The Gold Hydrogen Program, a coalition of organizations seeking to support the scale of this clean energy resource, announced its launch and the debut of a pilot microbial Gold Hydrogen Process. A joint industry partnership to commercialize clean, gold hydrogen, the program’s founding members include synthetic biology company Cemvita Factory (innovator in low-carbon microbial solutions for energy and mining resource extraction, production, and renewal); and Chart Industries, Inc. (a leader in clean energy solutions).

Other collaborators include EXP (a global engineering and consulting firm); and The Center for Houston’s Future (a nonprofit organization devoted to fact-based strategic planning, collaboration, and action on issues of great importance to the long-term future of Houston).

Conventional hydrogen production is energy-intensive; thus, hydrogen products are classified by colors—green, blue, grey, brown, and more—that describe the process used for creation (including electrolysis, steam-methane, oil, or coal production methods).

Found naturally deep in the Earth, “gold hydrogen” is a resource that is produced biologically and in the subsurface. Gold hydrogen has been cost-prohibitive to extract and not commercially viable up to now.

Cemvita scientists have discovered a category of microbes that live in subsurface oil reservoirs and that can produce hydrogen. ​The Cemvita process leverages these microbes to ferment unrecovered oil in depleted reservoirs and caverns to produce hydrogen.

With the potential to revitalize and remediate thousands of depleted, abandoned oil and gas reservoirs around the country, the extraction techniques meld existing infrastructure with microbiology to scale clean energy solutions quickly while creating new revenue streams for heavy industry companies.

Reservoir microbiology has incredible potential for unlocking the promise of Gold Hydrogen in a clean, efficient way. Through this program, we are looking forward to collaborating with companies who value true disruptive innovation and are committed to pioneering the clean energy transition, not just talking about it.

—Zach Broussard, Head of Petroleum Microbiology at Cemvita and Gold Hydrogen Program Manager

Through the Gold Hydrogen Program, member companies collaborate to generate gold hydrogen cleanly, efficiently, and at scale to meet rising global demand. Program members receive early access to IP at preferential rates, and participation in the group is capped at ten members.