Pete Johnson, Co-founder and CEO of Koloma, joins Inevitable to break down geologic hydrogen — naturally occurring hydrogen found deep underground — and why he believes it could be the first new primary energy source since nuclear power in the 1950s. Koloma has raised more than $400 million from Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, Osaka Gas, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and holds roughly 20 million acres of exploration rights across the U.S. Midcontinent, the Philippines, Australia, and Canada.

Pete explains why Koloma's first commercial target isn't power generation but ammonia and fertilizer production in the U.S. Midwest, where farmers pay a $150-per-ton premium on imported ammonia. He walks through the geology of where natural hydrogen forms, how Koloma's 25-year proprietary subsurface dataset shapes its exploration strategy, what it actually takes to prove a commercial-scale discovery, and how he separates genuine clean-hydrogen economics from tax-credit-driven projects.

Episode recorded on June 24, 2026 (Published July 14, 2026)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [0:00] Intro: Pete Johnson and Koloma's geologic hydrogen bet
• [2:02] What "Koloma" means — and the gold rush origin story
• [3:31] Where geologic hydrogen actually forms
• [7:07] The Iowa project and why the resource lines up with demand
• [7:51] The $150/ton ammonia premium hitting Midwest farmers
• [10:53] Why hydrogen pipelines aren't the real bottleneck 
• [13:52] Koloma's model: exploration engine, not driller
• [15:12] What makes hydrogen exploration so hard
• [18:13] How big a discovery needs to be to matter commercially
• [22:39] Power vs. ammonia: how end use changes the math
• [23:50] The Philippines opportunity and energy security stakes
• [28:48] Pete's path: solar, Monolith Materials, and stumbling into hydrogen
• [35:53] Sorting real clean hydrogen from a tax credit grab
• [38:52] Current state of Koloma: 20 million acres and what's next
• [42:04] Where Koloma needs help — policy and data

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant