Upstream experts have always been more than squeamish about the manner in which the petroleum industry has doggedly stuck to its decades-old drilling strategy to hunt for oil in the country's sedimentary basins even though it has yielded poor outcomes in recent years.

The biggest culprit is the state-owned behemoth - Oil and Natural Gas Corporation - which has had no significant discovery bar a few interesting but small discoveries in two frontier basins. In a wider context, a large number of exploration blocks have been forked out through the various bidding rounds under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) and the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) but have failed to yield much.

There is a crying need to launch a systematic campaign to find large pools of oils at the few promising discoveries by harnessing state-of-the-art geological and geophysical (G&G) work with faultless drilling and well completion methods. Sadly, this is neither visible in the regulator's promotional efforts or in the exploration strategy pursued by the operators of these acreages.

The core of the problem with India's oil exploration efforts arises from a startling paradox which everyone seems to ignore. Oil reserves across the world have a peculiar skew: the global average is 80% of the reserves come from older sedimentary basins and only 20% from younger basins. In India, that ratio is tilted with 10% from older sediments and 90% from the newer ones. Nobody has tried to work through this problem and it is about time that we took a hard relook at our strategy which needs to focus on the quality of work and not the quantity.

India has a dubious record of spudding more dry wells than any other country. The country's state-run upstream companies are saddled with rigs and drillers who cannot be allowed to idle.

The paradox of global average of 80% and 20% oil reserves actually accrued in the older and younger sediments respectively against actuals in India of 10% and 90% respectively still remains unresolved. Perhaps, it is about time to reconsider our strategy and focus on the quality of work rather than the quantity. The upshot of the current, shot-in-the-dark strategy is a string of dry wells - with no questions asked about the wasted effort, thank you very much.

Should the country persist with this strategy? There are not a lot of other options that can be looked at. But neither the companies nor the ministry of petroleum and natural gas seem inclined to apply their mind to the problem by thinking differently.

Amid growing concerns about the need to protect the environment and the rapid surge in the demand for fossil fuels, the Government has justifiably laid emphasis on increasing the production of Hydrogen (Green Hydrogen to be precise) in the country with a target of 50 million tonnes by 2070 to meet the net zero objective relating to carbon emission.

Green hydrogen is obtained from electrolysis of water. The most crucial thing is that this process is powered entirely by renewable energy. Hopes of harnessing green hydrogen has rested on using renewable electricity from wind or solar farms, or hydroelectric dams, to split water into its oxygen and hydrogen atoms. However, there is a downside: electrolysis is currently more expensive than the dirtier methods of producing hydrogen. Reports suggest that the ministry of new and renewable energy has already allocated 62,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) green hydrogen production capacity annually to 19 companies. It is a start but there is still a long way to go.

At the same time, there is another natural energy pool that India needs to tap into. The Earth's crust is widely impregnated with hydrogen. Geologists estimate that there are trillions of tons of it beneath the planet's surface. The best part is that this reserve of natural hydrogen - widely called white hydrogen - is being generated and, therefore, growing all the time. This underground trove of white hydrogen is currently estimated at around 4350 million tonnes.

Some countries have already started exploratory work to find ways to harness this energy source with reports suggesting sizable discoveries. Reports suggest that prospectors have started to drill for hydrogen in northeast France, Australia, Spain, Morocco, Brazil, and United States. India, however, has shown little interest in exploring this energy source.

There is probably a very good reason for being a little circumspect about the prospects of tapping natural hydrogen. In September 2023, the International Energy Agency cautioned prospectors after a global review that there was "a possibility that the resource [natural hydrogen] is too scattered to be captured in a way that is economically viable" and that "the exact cost implications remain to be seen."

Nevertheless, it is still worthwhile to pursue the possibility of extracting natural hydrogen from underground, using the already developed technologies of G&G studies, drilling, fracturing and the latest well completion methods. Someone somewhere has to wake up.

Finally, there is a whole new ball game built around geothermal energy which is derived from the planet's internal heat, primarily from radioactive decay and the earth's formation, which is stored in rocks and fluids stored underground.

India's geothermal energy potential has been estimated at 10,600 MW and efforts are under way to tap these resources. However, there is also a potential to derive Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) power by mining the heat from high temperature underground rock layers (after creating fractures) by pumping cold water through a set of wells and producing hot water/steam through a set of connected wells. This is where oil explorers can use their skills to mine heat from the underground.

Quite a lot of work, including successes have already have been achieved in a number of countries, notably the US, Australia and Europe. It is about time we sit up and join the efforts to tap this green energy resource in our country. The global potential is mind boggling. If we can extract just 0.1% of the heat from the bowels of the Earth, we shall have nearly 250 times the quantity of energy already produced and to be produced in the future by all forms of fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal.

The question is whether we can all hunker down and put our collective minds and sinews together to work towards creating a Brave New World that thrives on the use of carbon-free energy.