Something different...
MIT PhD has an explosive hydrogen lesson for Forrest
Aaron Patrick
Saul Griffith knows how to make an arrival.
Yesterday, the Wollongong engineer and climate evangelist – imagine if Elon Musk and Mark Carnegie had a son raised by Bob Brown – arrived at Sydney’s Fullerton Hotel on a one-wheel electric skateboard, a recyclable coffee cup dangling from his belt and a wild head of hair barely contained by a plastic helmet.
Griffith had an important message for the climate industry, which had gathered at The Australian Financial Review Energy and Climate Summit. Andrew Forrest’s plan to make Australia a hydrogen superpower is misguided, not feasible and downright dangerous.
‘‘We do not have a viable technology for green steel,’’ Griffith said. ‘‘Green hydrogen is not going to temper any domestic emissions this decade.’’
Forrest plans to spend about $9 billion through Fortescue Metals Group to, among other things, use solar power to create hydrogen from water. The hydrogen will replace petrol in vehicles and coal in making steel.
Griffith accused Fortescue of signing ‘‘fake contracts’’ with European energy companies for hydrogen that might not be delivered, and said Australia had ‘‘drunk the Kool-Aid’’, a reference to a mass suicide at the direction of American preacher Jim Jones in 1978.
The Sydney-educated Griffith isn’t well known in his home country. He became a climate celebrity in the US, where, after completing a PhD in engineering at MIT, he launched a campaign to switch the entire country from petrol and gas to solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy.
Griffith doesn’t suffer from shyness about his opinions or achievements. He mentioned that he had operated a nuclear power reactor, was a leader in hydrogen-storage technology and had inspired the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Oh, and his plan to electrify the entire economy is the greatest investment opportunity in history.
Purchases of petrol-powered cars need to stop, immediately, followed by gas water heaters, and everything else that runs on fossil fuels, he said. This was the only way to reach Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions targets.
Hydrogen will be great for Griffith personally, but it won’t save the planet.
‘‘We miss the thing that is going to win the game, which is electrification, if we over-focus on hydrogen,’’ he said.
Griffith did the maths. To produce hydrogen for $2 a kilogram, Fortescue will need access to electricity for 2¢ a kilowatt hour from renewable energy. The $2 is a government target, and it is necessary because that is about the cost of producing hydrogen in a process that releases carbon dioxide.
The 2¢ electricity would be used for electrolysis, which separates hydrogen and water, compressing the gas and converting it back into electricity and water in a fuel cell. The result would be electricity that is four to six times as expensive as electricity straight from a solar panel or wind farm, Griffith said.
‘‘I can’t say it harshly enough,’’ he said. ‘‘We have drunk the Kool-Aid and we’re about to squander a decade. If hydrogen works, I will make more money than all of you because I built the hydrogen tanks that all of the world’s auto-makers have licensed.
‘‘I have shot large-calibre bullets into hydrogen tanks in the desert. I have watched them explode. I have owned two hydrogen cars. It was the scariest, most horrible experience of my life. I feel qualified to say a lot about hydrogen. I understand the physics and thermodynamics.’’
Forrest has denied a draft hydrogen sales agreement with Germany’s Eon was a public relations stunt. ‘‘They have asked for 5 million tonnes and they are going to get it,’’ he said in July.
Hydrogen created from solar or wind power isn’t entirely useless, Griffith said. He said Australia could use the elements to supply all the world’s ammonia, which is used in fertiliser: ‘‘That would be a $90 billion to $100 billion export opportunity.’’
Which means he just dismissed Fortescue’s company-transforming strategy as a pile of poo.
