Element One Stock Jumped 27% On A Two-Way Bet On Natural Hydrogen

"If you add up the amount of hydrogen we think might be trapped in reservoirs, plus the amount that might be produced directly as it is generated, and the amount that could be made through stimulation, you get a very large potential resource," US Geological Survey research geologist Geoffrey Ellis has said of geologic hydrogen.

Element One Hydrogen & Critical Minerals EHCMF is going after two of those three. The shares closed at CA$0.07 in Canada on Thursday, up 27.27%, on about 4 million against a 30-day average near 151,000.

"Our strategy is not dependent on a single theory of how the natural hydrogen industry will develop," CEO Brad Kitchen said in the release.

The Vancouver company wants to drill for hydrogen that migrated underground and got trapped under a seal, and separately to stimulate iron-rich hard rock into making hydrogen now.

Two ways in

"Remember, we have to have all of the hydrogen system components present in order for the system to work," Ellis said.

The first pathway is a checklist of exactly that: source rock, a migration path, a reservoir, a trap and a seal, plus signs of fluid moving underground. Element One says it will rank its British Columbia and Alaska ground on those.

"We are advancing the tools required to search for accumulated hydrogen while also supporting the development of technology intended to generate hydrogen directly from reactive hard-rock systems," Kitchen said.

The second pathway skips the waiting. Water meeting iron-rich ultramafic rock makes hydrogen, a reaction called serpentinization, and the company wants to run it faster with proprietary catalysts.

"It takes millions of years to produce hydrogen from rocks regularly. And what we've been able to do though is we now have the technology that we can do it in real time," Kitchen said in an August interview. "So it changes everything."

Ultramafic rocks, he said, "make up 7% of the globe. So it's fairly abundant." His pitch against rivals is that Element One does not have to cook the rock. "Other companies that are trying similar things are actually going down and heating up these rocks. They're trying to heat them up with either microwaves. Or steam," he said. "But with our process, we don't need that."

The Columbia piece

"With our process, we only have to go down between 500 and a thousand meters," Kitchen said. He credits a temperature drop: the Columbia work has "reduced that temperature for the reaction... from 300 degrees to 100 degrees. So that means we don't have to go down very deep."

The researcher is Dr. Greeshma Gadikota, who holds the Lenfest Earth Institute Chair in Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University and carries CAREER awards from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

"I believe we're the only public company that has this technology," Kitchen said, before adding, "and I'm not sure."

Element One has committed US$1.67 million over two years to a sponsored research agreement with Columbia, works through an agreement with Stone to H2, Inc., and put Gadikota on an advisory board in February.

What the cost claim rests on

"Now natural hydrogen, this is where it's a bit of a game changer. We can produce the same equivalent of a gallon of gas for about 50 cents to a dollar. So it's a fraction of the cost of what oil and gas is," Kitchen said. He puts green hydrogen, the kind made by splitting water with renewable power, at "roughly between 10 and $14 a gallon equivalent."

That comparison is management's own. It is unaudited, and it describes a process that has not produced hydrogen at commercial scale.

"The key is it's not location specific," he said. "You could have a community in Alaska or mine in Alaska, let's say, that has to use diesel fuel for all of its energy for the whole community. Using our technology, and if there's an ultramafic rock deposit below the community or the mine, then we'll be able to power that whole community or that whole mine... at cents on the dollar compared to what they use in diesel now."

Not a gold rush

"This is not a gold rush," said Barbara Sherwood Lollar, the University of Toronto geochemist who led the Royal Society's 2025 report on natural hydrogen. "As interest grows, we need to make sure evidence stays at the centre of the conversation. We need solid science, good data, and a realistic view of what's possible to make sure the hype doesn't run away with itself."

"Hydrogen is already a $135 billion industry and is a key component in critical industries such as fertiliser production," she said. "As the world searches for cleaner energy options, natural hydrogen could also offer a low-cost, low-carbon addition to our toolkit."

The nearly 100 million tonne market Element One cites is real, and almost none of it is clean today. The IEA puts low-emissions hydrogen under 1% of 2024 demand, with announced 2030 supply cut to 37 million tonnes a year from 49 million.

"We have to be very careful in interpreting this number," Ellis said of the USGS global estimate. "Based on what we know about the distribution of petroleum and other gases in the subsurface, most of this hydrogen is probably inaccessible."

The agency still published the first US prospectivity map for geologic hydrogen last year. "This map is tantalizing because it shows that several parts of the U.S. could have a subsurface hydrogen resource after all," said Sarah Ryker, USGS associate director for energy and minerals. Ellis and colleague Sarah Gelman put the recoverable energy at "roughly twice the amount of energy in all the proven natural gas reserves on Earth."

Where the money goes

• The raise: LIFE financing upsized to 7.0 million units at $0.10, $700,000 gross, each with a $0.20 warrant for 36 months. First tranche of 3,500,000 units closed, priced above Thursday's close.
• The pitch: "It gives our shareholders exposure to both sides of the emerging natural hydrogen opportunity, exploration and technology," Kitchen said.
• The size: about CA$4.1 million on 58.54 million shares, roughly 83% retail. The US line @EHCMF last printed Aug. 28 at $0.06 on 5,000 shares, with an OTCQB quotation the stated plan.
• The gap: "Our story has evolved substantially, but we do not believe the market yet recognizes the full scope of what Element One is building," Kitchen said in August.
• The comp: Max Power Mining @MAXXF, near $2.19 against a 52-week low of $0.25, after saying it confirmed the first subsurface natural hydrogen system in North America.
• The theme: @PLUG, @CMI, @BLDP in electrolyzers, @BE in fuel cells and data-center power, @LIN and @APD in industrial gas.
• The stage: no wells, no declared resource, no revenue. Field testing next summer.

The bottom line

"I said we're putting all our dominoes together. And now that they're all together, they're starting to fall," Kitchen said in August. Thursday put the strategy on paper whole, and the market paid 27% for it.

He has an answer ready for why nobody did this sooner. "The biggest question I have is why hasn't it been exploited in the past? But quite frankly, it's because we haven't had the technology and we have that now," he said. Next summer's field test is where that gets checked.