It could be worth almost 100 billion
Near German border: France finds huge base treasure
03/22/2025 – 7:08 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
In Moselle, near the German border, France makes a significant find of natural hydrogen. This could establish the region as an energy pioneer.
A previously unknown occurrence of natural hydrogen has been discovered in the northeastern French region of Moselle. According to reports of “Interesting Engineering” and “Euro Weekly News”, scientists at drilling near the municipality of Folschviller came across around 46 million tons of the elements known as “white hydrogen”. Folschviller is a little more than ten kilometers from the Franco-German border and around 35 kilometers from Saarbrücken.
The find was therefore made by the Georeources laboratory in cooperation with the French research center CNRS. The researchers originally searched for methane, but found a large concentration of the gaseous hydrogen at around 1,250 meters. This occurs in nature and differs fundamentally from the industrially produced green or gray hydrogen. While green hydrogen is obtained using renewable energy and gray hydrogen comes from fossil fuels, white hydrogen does not require energy-intensive processing and does not cause CO2 emissions.
Depending on the source, the value of the occurrence is estimated to be up to $ 92 billion. This would make the discoir discovered larger than half of the global annual production of gray hydrogen – but without its ecological disadvantages. Experts see this as an enormous potential for a clean and inexpensive energy source.
Discovery could be an opportunity for France to establish itself as a pioneer in the use of white hydrogen. The Lorraine region, once the center of the French coal and steel industry, could play a new industrial role. According to the assessment of experts, thousands of new jobs and an economic upswing are conceivable.
Dr. Jacques Pironon, one of the researchers involved, said: “Our research suggests that natural hydrogen could occur far more frequently than previously assumed.” At the same time, he emphasized the importance of efficient and safe methods for promoting: “If we find ways to extract and use it efficiently, we could get a powerful new instrument in the fight against climate change.” Experts assume that an international search for comparable deposits could now begin.
