Global co-location of carbon storage and hydrogen storage reveals the coupled subsurface of the net-zero energy system

Abstract

This deposit contains the complete database, analysis code, and derived results underlying the study "Global co-location of carbon storage and hydrogen storage reveals the coupled subsurface of the net-zero energy system." Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and underground hydrogen storage (UHS) are planned, financed, regulated, and studied as separate enterprises, although both depend on the same sedimentary basins, wells, pipelines, monitoring systems, and public acceptance. This deposit provides the first project-level evidence base that treats the two build-outs as a single coupled system: a global, geocoded inventory of 308 projects across 47 countries, a harmonized synthesis of the published life-cycle assessment literature for hydrogen and CCS, assessed geological storage resources for both gases, and reconstructed announcement-to-outcome histories for the complete power-sector CCS cohort. How the database was built Records were compiled in August 2026 from public sources, including the International Energy Agency CCUS Projects Database, the Global CCS Institute CO2RE facilities database, national geological surveys and storage atlases, operator disclosures, the peer-reviewed underground hydrogen storage literature, and trade press. Each record carries one source URL. All records were geocoded to site-level coordinates with basin or salt-structure attribution. Statuses are as reported at compilation, and cancelled and suspended projects are deliberately retained as evidence of attrition rather than removed. Published life-cycle results were harmonized to kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen on a 100-year global warming potential basis, using a lower heating value of 120 MJ per kilogram. Distances are great-circle values computed between site-level coordinates. Survival analysis uses the Kaplan-Meier estimator with entry at first public announcement, events defined as cancellation or indefinite suspension, and right-censoring at 2026 or at pilot completion. Headline results supported by these files Co-location is already the prevailing spatial pattern: the median UHS site lies 139 km from the nearest active CCUS project, 46 percent lie within 100 km, and 62 percent within 200 km. Cycling hydrogen through geological storage adds only 0.23 to 0.28 kg CO2e per kilogram of hydrogen, less than one tenth of the footprint of best-practice blue hydrogen, so the climate outcome of the coupled chain is decided upstream by methane management and capture rate. Survival of announced power-sector CCS projects falls to 0.72 at five years and 0.52 at ten years after announcement, with a median time to termination of four years that is the same in power and non-power failures. A gap of five orders of magnitude separates roughly 0.8 TWh of operating hydrogen storage from the assessed technical potential. Reproducing the analysis The code folder contains a README with the full run order and a requirements file. In brief, the analysis scripts read the pipe-delimited tables and write JSON result caches, and the figure scripts read those caches and render the figures. Python 3.10 or later with NumPy, Matplotlib, and GeoPandas is sufficient for the analysis and figures; Node.js with the docx and pptxgenjs packages is used only to assemble the document and editable-figure outputs. Known limitations The database is a curated, source-attributed core rather than an exhaustive census, so shares should be treated as first estimates to be re-derived against the registered IEA and CO2RE exports. Distances are great-circle values adequate at basin scale but not for route planning. Capture capacities are nameplate values and include network capacities, and several flagship plants operate below nameplate. Announcement years for a minority of the survival cohort rest on single sources and are flagged by confidence level. The basin readiness scores represent structured judgment against explicit, published criteria rather than measured quantities, and the full scoring rubric is included so that they can be re-derived or contested. Reuse and citation All files are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Reuse, redistribution, and adaptation are welcome with attribution. Please cite both this deposit and the associated article. Corrections, additional project records, and status updates are welcome; the database is intended as a community resource that improves through use.