Another green dream bites the dust

When Queen front man Freddie Mercury belted out the chorus to Another One Bites the Dust back in 1980, he would never have imagined those lyrics could have been a wake up call for today's green dream believers and in particular the Albanese Labor Government.

Freddie strutted the stage to a driving bass beat, singing:

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone

Another one bites the dust (yeah)
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust….

Listening to the news this week about more green hydrogen schemes joining an expanding list of stalled or cancelled projects despite billions in promised government subsidies, Freddie seemed like a latter-day Nostradamas rather than the brilliant musician who was taken from us way too soon.

I'm a bit stunned by the speed at which the green dominoes are falling since I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago, published on various sites under the title of "Airheads for Green Hydrogen" or "Green Aluminium? Tell Albo he's dreaming."

This referred to Labor's recently announced plan to put another $2 billion in subsidies towards the production of green aluminium using green hydrogen as the power source. This is never going to happen for reasons obvious to anyone with a basic knowledge of physics, chemistry and engineering, let alone economics.

The latest green dream comes on top of the $13.4 billion in production tax credits for "green hydrogen" and critical minerals unveiled in last year's budget under Labor's Future Made in Australia policy.

But it doesn't matter what colour you call it or however you make it, hydrogen (h2) always remains the same colourless, corrosive, explosive gas that claimed 36 lives when Germany's Hindenburg Airship exploded and burned back in 1937.

A major supporter of the fabled green hydrogen, billionaire Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest, last year slashed 700 Fortescue Mining jobs and backed away from its plan to produce 15 million tonnes of this gas by 2030.

Hot on Twiggy's heels, Origin Energy dropped out of the major Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub project, citing uncertainty in the market for the alternative fuel.

This came as another major blow to the federal government's green hydrogen ambitions.

But to quote another hit from decades past by Bachman Turner Overdrive, "Baby, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet. Just in the past week, we have seen the new Queensland LNP Government refuse to commit $1 billion towards the much-touted $12.5 billion Central Queensland Hydrogen project at Gladstone, previously supported by the state-owned Stanwell Corporation and some international backers.