Guest essay by Eric Worrall
What do you do if you need the votes of coal miners, but also need the votes of inner city climate activists? Try to please both, of course.
Qld government backs coal and gas industries while unveiling green hydrogen projects
Queensland will keep supporting fossil fuels despite green energy advocate Andrew Forrest acknowledging coal and gas are in decline.
Alex Druce
October 11, 2021 – 12:39PMQueensland has made its second major clean energy announcement in two days but remains tight-lipped on whether the state’s green credentials are being undermined by its support for fossil fuel extraction, including the coal and gas industries.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Monday again stood with iron ore magnate turned green energy philanthropist Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest to announce a partnership between his Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) and ASX-listed fertiliser firm Incitec Pivot.
The two companies will team up to assess whether it is possible to convert Incitec’s ammonia production facility on Gibson Island near Brisbane into a hydrogen-powered operation.
FFI also plans to construct an on-site electrolysis plant to produce 50,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year for conversion into green ammonia.
…
But despite talking up Queensland’s “industrial green revolution”, the state government remains staunch in its support of coal and gas.
Ms Palaszczuk’s government famously struck a deal with Indian miner Adani for royalties from its controversial $2bn Carmichael mine just days before last year’s October election win.
And she again reiterated her support for fossil fuels on Monday, even after Dr Forrest declared the sector was “in decline”.
“In Queensland, we support the people who work in the coal industry,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
…
Read more: https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/news/qld-government-backs-coal-and-gas-industries-while-unveiling-green-hydrogen-projects/news-story/a2e5ad14f341c11c5ace74d9009ca03a
Backing fossil fuels and renewables at the same time might seem schizophrenic, but it is actually less deranged than most of the plans on offer. Despite the wasted money on uneconomic green energy schemes, at least the coal power will keep flowing – which is more than you can say about most places run by green zealots.
All you can do is hope she keeps coal on the front burner and mostly pays lip service to windmills and solar panels. If she can keep this juggling act going for a few years it might be enough to see the Green stupidity collapse as sanity is restored to the world.
Yeah, if you keep 500million tpy of coal production and give them 50,000t of hydrogen for your sins, go for it. Maybe use hydrogen blimps to transfer coal from mine to ships making coal greener! When you have de-educated designer-brained idiots, they might just go for it.
Yeah, I’m hoping that too. We’re opening up all the shuttered coal mines, coal prices are going through the roof, demand is insatiable, it’s probably the only thing that will prevent Australia joining the global economy collapse caused by irrational covid policies, and still we have numpties telling us we have to leave it in (or indeed, on) the ground.
The Premier is not to be trusted to do the right thing. She is the queen of spin and BS. Her government has demonstrated over many issues that it has little knowledge and understanding of anything other than what their political benefit is.
We are sure to have green hydrogen as soon as pigs fly. This will only take aeons of evolution!
Wait until they realise that hydrogen is colourless, not green blue and brown.
They will have to add colourants to it so that you can know what you have bought.
In France “le gasoil”/”le gazole” (diesel car fuel) and “fioul domestique” (domestic heating diesel) have different colors, but they are otherwise pretty much the same oil distillate.
In the US diesel is colored to differentiate between road diesel and farm diesel. Farm diesel is much cheaper because of lower tax. Every so often the Highway Patrol will set up check-points to try and ferret out farmers putting farm diesel in their trucks. It also gives them an opportunity to poke around and look for other offenses….
They most likely have different TAXATION as well, so the colo(u)ring is undoubtedly intended to prevent (/limit) tax fraud!?
i fear sanity has left the building along with Elvis;-(
I’m just waiting for the next hydrogen disaster . . ‘Oh the humanity of it all’ . .
It looks like Mexico is going with only coal in state run power plants.
Mexico presents plan to shutter private power plants – ABC News (go.com)
Will it even get a mention at COP26?
Government-run plants that burn dirty fuel oil would have preference over private wind and solar plants.
JournoLism with a touch of green… not plants.
Green hydrogen depends on massive amounts of wind and solar power. Fortunately RE is so very cheap, and getting cheaper. But wait, what happens when it has to pay the full price of firming instead of getting a free ride on the back of the dwindling supply of conventional power? Check the numbers! https://newcatallaxy.blog/2021/09/25/the-real-cost-of-unreliable-energy/
That’s a great way to explain the realities, Rafe.
But who was it said –
“it’s always difficult to get a man to understand something when his pay check depends on him not understanding it?”
The point is moot. Green hydrogen doesn’t need firming- actually it is a good way of using the excess solar/wind that would otherwise go to waste.
You do realise there is no subsidies involved in this? It’s purely a private enterprise initiative? Unlike, say, every nuclear power plant on the planet, that has subsidies, large and small, hidden or overt.
Green hydrogen is hydrogen made from solar PV electricity and the electrolysis of water, it’s about a 4% efficiency, mostly due to heat generated by the electrolysis. It is a hugely inefficient use of massive solar PV farms that themselves are anything but green in their manufacture in China. Green hydrogen is just a fanciful PR distraction.
Brown hydrogen is hydrogen made from coal gassification. This is an efficient way to make hydrogen, but the copious CO2 produced has to undergo CCS in order to do anything in regards to emissions. The Greentards are well on record as firmly hating all CCS schemes as they allow more fossil fuels to be mined, produced and burned. Just another way to keep the coal mines cranked up. Which is a good thing.
Attached is an image of how brown hydrogen will be created in Australia and shipped to Japan in the next few years as this trial proceeds. It’s all virtue signaling PR smokescreens, whilst the real effort at shipping vast quantities of coal and natural gas (as LNG) to Asia proceeds at accelerating levels. Which in that way is a good thing.
#FJB.
Maybe their next trick will be to use green hydrogen as a means to transport water, where water is converted to hydrogen, transported in a leaky pipe for a thousand + km and then converted back to water at the other side where it’s used for irrigation. Then they can claim they’re really smart.
Joel,
Good summary.
To put hydrogen production in context, in 2019 about 50 Mt of hydrogen was produced worldwide, according to the British House of Commons library, of which Britain was producing 0.7 Mt a small fraction of the global total.
I believe Australia produced less than Britain but need to find reliable figures.
The IEA had an estimate for 2018 of worldwide demand at 75Mt.
So we have –
Brown Hydrogen- Coal gasification,
Grey Hydrogen- Natural gas steam Methane reforming
Blue Hydrogen- Grey hydrogen plus Carbon Capture and Storage,
Pink Hydrogen- Gas or Methane hydrogen produced from nuclear power,
Green hydrogen- Hydrogen produced from Water via electrolysis.
Only the last is categorised as “clean” hydrogen i.e.claimed to be zero carbon and only if the electricity used is generated by zero carbon means.
Note that FFI and Pivot are conducting feasibility studies on the viability of commercial production.
Of world production, 48% is grey hydrogen and another 48% is brown hydrogen while only 4% is produced from the electrolysis of water.
Green hydrogen is very much a speculative venture.
There is no 100% green energy….there are electric cars being powered by electricity from coal…coal burners they are…but their owners consider themselves to be virtuous. It is a tangled web they weave when they try to deceive that CO2 is a problem.
wow rainbow fuel for the woke luvvies
how utterly twee
They will need coal fired electricity to process the needed volume of hydrogen required for widespread use. And then you got all the pipelines to put in to every structure, need coal fired electricity to make all the pipe and other materials/parts. Ramp up coal fired electricity generation, hydrogen will peter out as it most likely will in the hands of a bunch of leftist idiots and everyone switches back to natural gas and there is plenty of electricity for industry and agriculture and every other thing that humans love to do with electricity. A sound plan as far as I can see!
Twiggy must chuckle quietly while he reflects on how easy it was for him to deflect the greenies from haranguing and disrupting his massive iron ore mining operations, as they consume tons of diesel fuel 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
Can you imagine how much diesel it took Twiggy’s monster mine trucks to run just this one operation at his Solomon hub –
See, Twiggy isn’t in coal or gas, so why shouldn’t he occupy the vandals (greenies) with attacking his fellow miners in fights he doesn’t have a dog in?
twiggys gone woke and “first nations”
curious how OUR aboriginals appropriated 1st nations and no one complains??
Yes, some of these Antipodean “nations” consisted of a dozen or so pax who wandered over many square miles of terrain foraging for food.
They set no territorial boundaries, food supply dictated where they camped from week to week.
“Nations” my arse.
Old joke about ‘on the one hand, but on the other hand’. So two lawyers can give 4 opinions per client. Economists are better since can give three each, because they can throw in a ceterus paribus qualifier.
When I was a very senior rainmaking corporate BCG consultant, we were allowed just one fact based opinion. Feedback was usually fairly immediate. CEO and Board agreed, we maybe got hired again. They didn’t, it was adios (with no Amigo).
One of the more rational of Palachook’s decisions. Green hydrogen (hydrogen made from solar PV electricity using electrolysis of water) is about 4% efficient. When the hydrogen proves too costly or dangerous, Queensland can fall back on Old King Coal.
I think we will be digging up (or just picking up) coal all the time this fantasy is being pretended anyway. The demand is huge, and the prices are going up, just like gas.
In any case, don’t the customers burning this coal get lumbered with the CO2 ‘penalty’ anyway? I’m sure that they do, so they can’t sensibly lumber us with a penalty too. Not that sense comes into it, though.
oh just dandy
after how many mega millions wasted on it?
The locality of Aldoga near Gladstone chosen by Twiggy is not noted for wind according to map posted on www.
Renewable Energy Atlas of Australia — Mean Wind Speed at 80m above ground level
I cant find the Atlas online now but my files have the above map on a 1 page pdf dated 2008.
If anybody finds a link to something more modern please post. Here is ABC news from Sunday
New $1 billion-plus project in Queensland to double world’s green hydrogen production capacity 10Oct21
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-10/qld-palaszczuk-andrew-forrest-hydrogen-gladstone/100527670
Quote – Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) will build the world’s largest green energy hydrogen manufacturing facility in Central Queensland, mining billionaire and company founder Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest says. The first step in the project — a $115 million manufacturing facility set to be built in Aldoga, west of Gladstone — is expected to double the world’s green hydrogen production capacity
And Scotland wants in on the ‘diversified energy hub’ boondoggle: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-58882752
They say it’s ‘green’ hydrogen, using offshore wind.
But I wonder how long it will be before the power-that-is in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, declares it ‘inherently Scottish’, and so it must, therefore, produce Tartan hydrogen?
Note the terminal operator is Repsol Sinopec, a Spanish-Chinese [so CCP] entity.
Doubtless there’ll be millions in subsidy for ‘upgrading’ the pipework.
As I’ve read here, hydrogen is a rather tricky gas.
The closing paragraphs of the above linked report –
“Repsol Sinopec chief executive José Luis Muñoz said: “The Flotta terminal has been in operation since 1976 and has made a significant contribution to Orkney’s economy and communities for more than 40 years.
“We fully support our industry’s transition to clean, green energy and a secure future for skilled oil and gas workers in Scotland and across the UK.
“This project would enable the terminal to be progressively transformed over time into a diversified energy hub.”” –
absolutely fill me with confidence that Señor Muñoz has had a quick briefing on the pork barrel aspects of power in Scotland;
The hazards of hydrogen – maybe less so.
Auto
Back around end of May at Biloela in Qld there was –
Callide C coal-fired outage due to hydrogen explosion
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=6720
I read somewhere they are talking a year plus and $200Mill Kangas to repair the wrecked unit.
If the pipe distribution network is anything like the pipe network for water here in Sydney it won’t hold any hydrogen for long.
The next Queensland state election is in 2024.
The assured “industrial green revolution” is based on the slogan: ‘don’t worry, sometime someone somewhere will invent something’.
Don’t fight it, join it. “Don’t worry, sometime somewhere someone will invent something to stick on the tailpipe of my gasoline-fueled car to remove all the carbon dioxide it produces.” Or, “everything about my car is green except for the fuel it burns. Don’t worry, sometime someone somewhere will invent a fuel for my car that doesn’t produce carbon dioxide emissions.”
The key is the verb “assess.”
Science, technology, and rational processes, first. One step… forward.
Macron says “en même temps“: all at the same time.
Like backing 3 horses in the same race, when one has an outstanding record as a stayer, one is a comparative newcomer with recent good form, and the third is an untrained young horse with no track success. Who should we back, I wonder?
looking for PRn votes
shes NOT popular or very bright
the H2 setups will be millions to billions and fall over
on her would be my personal pref
“Green hydrogen” is an oxymoron.
Doing whatever it takes to appease the irrational environMentalists whilst keeping heat in the house this winter, I guess.
But Qld also has a declared policy of 50% renewable electricity by 2030.
Current mix 73% coal, 9% gas.