There are already a number of hydrogen variations or colors, such as grey, blue, green and pink hydrogen. We wrote about all of them in this extensive material.

As per Euronews.green, there is a new type of hydrogen on the horizon, called white hydrogen. It actually lays beneath our very feet and has been recently discovered in France and it is believed to be a promising, affordable and renewable kind of hydrogen.

Following France's discovery Switzerland also started looking for its own hydrogen reserves this spring and it found quite a good deposit.

Hydrogen is one of the most ubiquitous chemical elements on Earth, as it occurs naturally in things like water and plants.

However, pure form hydrogen was not believed to be available in large deposits on our planet. This was proven wrong during an accidental discovery in Mali, which happened over a decade ago. Since then, scientists experimented with the extraction of this gas, which can replenish very quickly and continuously, compared to fossil fuels, which take millions of years to form back.

Dr Michael Webber, a professor in energy resources at the University of Texas, Austin, USA, said that "Earth has many locations where the right conditions co-exist to naturally produce and accumulate hydrogen, which can then be extracted for societal use."

Still, it is not currently known if these resources can be commercially exploited, but some startups and companies are continuing to innovate in this direction.

"The good news is that by letting the earth do the work for us, this source of hydrogen is likely much cleaner to produce than current methods of gasifying coal, reforming methane, or electrolyzing water", Webber added.

Earlier this year, a hydrogen deposit was discovered in the Lorraine region of France. According to experts at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the estimated deposit could hold as much as 46 million tons of white hydrogen, equivalent to around half the world's annual production today.

Another deposit of over one million tons of hydrogen has been discovered in northern Spain, with the site expected to be open for extraction starting 2024.

While green hydrogen, the most desirable form of hydrogen to date, it costs around 5 euros per kilogram to produce, white hydrogen could be extracted at about 0.5 euros per kilogram.

Dr Webber added that "as with other sources of hydrogen, [natural hydrogen] needs to be handled with care to reduce safety risks and avoid leaks."

Hydrogen as a whole is a fairly difficult gas to maneuver and contain, being significantly more explosive when compared to natural gas, which is why we need to be careful with the technologies that we are currently developing in order to make good use of it.