The HyAfrica project recently captured the spotlight in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province, as local TV broadcaster SABC featured the project’s work on natural hydrogen in its national evening news. In February 2024, Adam Bumby and his MSc students from the University of Pretoria took centre stage, sharing their exciting findings with viewers in both English and Siswati.

This media coverage marks a significant milestone in HyAfrica’s mission to raise public awareness about natural hydrogen’s potential as a cheap, renewable, and clean energy source. The students, equipped with tools typically used for pipe leak detection and measuring landfill emissions, have been meticulously measuring hydrogen levels in shallow soils throughout the study area.

Their results are nothing short of spectacular. While background hydrogen gas levels typically hover around 0.5 ppm, the team has recorded readings as high as 44,000 ppm in some soils, indicating a substantial hydrogen flux from underlying strata into the atmosphere.

The impact of these findings extends beyond the airwaves. Adam Bumby’s work has garnered attention in academic circles, which lead to an invitation to deliver a keynote speech at the Council for Geoscience in Pretoria in March. His presentation highlighted the distribution of these anomalously high hydrogen results across the study area, further cementing HyAfrica’s role in pushing the boundaries of renewable energy research in Africa.

Watch the the video now.