For decades, every significant natural hydrogen find on record has been an accident. French researchers tripped over the Lorraine deposit while scanning old coal seams for methane. A well in Mali that has been quietly powering a village since the 1990s dates back to a 1987 surprise that nobody was looking for. The entire field has been, until very recently, the geology equivalent of finding money in an old coat pocket. That changed in January 2026, when a small Canadian compa