Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, August five, twenty twenty five. Scores of DNA
Speaker 1: samples will need to be retested for a second time
Speaker 1: after whistleblowing forensic scientist doctor Kirsty Wright uncovered more problems
Speaker 1: at Queensland's embattled lab. The disaster was uncovered in The
Speaker 1: Australian's investigative podcast Shandy Story. The Australian Federal Police has
Speaker 1: its first female commissioner, with Chrissy Barrett to replace the
Speaker 1: retiring Rhys Kershaw. Barrett started her police career at twenty
Speaker 1: one as an administrative assistant and rose to run the
Speaker 1: National Security Command. You can read all about her right
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot Com dot a You. It
Speaker 1: sounded like magic, unlimited energy that comes from water, But
Speaker 1: green hydrogen is too expensive, too hard and too complex,
Speaker 1: and our projects around the country are falling over and
Speaker 1: a hugely ambitious Queensland scheme led by billionaire Andrew Forrest
Speaker 1: has left a sixty five billion dollar hole in taxpayers pockets.
Speaker 1: Today how green hydrogen became a nightmare.
Speaker 2: The future of renewable energy is here this empty block
Speaker 2: of land will be transformed into a hydrogen hub.
Speaker 3: In terms of setting Queensland up to be a hydrogen superpower,
Speaker 3: is almost as significant as getting the Olympics.
Speaker 1: The town will create a clean and green future. It
Speaker 1: sounded so exciting. Billionaire Andrew Forest was going to transform
Speaker 1: the economy and the environment with green hydrogen.
Speaker 4: This is a breakthrough for both Queensland and Australian green energy.
Speaker 2: Mining tyger Twiggy Forest putting his money where it matters.
Speaker 1: Promising to deliver on time. Twiggy a man of his word,
Speaker 1: prepared to pay whatever it takes to get the job done.
Speaker 1: Forest made it sound like magic. Here he is in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, a.
Speaker 4: Huge source of infinitely sustainable power, a power source which
Speaker 4: come to water, creates a huge amount of energy and
Speaker 4: goes back to water. I reckon Hogwarts, Harry Potter, eat
Speaker 4: your heart out. That's the best spell I've heard of.
Speaker 2: There's a reason why Andrew Forrest is Australia as Rich's businessman.
Speaker 2: Part of doing business is the cell, and he's really
Speaker 2: good at the big cell.
Speaker 1: Michael McKenna is The Australian's Queensland editor.
Speaker 2: He came to Queensland and he gave the then Labor
Speaker 2: government the promise of an energy future that didn't involve coal,
Speaker 2: which has been driving this economy for decades, and that
Speaker 2: is green hydrogen power. He had a plan to build
Speaker 2: a hydrogen electoralizer manufacturing facility and separately beside it a
Speaker 2: green hydrogen producing plant, and all he had to do
Speaker 2: was convince the government to give him the land and
Speaker 2: help in providing the supporting infrastructure, and they fell over
Speaker 2: themselves in helping him out.
Speaker 1: So when the Chrysofully government was elected and decided that
Speaker 1: it was going to pull its support for this project,
Speaker 1: why did they make that decision.
Speaker 2: David christ A fully inherited an economy that was pitched
Speaker 2: towards the transition to renewable power. The Palichet and Miles
Speaker 2: Labor government were hell bent on transitioning the entire economy
Speaker 2: to green renewable power, and part of that was to
Speaker 2: retire what it is, the youngest fleet, the newest fleet
Speaker 2: of qual fire power stations in the country. So they
Speaker 2: were going to bring forward their retirement to two thirty
Speaker 2: five and to do that, Labor had this plan of
Speaker 2: rolling out renewable power through solar wind and now with
Speaker 2: this idea green hydrogen and then to store it in
Speaker 2: pump Tydro. When the L ANDP government took over, they
Speaker 2: started getting the reports, some of which were held off
Speaker 2: until after the election, which showed that there were flaws,
Speaker 2: that there were holes in some of the plans, one
Speaker 2: of which was pump Tidro. But the other thing was
Speaker 2: the massive Central Queensland Green Hydrogen project which was sitting
Speaker 2: beside mister Forrest's manufacturing and explorit plan or his plans
Speaker 2: for and there were problems with those plants. The L
Speaker 2: and P government's mantra on energy is to provide certainty
Speaker 2: of power and to bring the prices down and the
Speaker 2: next part after that is to look at renewable They
Speaker 2: have commissioned and committed to transitioning the economy, but they
Speaker 2: say that they're determined to maintain paying the certainty of
Speaker 2: power and they have found flaws in the labor plans.
Speaker 1: In Gladston. Forrest was going to be a central player
Speaker 1: in Australia's largest green hydrogen project that was going to
Speaker 1: make the Central Queensland Port City the home of hydrogen's future.
Speaker 1: But green hydrogen has turned out to be a lot
Speaker 1: harder than anyone thought, and in June the project collapsed
Speaker 1: after first the newly elected Liberal National Party Premier David
Speaker 1: chris A fully then the financiers pulled out. Anastasia Palishet,
Speaker 1: the Queensland Premier you heard earlier comparing hydrogen to the Olympics,
Speaker 1: was frank.
Speaker 3: Hydrogen is proving to be in the too hard basket. Yes,
Speaker 3: a little bit disappointing because hydrogen was high on my
Speaker 3: agenda when I was premier, it was high on the
Speaker 3: national agenda, but it just doesn't stack up.
Speaker 2: The state government has probably spent a couple hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars in these green hydrogen projects in Gladstone. There's been
Speaker 2: about two hundred and twenty to two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: million dollars that has been spent on the Queensland Hydrogen project,
Speaker 2: which was shared by the federal state governments and its
Speaker 2: CONSORTI partners, but the bulk of it was spent by
Speaker 2: the state government. And I'm led to believe that up
Speaker 2: to about sixty five million dollars is being pursued by
Speaker 2: the now L ANDP government from mister Forrest Fortescue in
Speaker 2: relation to the land and other supporting infrastructure that was
Speaker 2: supplied as part of an agreement to enticem to Gladstone.
Speaker 1: Fordesque, which has also scrapped a big US hydrogen project,
Speaker 1: says it still believes in the technology and will repay
Speaker 1: public funds were required.
Speaker 2: But then there are more indirect costs. For instance, there
Speaker 2: was a one billion dollar water pipeline that was approved
Speaker 2: by the former government to provide water for this Central
Speaker 2: Queensland hydrogen project. It cost of billion dollars. It's going
Speaker 2: to be completed this time next year, and with that
Speaker 2: project now off the cards, it doesn't have a customer
Speaker 2: to supply that water to.
Speaker 1: So what is green hydrogen exactly? The theory is this
Speaker 1: produces build hydro wind and solar energy projects, then convert
Speaker 1: that energy into hydrogen using a process called electrolysis. A
Speaker 1: renewable power source like a wind farm, pushes power through electrodes,
Speaker 1: which split water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The hydrogen
Speaker 1: can be stored as a gas or a liquid, and
Speaker 1: it can be exported in pipes and on ships. Forest's
Speaker 1: idea was to make hydrogen the world's primary energy source,
Speaker 1: but it's challenging. Green hydrogen production uses a lot of water.
Speaker 1: Building big plants like Gladstone is incredibly expensive and complex,
Speaker 1: and there's a limited demand. Nobody's using hydrogen as a
Speaker 1: fuel in big volumes yet, and the infrastructure like pipes
Speaker 1: and hubs doesn't yet exist to get it into homes
Speaker 1: and factories coming up? What's the lesson here? Green hydrogen
Speaker 1: was meant to be a major part of the Albanese
Speaker 1: government's future Made in Australia program that schemes designed to
Speaker 1: help reach its net zero emissions goal.
Speaker 5: We have here with the hydrogen industry is some fifty
Speaker 5: billion dollars potential of benefit to our national economy, driving
Speaker 5: our GDP, driving our economy into the future.
Speaker 1: But as The Australian's Chief Business correspondent Perry Williams has reported,
Speaker 1: a bunch of the hydrogen projects backed by Laborup have
Speaker 1: been quietly shelved and pretty much none of them have
Speaker 1: made it past the concept stage. As a result, taxpayers
Speaker 1: across the country have tipped billions into green hydrogen projects
Speaker 1: that will likely never get off the ground.
Speaker 2: Taxpayers will pour two point four billion dollars into a
Speaker 2: plan to secure the future of the troubled wireless Steelworks.
Speaker 3: BP has announced that it's six hundred million dollar green
Speaker 3: hydrogen project at Quanana south of Perth has been parked.
Speaker 4: Origin Energy is abandoning its plans to develop hydrogen at
Speaker 4: its Hunter Valley.
Speaker 3: Hydrogen Hub, deeming the project too expensive and too risky.
Speaker 1: What's the lesson here for governments around the country, Michael,
Speaker 1: As hydrogen projects fall over in every state and territory.
Speaker 2: The message with the lesson is do not believe everything
Speaker 2: you're told. To look at what is real, what is
Speaker 2: commercially viable, and to take small steps in committing taxpayer
Speaker 2: funds to these sorts of projects. If these sorts of
Speaker 2: energy projects are going to work, they've got to stand
Speaker 2: on their own feet and you've got to really let
Speaker 2: the market put up these projects and make them economically viable. Yes,
Speaker 2: there is the question of climate action and reducing the
Speaker 2: state and the country's emissions, but equally, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: we've got to provide certainty of power and keep that
Speaker 2: power as cheap as possible. We've got an issue here
Speaker 2: where we're selling gas from Queensland into markets overseas where
Speaker 2: they're paying less for their electricity than they are here.
Speaker 2: But Overall, the message here is don't pour hundreds of millions,
Speaker 2: possibly billions of dollars into these projects without knowing that
Speaker 2: they're going to work.
Speaker 1: Michael McKenna is The Australian's Queensland editor. You can read
Speaker 1: all our coverage of the energy transition right now at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au