I found a Canadian junior combining natural hydrogen, critical minerals and carbon storage
I have been looking more closely at the hydrogen market lately, and one small Canadian company stood out because it is not approaching hydrogen as a standalone clean-energy story.
Element One Hydrogen & Critical Minerals Corp. trades on the CSE as EONE, and the basic idea behind the company is to combine geologic hydrogen with critical mineral recovery and potentially carbon storage.
The geology is the interesting part.
Certain ultramafic and mafic rocks can react with water and naturally generate hydrogen. EONE is looking at both finding naturally occurring hydrogen underground and, where the geology supports it, stimulating hydrogen generation by introducing water into favorable rock systems.
[Source: Element One Hydrogen & Critical Minerals corporate presentation](https://preview.redd.it/qkrnpi4yt2bh1.png?width=1586&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c4fcb3be8ca3e59f109046c46184cd3ee2594b3)
That is still an early and technically challenging field. Geologic hydrogen has not been proven at commercial scale across the industry, and NREL has described it as poorly understood. But that is also why the space is getting more attention. The potential prize is not simply "clean hydrogen." It is whether hydrogen can be produced at a cost low enough to compete with conventional fossil-based hydrogen and expensive green hydrogen.
The demand backdrop makes that worth paying attention to.
Global hydrogen demand surpassed 100 million tonnes in 2025, growing almost 3 year over year. Most of that demand already comes from real industrial uses such as refining, ammonia, methanol and chemicals.
The problem is that clean hydrogen barely participates in this market.
Low-emission hуdrogen demаnd grеw .20 in 2025, the existing hydrogen market is already big but low-emissions supply still is roughly 0.1 of it.
That makes geologic hydrogen interesting to me. Demand already exits, challange is finding cleaner sources of it wile keeping cost under control.
EONE becomes more appealing when the critical minerals side is added.
The company is targeting potential recovery of materials including nickel, cobalt, manganese, magnesium, iron oxide and silica from ultramafic rock systems. Its sponsored research agreement with Columbia University is focused on geologic hydrogen stimulation, co-recovery of critical metals and possible CO2 storage through mineral carbonation.
EONE committed US$1.67 million over two years to that research program. One important caveat is that Columbia retains ownership of inventions and research results, while EONE has the option to negotiate licenses to certain inventions or information. So this is a legitimate research relationship, but it should not be confused with EONE automatically owning everything developed through the program.
The company's Washington State strategy is also worth following.
Through its Twin Sisters Olivine MOU, EONE is evaluating access to high-grade olivine feedstock and a possible plant site. The proposed concept involves an initial capacity of around 50,000 tonnes of olivine per year, with a demonstration facility targeting roughly 150 tonnes per day.
The potential outputs are not limited to hydrogen. They include natural hydrogen, Class 1 nickel concentrate, magnesium hydroxide, iron oxide and silica.
That multi-output model is probably the most interesting part of the entire thesis.
A pure hydrogen project lives or dies on hydrogen economics. A traditional junior miner often depends on one deposit and one commodity cycle. EONE is exploring whether the same rock system could potentially produce hydrogen, recover strategic minerals and store CO2.
Magnesium is a good example of why that could matter. U.S. primary magnesium production stopped in 2022, and U.S. net import reliance for magnesium metal was estimated above 75 percent in 2025. If EONE's olivine pathway can eventually produce commercially viable magnesium products alongside hydrogen and other materials, the strategic relevance becomes much broader than clean energy alone.
The company also has an option and earn-in agreement with Stone to H2, whose technology is based on staged recovery of hydrogen and critical minerals from ultramafic rock using fluid injection and solution mining, with potential CO2 storage in the same geological setting.
But the demand side explains why this kind of experiment is happening now.
Low-emissions hydrogen project spending reached nearly $7 billion in 2025, almost dоuble the previous year, and could approach $10 billion in 2026. The U.S. hydrogen roadmap sees strategic demand opportunities reaching 10 million tonnes annually by 2030, 20 million by 2040 and 50 million by 2050. The EU is targeting 10 million tonnes of domestic renewable hydrogen production plus 10 million tonnes of imports by 2030.
The more aggressive long-term scenarios go much further, although I would treat them as scenarios rather than forecasts. IRENA's 1.5°C pathway sees hydrogen and derivatives reaching 154 million tonnes by 2030 and 614 million tonnes by 2050. The Hydrogen Council's net-zero trajectory sees more than 660 million tonnes by 2050.
[Source: PwC compilation of major global hydrogen demand scenarios](https://preview.redd.it/h7ewrzsdt2bh1.png?width=859&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c9ae4ecc90c4aecbf2db9c5de094823680b6435)
I find interesting about EONE that the thesis does not require every one of those forecasts to come true.
There is already a 100 million tonne hydrogen market. Clean production barely penetrates it. The U.S. is heavily dependent on imported critical minerals such as magnesium. Governments are spending money on domestic supply chains. Industry is looking for lower-carbon inputs.
EONE is basically trying to find out whether one geological platform can address several of those problems at once.
That is not proven, and this is a junior company. But as an interesting find, it is one of the more unusual resource stories I have come across lately where upside case is based on finding a potentially better way to supply markets that already exist.