This Month
From evangelist to pragmatist: Andrew Forrest’s green hydrogen pivot
This week on The Fin podcast, resources reporter Peter Ker on what this retreat means for the government’s green energy plans and Fortescue’s future.
- Updated
July
- Opinion
- Opinion
Hard energy reality has mugged Fortescue’s hydrogen dreams
Andrew Forrest is not alone. Many corporates have suffered a similar delusion about simple, easy and cheap transition.
- Patrick Gibbons
Mining boss calls for policy changes with more jobs in danger
The boss of WA’s peak resources lobby group says the Albanese government needs to step up to prevent more job losses.
- Brad Thompson and Tom Rabe
Energy CEOs urge industry not to quit hydrogen dream
Australian businesses need to be smarter and work harder to overcome the cost hurdles in hydrogen, which has a strong future in some industries, CEOs insist.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Don’t put all energy transition eggs in one green basket
The energy revolution is producing militant evangelists and sceptics of individual technologies. Andrew Forrest’s hydrogen retreat shows policymakers need to be more open-minded.
- The AFR View
Green hydrogen too ‘expensive and inefficient’: Finkel
Former chief scientist Alan Finkel – who devised Australia’s first clean hydrogen strategy – now says we are “unlikely to use hydrogen for storage of electricity”.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith, Peter Ker and Jessica Sier
Albanese sticks to hydrogen despite Fortescue retreat
Andrew Forrest ditching plans to produce 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030 has sparked questions over the government’s climate policies.
- Andrew Tillett and Brad Thompson
Forrest says Element Zero execs burned bridges ‘like Nazis’
Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest has distanced himself from surveillance tactics used against former employees, but fully supported the IP lawsuit against them.
- Peter Ker
- Opinion
- Opinion
Picking green over blue is stalling our hydrogen superpower hopes
Labor’s tax incentive scheme maintains the habit of describing identical molecules with colours of the rainbow. It is out of step with Australia’s competitors and customers
- David Heard
Fortescue’s pivot shakes faith in Labor’s Hydrogen Headstart strategy
Power prices would need to drop steeply and electrolyser costs more than halve to produce hydrogen at anywhere near a competitive level, the industry has warned.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Reality bites for Forrest’s hydrogen dream. Investors won’t mind
The biggest shake-up of Fortescue’s structure and strategy in years will be music to the market’s ear, but is more evidence the energy transition is spluttering.
- James Thomson
- Updated
- Energy
Labor’s hydrogen dream stalls as Fortescue slims down H2 vision
Fortescue will cut 700 jobs and slow its push into green hydrogen in a blow to the Albanese government’s plan to make Australia a hydrogen superpower supported by more than $8 billion of taxpayer funded incentives.
- Peter Ker and Angela Macdonald-Smith
Labor’s green hydrogen rules for $6.7b subsidy splits producers
Criteria being proposed for renewable hydrogen could mean emissions rise instead of fall as projects “cannibalise” the grid, green advocates warn.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Overall Winner
- Sustainability Leaders
Orica crowned Australia’s most sustainable company for Impact
The explosives manufacturer is recognised for completing the biggest emissions abatement project in the Australian chemicals sector as it takes out the 2024 Sustainability Leaders award.
- Sally Patten
Fortescue, Playground-backed hydrogen flight start-up collapses
Universal Hydrogen had attracted almost $150 million in funding, including from Aussie Peter Barrett’s Playground Global, but it wasn’t enough for it to take flight.
- Yolanda Redrup
June
Sir Andrew Mackenzie: time to focus on the best few climate solutions
The Shell chairman says the world’s carbon challenge is harder than he realised while running BHP, and it’s time for a global focus on a few winning solutions
- Peter Ker and Lap Phan
How Australia can become a world leader in green hydrogen
A short course is being developed to give electrical engineers the specialist knowledge they need to work in the emerging green hydrogen sector.
- Christopher Niesche
Fortescue’s British Formula 1 car designer loses CEO
The Williams Advanced Engineering boss is the latest executive to exit Andrew Forrest’s empire. WAE is central to the company’s batteries ambitions.
- Brad Thompson
May
Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue is now a software firm as well
Fortescue has signed a deal to sell software to Jaguar Land Rover’s electric vehicles, as the iron ore giant’s energy arm branches out in new directions.
- Hans van Leeuwen
No more buzz – hydrogen is finally trying to get real
At the World Hydrogen Summit this year, vaulting ambition began giving way to pragmatism and a paring back of priorities.
- Hans van Leeuwen
