There’s an abundant resource in the MonDak region just waiting to be harvested. And it could bring national attention.

The idea is to eventually become a leader in developing hydrogen production as a main renewable energy source. Hal Campbell, a former Los Angeles strategic planner, Sidney, presented the concept during the MonDak Energy Alliance meeting Aug. 20. He said that with Americans consuming 20 million barrels of oil every day and the world consuming 87 million barrels a day, there has to be another market to lower emissions and improve fuel economy.

“There’s not going to be an easy transition into anything. We need more oil. We need to make cleaner burning while we develop alternative energy sources,” he said. Hydrogen production is achieved through extracting hydrogen from hydrocarbon fossil fuels via a chemical path. Some ways of producing hydrogen include using carbon monoxide, coal and fermentative hydrogen production.

But there is also water, which is where the MonDak region comes in. The area is rich in hydrogen with a virtually limitless supply, Campbell said. The Missouri and Yellowstone rivers carry water at 22,500 cubic feet per second. That’s 10 million gallons a minute or 250,000 barrels of water each minute. As water is two-thirds hydrogen and one-third oxygen, it translates to 164,000 barrels of hydrogen every minute flowing through Montana and North Dakota to another state. Put it into perspective, that water would total the number of oil barrels in the Bakken in just 12 days.

Electrolysis would be the way to go in which electricity is used to disassociate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Simply stated, a chemical reaction takes place using an electrolyzer perfected by General Electric to produce hydrogen.

“This quantity of potential fuel can be used to not only support the transportation industry, but it can also be used to serve as a source of clean fuel or electrical power generation,” Campbell said, adding that it would not affect agriculture or ranching, only using a small portion of water for production.

The technology to produce hydrogen using water has been developed already. General Electric has been “in possession” of it for years. Currently, auto manufacturers have already anticipated the conversion from gasoline to hydrogen. Ford has a vehicle out called the Supercharge V10. It has a tri-flex fueling system that allows users the option of using three different fuels: gas, ethanol or hydrogen

“Although no viable distribution infrastructure yet exists,” Campbell said, “the technology has to develop to make this a reality, and it is likely that this shortcoming would be remedied either through entrepreneurial venture or through government mandate.”

The question then becomes which region will take a role in mass production of hydrogen. Campbell said the Montana-Dakota Utilities facility in Sidney has the capacity for producing 50 megawatts of energy per hour while the electrolyzer can produce 50 kilowatts per liter of hydrogen production.

“We have this resource sitting in our backyard being ignored waiting for populations to grow. We could put a small fraction of it to work making hydrogen,” he said. The possibility of producing hydrogen for energy could bring in as much as $24 million in the annual retail value.

In speaking with General Electric scientist Richard Bourgeois, who headed the team that invented the electrolyzer, Campbell said the company has now made the technology available for purchase. However, there is one missing link in that hydrogen production is not currently done on an industrial scale and distributed to consumers. That is why he has proposed forming the MonDak Hydrogen Enterprise LLC that would include scientific innovators, state/county/city governments, oil companies, energy and public utilities and railroads to produce and distribute the fuel at service stations.

“I honestly believe that we can be one of the leaders in hydrogen production in the next five years,” Campbell said.

reporter@sidneyherald.com