential role in the ultimate value of subsurface storage. Local resources that control the availability of different types and sources of hydrogen and nearby end-use demand will shape the value chain of hydrogen storage locally and regionally. In future work, evaluation of local and regional supply resources and market potential should be coupled with basin-specific geologic storage potential like the characterization done in this work.