<
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/27/australias-hydrogen-hype-bubble-is-starting-to-leak/>
"Three articles crossed my screen recently suggested that Australia might be
seeing reality around hydrogen. It’s not official policy or anything, but it’s
a good sign that the hype bubble might be leaking or even deflating, which
would be very good for Australia’s economy. But first, some context.
As I noted in my assessment of Australia’s 2023 Net Zero plan, which was heavy
on hopium and light on reality, Australia currently exports four times as much
primary energy as its entire economy consumes. 5-7% of its GDP is directly or
indirectly related to fossil fuel extraction and mostly exports. As such, the
world’s move away from fossil fuels is an existential crisis for a country that
wants to grow its economy, not shrink it. The Net Zero plan’s strategy was
mostly to double energy exports, but with green hydrogen instead of coal and
gas.
Their big hope is that other countries like Japan will bankrupt their economies
with ten times the cost for energy instead of building lots of renewables and
HVDC interconnectors, which is pretty much the definition of a terrible basis
for a strategy or economic plan. And that’s ten times the cost of liquid
natural gas, already the most expensive form of imported energy at two to three
times the cost of imported coal, as I noted in my piece on the cultural factors
that lead to Japan over focusing on the slippery molecule.
The response in the 2019 hydrogen strategy, led by then-chief scientist Alan
Finkel, was to focus on hydrogen for transportation, gas networks, heating,
electricity systems, and export, along with a much smaller group of actually
sensible use cases like green ammonia and green steel. Finkel is no
intellectual or STEM slouch. While he’s a neuroscientist, his first degree was
in electrical engineering. He built a Silicon Valley biotech firm, sold it,
founded
Cosmos magazine, went on to be CTO of an electric car charging firm,
had accolades heaped upon him, and generally advised everyone all the time on
everything scientific.
Which rather demands the question:
Why did Finkel and the team he led get the hydrogen strategy so wrong?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
