Andrew (Twiggy) Forest is downsizing his green hydrogen ambitions. It’s funny really, outside of alchemy and perpetual motion there is little that can’t be done if enough money is thrown at it. There’s the rub. Money ruining everything again, even the dreams of climate cultists.
A condition precedent for making affordable green hydrogen according to former chief scientist Alan Finkel, as laid out in his recent book Powering Up, is that the price of electricity to power electrolysers has to come down to US$10 per MWh ($15 in Aussie dollars).
Chris Mitchell in The Australian (July 29) cited a “climate campaigner” who claimed that electricity would need to be 2? per kilowatt hour to produce green hydrogen competitively. That is $20 per MWh, a third higher than suggested by Finkel. It doesn’t matter. Both prices are miles away from where we are or ever likely to be – unless we go gangbusters on brown coal, of course.
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) produced it’s June quarterly report on July 24. Average wholesale electricity prices in the second quarter of 2024 ranged from $109 per MWh in Queensland to $189 per MWH in NSW. That’s wholesale. Retail prices currently range between $250 and $450 per MWh depending on the state. It is all a long, long way from making green hydrogen anywhere near competitive. And that is quite apart from the other demanding and unrealistic requirements laid out by Finkel.
Specifically that the capital cost of electrolysers has to fall by 80% (not a misprint). And that solar, wind, water pretreatment plants, and hydro power plants will need to be co-located with the electrolysers to minimise transmission costs (also not a misprint). Hydro is required to fill in for the intermittency of solar and wind power (what a surprise) to ensure that the electrolysers can be run at over 90% of the time to keep their amortisation costs sufficiently low. Might all work in a computer model. Real life says no.
An idle thought. If you could produce electricity for $20 per MWH why on earth would you waste it on making marginally competitive green hydrogen when you could make a killing by selling it into the market. That is called economics. Not the strong suit of climateers.
Fanciful day dreams have replaced economics as the frame of reference for climateers, including for Chris Bowen and the delusional Teals and Greens. Green hydrogen is just a poster child for their complete and utter disconnect from reality. Don’t think for a minute that their green hydrogen superpower dreams vanishing before their very eyes will dampen their ardour. Not a bit. They will redouble their efforts to destroy “polluting” affordable reliable energy. Australia’s wellbeing is merely collateral damage. What are we to do? Pray.
But anyone of any practicality knew this was nuts at the start, and couldn’t see why Twiggy was doing it. As far as I can see, it is a combination of the desire for media and political attention and a possibly ill-founded belief in his own infallibility.
Twiggy’s days as an elder statesman are drawing to a close. As they were always going to do. FMG was a remarkable achievement but increasingly looks like a one trick pony. The LNG import thing looks like it might fly thanks to more green lunacy.
It takes 50 kWh to produce one kilogram of hydrogen. One GJ is seven kg of hydrogen. Therefore it would cost $7 to produce one GJ of hydrogen.
The current natural gas price on the US market is US$1.98/mmBTU, which is about US$1.93 per GJ.
So any green hydrogen produced at the ludicrously low price of 2c/kWh is still going to be more than twice as expensive as natural gas, even before including the capital cost, other operating costs, interest, tax and depreciation.
I have to say I’d just love electricity at 2c/kWh. Where can I get that? I pay about 15 times more than that.
Simplistic.
Look, I don’t know if green hydrogen is true or not. But the fact of the matter is that if there is no green hydrogen push, the infrastructure for natural gas is going to get the arse.
Sure. Later on you might be shown to be right. In the meantime, untold damage is done. The graveyards are full of people who were right.
Any news on Mike Cannon-Brooke’s plan to harvest electrons in the NT and send them to Singapore via a cable 7km deep in the ocean? Surely some modest subsidies could help bring this visionary plan to fruition?
Gaia and Opm
sittin’ in a tree,
G-R-E-E
En-er-gy!
Thus economic progress which freed millions from desperation came to a crevasse and was pushed. By a collective emotional age of 8.
All we inherited squandered.
And buy a genset. Be prepared to defend it against the coppers who will confiscate it for the Duty Room beer fridge.
You can buy a good selection of diesel gensets https://www.ablesales.com.au/industrial-diesel-generators/ – and don’t forget to allow an extension cord to your neighbours for just a fridge, a freezer, and an electric jug. Make sure they know not to connect a toaster and microwave down the extension cord at the same time. Also let them know it isn’t free and you expect them to keep at least a hundred litres of diesel to run the thing.
It’s the same advice I’ve been giving for the last 10/15 years.
You’re welcome.
“If you could produce electricity for $20 per MWH why on earth would you waste it on making marginally competitive green hydrogen when you could make a killing by selling it into the market.”
Why would you want to produce hydrogen as an end product anyway?
I can’t think of a worse fuel for such purposes.
It’s difficult to store, as it tends to leak from containers other gases would not leak from; it tends to make metal containers that hold it brittle and therefore fragile; it requires cryogenic temperatures (eg, continuous energy use) to keep it dense enough (ie liquid); it burns at a super-wide mixture range making leaks extremely dangerous; even as a liquid, the energy density is low.
Much better to turn it into methane or even better, propane – “green natural gas” or “green LPG”. Both have well characterised safety profiles for large scale deployments and existing infrastructure that supports them.