Predicting the Microbial Effects on Hydrogen Storage Quality - A McKee Reservoir Study

Abstract There has been a lot of interest in hydrogen storage in subterranean reservoirs in order to overcome some of the challenges in the seasonal differences in supply and demand for energy and support the energy transition. The combustion of hydrogen produces energy and water as an output, making it a good energy transporter that may also be used to store energy. The high energy density of hydrogen makes it an excellent reactant for a variety of chemical reactions that may be utilized. Given that hydrogen is increasingly being used to assist the energy transition, it may be stored in a variety of forms, including metal tanks and subterranean subsurface storage reservoirs. In addition, hydrogen may be kept in deep geological formations and mixed with natural gas and other minerals. Given the enormous volumes of hydrogen that need to be stored, subsurface hydrogen storage has garnered a lot of interest. Underground natural gas storage has been conducted for a very long time in salt caverns and porous rock formations with extensive amount of experience being acquired. Given the lack of expertise with underground hydrogen storage, which has mostly only been done in salt caverns, there are several uncertainties that arise in the hydrogen storage in subsurface formations. For the investigation of microbial effects on subsurface hydrogen storage, we have created a data-driven approach in order to assess the impact of the microbial effects on hydrogen subsurface storage. In order to examine their composition and determine possible implications on the hydrogen production from the reservoir, the framework incorporates 16S rRNA sequencing data from subsurface hydrogen storage locations to identify bacterial populations. A simulated hydrogen storage was used to assess the framework, and it demonstrated high classification performance as well as accurate prediction of the expected hydrogen recovery from the subsurface environment.