Green Hydrogen stopped in almost every corner of Australia. So why does the government still cancel? | Environment

TThe green hydrogen revolution did not need to go like this. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in September Australia has been announced With a “more than 50 companies on the ground” and an investment line worth $ 200 billion, the world’s green hydrogen capital ”.

The newly emerged industry was launched as the beginning of a renewable energy revolution, and more than $ 8 billion promised in federal and state governments were supported. But only months after Bowen’s announcement, several major proposals were shelved or serious doubts were heard, asking the question: Before the start of Green Hydrogen’s race?

Origin Energy in the New South Wales He went out of plans For a hydrogen center in Avcı Valley. In Queensland Crisafulli government withdrew Central Queensland Hydrogen Project, a large -scale hydrogen production, ammonia and Gladstone near the export facility $ 1 billion financial support. In Southern Australia, a hydrogen plant plans in Whalla were put on ice, as the state government re -allocated financing of approximately 600 million dollars to support the continuous operation of steel affairs.

This did not prevent the Albanian government’s belief or support for green hydrogen development. On Thursday, Bowen announced that Midwest was $ 814 million to support a large hydrogen and green ammonia export project in Western Australia.

Some are extremely hyper and “He couldn’t shoot”. However, experts say that a new, green industry’s difficulties in leaving the ground are not surprising and that does not mean that it is not a future.

Climateworks Center has followed Hydrogen’s role in Net Zero for more than decade. Kylie Turner, the organization, says it should be seen as a sign to focus on practical possibilities from high speculation levels.

“When offering the solution, the obstacles become clearer, but the ways to handle these obstacles are becoming a little clearer,” he says.

Tennant Reed, the Australian Industrial Group’s climate change and energy director, says that many developing technologies follow a “swallowing cycle ından from high excitement to the disappointment period and that things are more difficult, more slow and less applicable than the first thought. Some of them are slowly climbing commercial success.

Reed says that renewable hydrogen is currently in a groove, and after five years of high expectations, many of them accept hydrogen as a Swiss Molecule that can do anything.

The first national strategy of Australia in 2019 predicts hydrogen used in everything from home heating and energy storage to transport and steel construction and forms the basis of an export industry’s “transport sun stored as fluid hydrogen.

“For the same reason, we will not do all of them with hydrogen, for the same reason, it has become increasingly clear that you do not use an additional Swiss army knife for all purposes for its annexes, or he says. “It’s not the best tool for every job.”

In Australia and globally, the cost, complexity and slowly deployment than expected, narrowed the list of reasonable applications for renewable hydrogen to reach net zero emissions.

Alison Reeve, the Energy and Climate Program Director of Grattan Institute, says the Cost is an important obstacle. Producing green hydrogen – by running an electric current through water, it divides it into hydrogen and oxygen – it is expensive because it uses a large amount of electricity.

Making hydrogen cheap enough to compete with natural gas and coal, he says “really, really cheap” power.

But then, as wind, solar and battery technology costs fall, it is possible to do more with electricity instead. “Therefore, the potential use of hydrogen falls too much because electricity competed with them.”

Just as battery dominates the automobile market of electric vehicles, Reeve also predicts that electrical technologies may be valid in other areas planned as applications for hydrogen, such as long -distance trucks.

There are other advantages of using electricity directly. “This is much less complex, Reve says Reeve. “The supply chain is already there. Generators are already there. The electrical lines are already there.”

The idea of ​​export has also changed. In 2019, people thought that liquid hydrogen could be sent like LNG.

However, it turns out that the hydrogen is “a difficult gas to be managed”. “You just fight physics all the way.” A better option will be to make and use hydrogen at home to produce energy intensive products such as steel or ammonia and then to export them.

Despite all this, many analysts see renewable hydrogen, which plays a limited but valuable role in the production of industrial emissions, especially in the production of chemical ammonia and iron and steel.

Energy Analysis Company Energy Economics and Financial Analysis Institute (IEEFA) Energy Analysis Company Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Executive Board Amandine Denis-Ryan, a chemical used to make fertilizers and explosives, ammonia uses hydrogen as a raw material and requires green hydrogen.

Currently this hydrogen comes from methane or fossil gas that explains roughly according to IEEFA 5% of Australia’s gas demandRelease about 4m tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year. Denis-Ryan says it is the only way to replace fossil gas with renewable hydrogen.

Denis-Ryan has other reasons to think that ammonia could be the first move. The existing facilities are located near powerful renewable resources and green hydrogen can gradually take its place to 30% of the gas without large upgrades to the infrastructure.

Simon Nicholas, the Chief Analyst of IEEFA’s global Steel, is a promising way to limit some predictions of some forecasts, using metallurgic coal or gas instead of metallurgic coal or gas in the production of iron and steel. Responsible for 7% to 9% Global totals.

“It is not the question of whether it will be in the steel industry, or he says. “Actually it happens.”

The first commercial green steel plant using hydrogen is already under construction in Sweden and is expected to start production in 2026.

Nicholas says this is a timing issue and Australia will not have the opportunity.

South Australia well positionedAccess to high -grade iron ore, a power network dominated by renewable energy and a proactive state government.

“Silver primer to slow down global green hydrogen development, now we realize that we need less green hydrogen than predicted a few years ago. Because there were all kinds of crazy use for green hydrogen with much better alternatives.”

Less use of use means less green hydrogen, ie less renewable energy to produce it will need to be built.

Climate Works Center Modeling estimates renewable power of 16 Terawatt clock equivalent to 9% of the Australian national electric market.

Reed has good reasons to think that some applications for renewable hydrogen will be “can be done, but a continuous policy and financial support period will manage the tremendous amount of new electrical infrastructure and expectations.

“The first projects will be quite expensive and the only way to reach cheaper hydrogen is to make expensive hydrogen and learn along the way.”

We’ve done it before, Reeve says. Australia has successfully built a renewable energy industry by supporting both demand and supply. Now it meets 40% of industry electricity generation.

“We accidentally we’ve done this, but we’ve managed to get a lot to create this industry,” he says. “That’s why we can do it again.”