yeah. thats pretty much what I was thinking..
I'm pretty sure I can't handle the metal work before finding another hood.
I'be had this happen on other projects, but fortunately there was an access hold to fish a bolt into the old spot.
It doesn't sound like you want to dink around with this. You need to cut off the bolt with an angle grinder. Once the hood is removed you have two options. Both involve cutting an access hole. Then you feed in a nut and capture it once again. You do that by drilling some holes in the sheet metal and adding a few rosette welds to hold the nut in place.
Alternatively you can fish a short bolt in there and add the nut on the compartment side. I would fastener down that bolt first because it is likely to fall back into the cavity during the process. If that happens you will need to treat your hood like a 5' x 5' etch-a-sketch, shaking it until the bolt falls out of your access hole.
This one is from my old Jeep:
