{"id":337068,"date":"2024-07-20T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=337068"},"modified":"2024-07-20T15:00:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T13:00:24","slug":"the-hydrogen-titanic-just-sank-in-australia-because-renewable-electricity-costs-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=337068","title":{"rendered":"The Hydrogen Titanic just sank in Australia because renewable electricity costs too much"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From JoNova <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jo Nova<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The irony! The only generator that can make affordable hydrogen is brown coal<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Great Green Hydrogen dream was killed by the dual impossibility paradox, it has no customers prepared to pay the Gucci level rates, and it can\u2019t be made cheaper without using brown coal to which would mean it isn\u2019t \u201cgreen\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony is practically radioactive \u2014 analysts admit Green Hydrogen is only economic if a company can get electricity at $30 to $40 per megawatt hour, which Australia had for decades, but blew away by adding \u201crenewables\u201d. Like every other nation on Earth<\/a>, the more unreliable wind and solar we added, the more expensive our electricity got. These days the only generator that still make electricity at that price now is old brown coal.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
For years Australian average wholesale electricity prices were $30\/MWh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sure, for five minute bids, and with generous subsidies stolen from taxpayers, wind and solar can pretend to be cheaper, but it turns out that the hydrogen factories, like every other factory, aren\u2019t efficient if they stop and start every time a cloud rolls over, or the wind ebbs. All the infrastructure and staff, and the insurance and loans are still sitting around clocking up the bills, while nothing gets done. And all the inflows and outflows need to be adjusted, and the temperatures held steady. It would have been obvious to any precocious ten year old that hydrogen plants needed reliable<\/em> electricity, which means they needed galactic size batteries to fill in the gaps, and therefore an interstellar budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, no one really wants \u201cGreen\u201d hydrogen, or green steel, except as a fashion accessory to brag about at Davos. But people might buy it if it was cheap, which it isn\u2019t. The only way to make it cheaper is with brown coal, which means it\u2019s isn\u2019t green<\/em> hydrogen, and so we find the nation has accidentally stepped into a Escher Puzzle<\/a> where all staircases lead upwards and left and end right where they started except the bank balance goes phht with every cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s not underestimate the scale of this debacle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Andrew \u201cTwiggy\u201d Forrest burned off $2 billion dollars (AU)<\/a> on setting up his Green Dream Hydrogen energy plan which has just collapsed with the loss of 700 jobs. But bigger than that, the Australia Labor Government made it the centerpiece of its $2 billion Hydrogen Headstart program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Forrest\u2019s credibility gone along with Fortescue\u2019s green hydrogen collapse<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Eric Johnston, The Australian<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than two years, Fortescue has been full throttle trying to turn Forrest\u2019s promise of converting green hydrogen into a commercial reality within years. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, as the economics around surging electricity costs needed to produce green hydrogen sunk in, deadlines were pushed back and back. The mission changed, then there was a revolving door of executives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twiggy blames fossil fuels and the Russians:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not giving up on hydrogen at all,\u201d Forrest tells The Australian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe green electricity price just kept keeps heading north<\/strong>, and It\u2019s been dragged up by the fossil fuel price.<\/strong> We\u2019re not pivoting away. We\u2019re going upstream to get the green electrons at the right price\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 7:30 Report he kept dodging the question of what this meant for Labors big Renewable Nation plan, which means it obvious isn\u2019t good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point he mentioned \u201cthe war\u201d. As if somehow a war which limited gas supplies and drove up the price of coal \u201cdragged up the price\u201d of renewables. The truth was that the Ukrainian-Russian War and the death of the Nordstream Gas pipeline should have been the best thing that could happen to renewables. It was their golden market opportunity to fill the gap, but it only exposed how useless they are. When push came to shove, everyone wanted coal and gas, including the companies that make wind turbines and solar panels. The reason wind and solar went up in price was because wind power can\u2019t make wind turbines<\/a>, and solar power can\u2019t make solar panels<\/a>, and no one can afford to make batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those killer costings on Hydrogen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortescue\u2019s pivot shakes faith in Labor\u2019s Hydrogen Headstart strategy<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Angela Macdonald-Smith, AFR<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew Rennie, a former EY partner who is now an independent adviser, said his firm\u2019s analysis indicated that prices for power and electrolysers \u2013 which use renewable power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen \u2013 would need to be much cheaper to produce green hydrogen in Australia even at under $3 a kilogram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said power prices would need to be less than $40 a megawatt-hour <\/strong>and electrolyser costs would need to more than halve to produce hydrogen at that level \u2013 still 50 per cent more expensive than the government\u2019s $2 target for the gas to be competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or worse, $30 a megawatt hour:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep hydrogen dream alive, Andrew Forrest tells Labor<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By Joe Kelly, Nick Evans and Rhiannoin Down, The Australian<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Finkel, said green hydrogen could replace coal as a chemical-\u00adreducing agent in the production of iron, but acknowledged its viability was \u201chighly dependent\u201d on the costs of renewable electricity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the goal should be to start producing green hydrogen at about $2 a kilogram, \u201cwhich would require the electricity that is used to make the hydrogen to be less than about $30 per megawatt hour<\/strong> \u2013 which is very cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current average price on the wholesale national electricity market in the top two renewable states this month is $199 per megawatt hour (SA) and $214 in Tasmania. Even in Qld and NSW the prices are still $100 a megawatt hour more than they used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twiggy Forrest and Anthony Albanese believed their own fantasy propaganda.  Twiggy was still talking tonight of \u201cinfinite\u201d energy in Australia from the sun and the wind, showing how little he cares about numbers that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image by Pete Linforth<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graph: AER data<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Great Green Hydrogen dream was killed by the dual impossibility paradox, it has no customers prepared to pay the Gucci level rates, and it can\u2019t be made cheaper without using brown coal to which would mean it isn\u2019t \u201cgreen\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":337075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818216,691829772,691819849,691818728],"class_list":{"0":"post-337068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-brown-coal","10":"tag-green-hydrogen","11":"tag-wind-and-solar","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/0-Hindenburg-explosio.jpeg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1pGA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":219658,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=219658","url_meta":{"origin":337068,"position":0},"title":"Hydrogen hype and hurdles \u2014 Part one","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"19\/09\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Green Hydrogen is the latest\u00a0\u201cenergy\u201d\u00a0fad from the global warming warriors. 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From \u00a0Master Resource By Steve Goreham \u201cHydrogen from electrolysis, called green hydrogen, typically\u00a0costs\u00a0more than $5 per kilogram, or more than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"CO2\"","block_context":{"text":"CO2","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=co2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/00Screenshot-2021-01-26-at-17.webp?fit=1027%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/00Screenshot-2021-01-26-at-17.webp?fit=1027%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/00Screenshot-2021-01-26-at-17.webp?fit=1027%2C500&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/00Screenshot-2021-01-26-at-17.webp?fit=1027%2C500&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":261166,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=261166","url_meta":{"origin":337068,"position":2},"title":"Sign Here: Corporate Fraudsters Ready to Cash In On Grand \u2018Green\u2019 Hydrogen\u00a0Plans","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Loose talk about fast bucks to be made in so-called \u2018green\u2019 hydrogen has shysters salivating. 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Then, all of a sudden, the big players started treating their \u2018green\u2019 hydrogen plans like diseased strangers.","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/0Screenshot-2024-10-29-081855.png?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/0Screenshot-2024-10-29-081855.png?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/0Screenshot-2024-10-29-081855.png?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/0Screenshot-2024-10-29-081855.png?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/0Screenshot-2024-10-29-081855.png?fit=1200%2C672&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337076,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337068\/revisions\/337076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/337075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=337068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=337068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}