A VILLAGE in the arid savannah of West Africa seems an unlikely place to mark the birth of an energy revolution. If promoters of the next big thing in clean power are right, however, we may all remember the name of Bourakebougou in years to come.

That’s because the site 55 km northwest of Mali’s capital Bamako was the first place on earth powered by natural hydrogen – pure gas seeping from the earth, like crude oil or methane.

The phenomenon is so anomalous that, until recently, few geologists had given it much thought. In 2011, Montreal-based Hydroma unplugged a water well near Bourakebougou cemented up in 1987 after the air rising from it caused an explosion. The exhalations turned out to be 98 per cent hydrogen, which was then burned to provide electricity to the village.