Meeting this Wednesday to explain hydrogen exploration in county

Apr. 23—Representatives from High Plains Resources will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 24 at Sterl Hall to answer questions about the company's hydrogen exploration in Dickinson and surrounding counties.

Jason Rayburn, land manager for High Plains Resources, said for the past few months they have spoken with landowners seeking permission to conduct a 2D-seismic shoot on county and state highways adjacent to their property.

"The purpose of the seismic shoot is to understand the subsurface geology," Rayburn said. "The 2D-seismic operation utilizes an energy source, in this case a vibrosis truck, that send waves under the surface, reflections are collected by the receivers that line the road."

The trucks move in 90-second increments, sending waves for 16 seconds at a time. The collected data is then processed and analyzed by geologists to understand if the area has the potential for hydrogen exploration.

Although the work will not take place on private property and will be conducted completely within the road right-of-way, they are seeking landowner permission to collect this data from their subsurface mineral rights.

The footprint for the project is approximately 550 miles across Dickinson, Clay, Washington, Geary, Riley, Marshall, Saline, Ottawa, and Cloud counties.

While they have a rough idea of which routes they'd like to utilize, the final map won't be drawn up until they know what landowners they have permission from. The plan is to start the 2D seismic survey operations in June.

Rayburn said High Plains Resources has drilled a couple of test wells in Washington and Morris Counties but the company has not yet produced hydrogen.

"Those test wells we drilled gave us an indication that hydrogen is present," he said. "Now we are going back to drill wells that we hope to flow hydrogen and produce once we finish those operations."