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    Hydrogen

    Today

    Andrew Forrest has scaled back Fortescue’s green hydrogen ambitions.

    Don’t put all energy transition eggs in one green basket

    The energy revolution is producing militant evangelists and sceptics of individual technologies. Andrew Forrest’s hydrogen retreat shows policymakers need to be more open-minded.

    • 27 mins ago
    • The AFR View
    Alan Finkel says green hydrogen will be used as a chemical to produce decarbonised products for export,

    Green hydrogen too ‘expensive and inefficient’: Finkel

    Former chief scientist Alan Finkel – who devised Australia’s first clean hydrogen strategy – now says we are “unlikely to use hydrogen for storage of electricity”.

    • 44 mins ago
    • Angela Macdonald-Smith, Peter Ker and Jessica Sier
    Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest has curbed his hydrogen ambitions.

    Albanese sticks to hydrogen despite Fortescue retreat

    Andrew Forrest ditching plans to produce 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030 has sparked questions over the government’s climate policies.

    • 1 hr ago
    • Andrew Tillett and Brad Thompson
    Former Fortescue executives Bart Kolodziejczyk (left) and Michael Masterman.

    Forrest says Element Zero execs burned bridges ‘like Nazis’

    Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest has distanced himself from surveillance tactics used against former employees, but fully supported the IP lawsuit against them.

    • Peter Ker
    Andrew Forrest’s says Fortescue will remain financially disciplined as it pursues its green vision.

    Picking green over blue is stalling our hydrogen superpower hopes

    Labor’s tax incentive scheme maintains the habit of describing identical molecules with colours of the rainbow. It is out of step with Australia’s competitors and customers

    • David Heard
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    Yesterday

    Hopes for a major hydrogen export industry emerging in the next few years have been fading.

    Fortescue’s pivot shakes faith in Labor’s Hydrogen Headstart strategy

    Power prices would need to drop steeply and electrolyser costs more than halve to produce hydrogen at anywhere near a competitive level, the industry has warned.

    • Angela Macdonald-Smith
    Andrew Forrest’s says Fortescue will remain financially disciplined as it pursues its green vision.

    Reality bites for Forrest’s hydrogen dream. Investors won’t mind

    The biggest shake-up of Fortescue’s structure and strategy in years will be music to the market’s ear, but is more evidence the energy transition is spluttering.

    • James Thomson

    Labor’s hydrogen dream stalls as Fortescue slims down H2 vision

    Fortescue will cut 700 jobs and slow its push into green hydrogen in a blow to the Albanese government’s plan to make Australia a hydrogen superpower supported by more than $8 billion of taxpayer funded incentives.

    • Peter Ker and Angela Macdonald-Smith

    This Month

    A gas-fired power plant in Leipzig, Germany, is planning to switch entirely to green hydrogen. Advocates for the fuel in Australia worry that loose rules for access to subsidies will leave local suppliers at a disadvantage to those in Europe.

    Labor’s green hydrogen rules for $6.7b subsidy splits producers

    Criteria being proposed for renewable hydrogen could mean emissions rise instead of fall as projects “cannibalise” the grid, green advocates warn.

    • Angela Macdonald-Smith
    Orica’s emissions reduction project at Kooragang Island will abate half a million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide equivalent, says German Morales, group president for Australia and the Pacific and sustainability.

    Orica crowned Australia’s most sustainable company for Impact

    The explosives manufacturer is recognised for completing the biggest emissions abatement project in the Australian chemicals sector as it takes out the 2024 Sustainability Leaders award.

    • Sally Patten
    Australian-born Silicon Valley-based investor Peter Barrett was on the board of Univeral Hydrogen.

    Fortescue, Playground-backed hydrogen flight start-up collapses

    Universal Hydrogen had attracted almost $150 million in funding, including from Aussie Peter Barrett’s Playground Global, but it wasn’t enough for it to take flight.

    • Yolanda Redrup

    June

    Sir Andrew Mackenzie: time to focus on the best few climate solutions

    The Shell chairman says the world’s carbon challenge is harder than he realised while running BHP, and it’s time for a global focus on a few winning solutions

    • Peter Ker and Lap Phan

    How Australia can become a world leader in green hydrogen

    A short course is being developed to give electrical engineers the specialist knowledge they need to work in the emerging green hydrogen sector.

    • Christopher Niesche
    Andrew Forrest at the opening for a new Fortescue Zero factory in Oxfordshire last October.

    Fortescue’s British Formula 1 car designer loses CEO

    The Williams Advanced Engineering boss is the latest executive to exit Andrew Forrest’s empire. WAE is central to the company’s batteries ambitions.

    • Brad Thompson

    May

    Fortescue executive chairman Andrew Forrest.

    Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue is now a software firm as well

    Fortescue has signed a deal to sell software to Jaguar Land Rover’s electric vehicles, as the iron ore giant’s energy arm branches out in new directions.

    • Hans van Leeuwen
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    The hydrogen industry is buoyed by the government’s multibillion-dollar suite of support measures in the budget.

    No more buzz – hydrogen is finally trying to get real

    At the World Hydrogen Summit this year, vaulting ambition began giving way to pragmatism and a paring back of priorities.

    • Hans van Leeuwen

    Can Australia become a green energy superpower? Five charts that say yes

    The Albanese government is taking a big punt on its signature Future Made in Australia policy, betting $24.3 billion over 10 years in Tuesday’s budget – these charts show why.

    • Ronald Mizen
    Michael Myer, chairman of Sunshine Hydro, at site of its proposed Djandori 300 MW green hydrogen project south of Gladstone, Qld.

    Hydrogen credit could blow its $6.7b budget

    Sunshine Hydro chairman Michael Myer says international investment could mean the cost of the budget measure blows out, but is still worth the benefits.

    • Ben Potter
    Fortescue’s energy boss Mark Hutchinson.

    ‘Back in the game’: Hydrogen sector celebrates from afar

    Almost 50 Australian companies were in Rotterdam for the World Hydrogen Summit. When news of the budget bonanza came through, the reaction was ecstatic.

    • Updated
    • Hans van Leeuwen
    Andrew Forrest in Davos earlier this near. The Fortescue executive chairman has been a critic of Woodside Energy in the past, but is on the same page when it comes to tax credit issues in the US.

    Fortescue, Woodside find common ground on green hydrogen

    Andrew Forrest has been one of the oil and gas giant’s biggest critics. The two are on the same page about US tax credits issues holding up renewable projects.

    • Brad Thompson