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.

Then the very next day, BP pulled the plug on its $600 million green hydrogen project at Kwinana in West Australia. Oops, so much for PM Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen continually spruiking about Australia's "green hydrogen" revolution before reality and economics started winning the propaganda war.

According to the ABC the federal government had already offered some significant financial support to the Gladstone project, including $20 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency for a "front-end engineering design" project, and a commitment of nearly $69 million through the government's Hydrogen Hubs program.

Of that $69 million, $14 million has already been paid out, and government sources suggest that if the project does not proceed, it may seek to recover any unspent funds.

Mr Bowen said the federal government remains supportive of the project…

Well Mr Bowen, it's not just the fact that green hydrogen is taking off like a proverbial Lead Zeppelin that makes your green aluminium plans no more than another green pipedream.

The production of aluminium is an energy intensive three-stage process involving mining, refining and finally smelting. It is this third stage that requires a constant reliable power source which can't be delivered by yet undeveloped green hydrogen, solar, wind or storage batteries with limited capacity. Cut the power supply by more than a couple of hours and the molten metal can solidify, putting a smelter out of action for months. This science site explains why, and it should be essential reading for Albo and Bowen:

The smelting process requires large amounts of electricity. A reliable and uninterrupted electrical power supply is a critical issue for aluminum smelters. Alternating or AC current supplied from the grid must be transformed into direct or DC current, which requires the use of large rectifiers, transformers, and sophisticated monitoring systemslocated adjacent to the potline building. The most inherent risk in aluminum production is a loss of electrical power. A failure of electricity supply lasting more than 2–3 hr can cause the electrolyte in the cells to cool to the point where its electrical resistance is too great when power is restored resulting in shutdown of all cells. It is expensive and time consuming; usually it will take several months to restart a frozen potline because the solidified aluminum and electrolyte must be physically broken out of the cells. Thus, significant business losses will be incurred due to the interruption in the event of a potline freezing. The remaining lifetime of the cathodes will be shortened due to the extra thermal stresses inevitable with shutdown and restart of cells....

I was reminded of all this a few days ago when we had an unscheduled power outage which lasted about two hours from mid-morning in our stretch of Queensland's Sunshine Coast. It was a clear day with no strong winds and several suburbs were affected, so I asked the government-owned power provider Energex what had caused it. They advised me to fill out an insurance claim form even if I wasn't making a claim, and they would get back to me. So far they haven't.

If Labor persists with its push to achieve its seemingly unachievable renewable energy target of 82 percent by 2030, what it probably will achieve is the loss of Australia's four existing aluminium smelters as they head offshore to reliable and affordable power sources.

Gladstone could be among the hardest hit as the industry is a major employer and regional economic driver, with Rio Tinto's Boyne Smelter, the Yarwun Alumina refinery and the Queensland Alumina Refinery potentially at risk.

The federal coalition's plan to keep coal and gas generation in the energy system longer while it transitions to a mix of renewables and nuclear power, seems a much more sensible approach to keep our lights on and the wheels of any remaining industry turning.

Meanwhile for some light relief, I'll turn Freddie back on and hope his lyrics hit the right green targets (figuratively).

Believe it or not - the beat just started pounding and the power went off for about 20 minutes. A sign from the gods or a sign of things to come?