The Promise of Geologic Hydrogen: A Conversation with Dr. Viacheslav Zgonnik, Co-Founder and CEO of HyReveal
Hydrogen is increasingly being seen as a critical solution for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors, such as shipping, chemicals, and steel. The most abundant element in the universe, it occurs primarily in compound form on Earth, meaning it must be extracted from other elements through various production pathways.
Green, blue, yellow, turquoise, grey, pink, white: the hydrogen “rainbow” refers to the different ways hydrogen is produced. For example, grey hydrogen is made from natural gas, while green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy sources.
White hydrogen, also called natural hydrogen, refers to hydrogen gas generated through natural reactions in the Earth’s crust. These reactions occur naturally but can also be influenced by human activity to accelerate hydrogen generation. Both types of hydrogen are united under a term geologic hydrogen – hydrogen derived from underground.
Natural hydrogen is attracting attention due to its potential abundance and cost-effectiveness. A USGS study found 5.6 trillion metric tons of geologic hydrogen resources globally, and though the researchers caveat that much of this is not viable to recover, even a small fraction could be meaningful. A reserve of around 100,000 Mt (million tons) could meet projected hydrogen demand for net-zero emissions for roughly 200 years. With regard to costs, developers in Spain and Australia are predicting ~$1 per kg of hydrogen production costs (compare that to green hydrogen: $3.26 to $8.70 per kg and grey hydrogen: $1.09 to $2.17 per kg).
Although geologic hydrogen shows promise, it is not without its limitations – notably, the high uncertainties associated with exploratory drilling and the lack of subsurface data. To date, there have been no commercial scale geologic hydrogen extraction projects.
That is why I was excited to interview Dr. Viacheslav Zgonnik, Co-Founder and CEO of HyReveal. HyReveal is a French deeptech startup that combines subsurface gas modeling with real‑time hydrogen detection to support exploration and drilling decisions.
The full interview is below. Please note that interview responses have been condensed/paraphrased for clarity.
I’d love to learn more about you and your journey. What led you to founding HyReveal?
I’ve spent about 15 years working on natural hydrogen. When I started, coming from a chemistry background, there were fewer than 10 people studying it. It was a very marginal and unknown topic.
What drew me in was the idea that hydrogen could exist underground and be accessed from the subsurface. That was extremely exciting. I did a PhD in chemistry and started as a scientist, publishing several articles, including a comprehensive review in 2020 that became one of the most cited papers on natural hydrogen.
Later, I founded a company and drilled the first exploratory well in the US, only the second in the world at the time. Since then, the field has grown rapidly. Today, roughly a quarter to a third of countries worldwide have some exploration activity underway. There are drillings happening in USA, Canada, China, Australia, and Colombia. Thousands of people are now entering this space, and it’s clear how big this could be.
In 2024, I made an executive transition and co-founded HyReveal, together with Jonathan Allard, to develop technology solutions that de-risk and accelerate exploration.
Geologic hydrogen has moved from an academic curiosity to a potentially serious resource for the energy transition in just a few years. What changed to make this moment different?
The knowledge base has grown significantly. What used to be seen as isolated measurements or accidents is now understood as something substantial.
Our 2020 review helped bring more people into the field and showed that natural hydrogen is widespread. That triggered a snowball effect, and more scientists began reporting findings.
At the same time, there were key announcements: the first producing hydrogen well in Mali, new drilling efforts globally, and a 2023 Science article by Eric Hand that compiled all these developments. The U.S. Department of Energy also funded around $20 million into geologic hydrogen research.
All of this has acted as a stamp of validation. This is real, and it’s there.
Tell me about HyReveal.
A key question is how to increase the probability of commercial discoveries. So far, around 40 wells have been drilled globally, but there haven’t yet been public announcements of sustained commercial flows.
What we focus on is increasing the probability of success: finding the “sweet spot” and making it monetizable. After discussions with my co-founder, it became clear we should build predictive technology to de-risk exploration.
Our solution is primarily software, supported by hardware detectors. We use geochemical modeling to create a digital model of the subsurface and calculate its potential to generate hydrogen, helium, hydrocarbons, and other gases.
It’s not AI or a black box – every step is grounded in physics and chemistry. We model gas from the “kitchen” where it has been generated, its migration in both in dissolved and free gas phases, how it accumulates or gets consumed, then translate that into expected volumes.
You input geological data (rock types, thickness, age, etc.), and the output is the concentration and volume of gas you should expect at a specific location. This can double the probability of success for hydrogen.
I want to pull on that AI thread a bit as it seems to be contrarian these days to specifically state that your company is not AI. Tell me more about that.
To make AI work, you need a lot of quality data. The problem with the subsurface is that data is extremely limited. You need to drill wells, and each one costs millions.
There’s plenty of data on the surface, but underground it’s very scarce. Many have tried applying AI to subsurface prediction because it scales, and it may work locally where data is dense. But globally, it doesn’t.
So instead, we take the data that exists and model the underlying chemistry and physics. We respect how nature actually works and translate that into a digital product that predicts gas potential.
IORIGIN (schematic above) is HyReveal’s subsurface modeling platform that predicts the presence and behavior of ten gas species. Source: HyReveal.
Exploration risk is central to subsurface energy ventures. What makes hydrogen fundamentally different from oil and gas exploration?
Even after 150 years of oil and gas exploration, the success rate for drilling in new areas is about 30% – one in three wells is commercially successful.
For hydrogen, it’s closer to 10%. If you want a 90% chance of success, you might need to drill 20 wells, which is a huge CAPEX burden.
What we do is help de-risk that by understanding what fluids are present and where. We believe we can double the probability of success for finding hydrogen and reduce CAPEX needs by a factor of two, which is a major improvement.
Cost projections for natural hydrogen are potentially very low under ideal conditions. What factors determine whether a resource is truly competitive once you account for drilling, purification, infrastructure, etc.?
Hydrogen is already one of the most produced molecules on Earth. About 5% of natural gas extraction goes toward hydrogen production, and the current process emits more CO₂ than the aviation industry.
It’s essential for humanity, especially for nitrogen fertilizers. Without those, the Earth could only support around 4 billion people.
Today, hydrogen is mainly produced via steam methane reforming (combining natural gas with water vapor to produce hydrogen and CO₂). That’s the most expensive and energy-intensive step.
With natural hydrogen, you still have drilling, purification, transmission, and storage, but you eliminate the reforming step entirely. Nature has already done the work.
That’s why costs could drop below $1 per kilogram. You’re not using energy to produce hydrogen, you’re just accessing it. It’s renewable, continuously generated, non-fossil, and carbon-free.
Hydrogen deposits may not always be located near industrial demand centers. Do you see this as a distribution challenge, or could it reshape where hydrogen-intensive industries locate in the future?
There are several ways to overcome this issue.
What will be necessary is co-location. There are many ways hydrogen can be used, either directly on site or converted into electricity.
You can transform it into electrons and run those through the electrical grid, or convert it into molecules. With carbon, you can produce methanol, synthetic natural gas, SAF, or e-fuels, sustainable kerosene made by combining hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The main cost of these green molecules, like methanol or SAF, is the cost of hydrogen.
Another option is co-locating hydrogen with fertilizer production. Nitrogen comes freely from the atmosphere, and when combined with hydrogen, it can be converted into ammonia, used directly as fertilizer or as a building block for many other molecules.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put energy security into sharp focus. Given your personal connection to Ukraine, how has that shaped the way you think about energy and the role geologic hydrogen could play?
Thank you for asking.
Resources matter. If you don’t have your own, you are weak.
Energy access is fundamental. Energy is prosperity. If you have energy, you unlock many other things.
Natural hydrogen can help change that over time. Ukraine is one example, but there are many countries in a similar situation.
There is research being done on Ukrainian soil to identify promising areas for exploration, although in wartime conditions it is very difficult to invest in this kind of work. At the same time, other European countries are investing in research. Funding has been allocated to study natural hydrogen potential across Europe, and the first hydrogen well is currently being drilled in France. Exploration is also underway in Germany, Spain, and Poland.
There is strong interest in natural hydrogen, as shown by programs like ARPA-E funding provided to institutions about a year and a half ago.
I believe natural hydrogen can provide many countries with their own source of energy. The good news is that hydrogen sweet spots often do not overlap with hydrocarbons, which means more countries can benefit from this resource.
Looking ahead, what would need to happen for geologic hydrogen to be considered a mainstream pillar of the global energy system rather than a niche frontier, and how is HyReveal making that happen?
The past year, 2025, has been a special one. We started presenting at different conferences, including the Natural Hydrogen Summit in Australia and the HNat Summit in Paris. In early March 2026, the team presented our solution at PDAC, the largest mining conference in Canada.
We’ve received very positive feedback. People are excited about what we’re building. We’re also starting our first pilot studies with clients. A key milestone for this year is to generate our first revenues.
We are putting in place a DaaS model, Decision-as-a-Service. Our software is supported by hardware detectors to improve precision. Based on the output of our solution, clients can make CAPEX-intensive decisions, where to drill and where not to drill.
The HyReveal Team. Source: HyReveal
HyReveal is currently fundraising. If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to me or connect with Viacheslav Zgonnik on LinkedIn.
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I personally would like to share the link to Razom Ukraine, 501(c)(3) U.S. organization. In addition to education and advocacy, they deliver life-saving aid to Ukrainians, which includes generators, portable power solutions, and communications gear to keep the power on for hospitals and other critical infrastructure. https://www.razomforukraine.org/join-the-effort-to-power-ukraine-through-winter/