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Salt caverns are already used to store hydrogen and other hydrocarbons such as natural gas and petroleum

There is a long history in the United States of using salt caverns to store energy sources. There are three salt caverns used to store hydrogen in the Permian Basin in Texas.1 There are 36 salt caverns used to store natural gas, comprising around 7% of all natural gas storage.2 There are also many publicly and privately owned salt caverns used to store petroleum, including the federally owned and operated strategic petroleum reserve made up of 60 salt caverns storing 714 million barrels of oil.3

More information on the three existing hydrogen salt cavern storage projects is below:

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Image source: Hévin, G. (2019, November 7). Underground storage of Hydrogen in salt caverns [Powerpoint slides]. European Workshop on Underground Energy Storage 2019. https://energnet.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/3-Hevin-Underground-Storage-H2-in-Salt.pdf

Sources:​

Footnotes​

  1. Hévin, G. (2019, November 7). Underground storage of Hydrogen in salt caverns [Powerpoint slides]. European Workshop on Underground Energy Storage 2019. https://energnet.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/3-Hevin-Underground-Storage-H2-in-Salt.pdf ↩

  2. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. (2024). Fact Sheet: Underground Natural Gas Storage Caverns. https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/technical-resources/pipeline/underground-natural-gas-storage/fact-sheet-underground-natural-gas. ↩

  3. Department of Energy. (2024) SPR Storage Sites. https://www.energy.gov/ceser/spr-storage-sites. ↩