Australia: A mining billionaire for climate protection

Ironically, the industrialist Andrew Forrest wants to promote the green turn in Australia. He invests massively in the promotion of renewable energies – even in places that have so far lived on fossil fuels.

Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest is one of Australia’s richest men. From his corporate headquarters in Perth, he directs and oversees an empire of iron ore mines 1,600 kilometers away in the outback. But now he of all people, the heavy industrialist, wants to lead Australia’s green revolution.

Forrest relies on wind and solar energy and, above all, on renewable hydrogen. “We can produce hydrogen with wind and sun – and you too: with the tides or geothermal energy,” says Forrest. “We don’t have to dig anything out of the ground for this. And you don’t have to pay the Kremlin for it. You can do it all yourself!”

Its iron ore mines are soon to be operated in a climate-neutral manner. That is why he is investing the equivalent of six billion euros in the development of hydrogen-powered trucks, trains and ships. “I don’t have a guilty conscience,” he says. “The world needs metal. We just have to find a way to make everything we make green.”

E.ON wants to become a hydrogen buyer

Felicity Underhill is one of Forrest’s key employees. She is currently overseeing his construction site in Gladstone, northeast Queensland. Instead of coal, Australia is supposed to export hydrogen from here in a few years: “We are building a production facility for electrolysers here. The plant is the equivalent of two gigawatts a year and will be the largest plant in the world,” she enthuses. The German company E.ON has announced that it will purchase five million tons of hydrogen by 2030.

Underhill himself worked in the oil and gas sector until a few years ago. “I’m finally on the side of the angels,” says the marketing specialist. Australia has fantastic opportunities for generating renewable energy: In an area like Queensland, wind and sun complement each other – it’s sunny during the day and windy at night. This enables a constant stream of renewable energy – and more of it than Australia can use.

A departure from Australia’s fossil image

The construction site for the electrolyser production facility is in Gladstone, of all places – a city that symbolizes Australia’s previous fossil image: coal, gas, aluminum. But the signs point to change. The city’s large coal-fired power plant is scheduled to go offline in 2035. And others like aluminum giant Rio Tinto are suddenly investing in renewable energies there.

There is a spirit of optimism at the local Gladstone High School. Electrolysis is taught in class, and eighth graders like Lewis Windsor can now explain, almost in their sleep, how hydrogen can be produced with the help of solar panels.

The student wants to become an engineer and work for a hydrogen company. Almost everyone in the area has parents who work in the coal, gas, or aluminum industries. Now they are hoping that Australia’s energy transition will pick up speed and that someday there will be jobs for them.

In the next few years, the school in Gladstone is to get a million-euro design and technology center with the latest test and laboratory technology, says Abby Davies from the 11th grade: “We understand that it is a real alternative. We see it with our own eyes . In mass production, of course, it will be a thousand times bigger than that.”

Gladstone’s retirees are skeptical

The Port of Gladstone is the world’s fourth largest coal hub. Glenn Butcher, Social Democrat and Queensland Minister for Regional Development, hopes that green hydrogen will be exported from here in the future. The states started rethinking years ago, he says. But since Anthony Albanese, a social democrat, has been Prime Minister since May, there is also a rethinking of Australia’s politics.

And you can feel that across the country, says Butcher: “I think people are looking forward to the future of Gladstone – a traditional industrial city that is developing into a center of renewable energy. That has provided an upswing and optimism for the future.”

The heavy industry city of Gladstone is to become a green flagship project with the help of industrialists like Andrew Forrest. But some are still somewhat skeptical about the hype surrounding solar, wind and hydrogen – for example in a workshop where pensioners like Allan Pease meet.

The 77-year-old worked as an electrician at Gladstone’s coal-fired power station for 22 years. “The world loves our coal and we have so much of it,” he says. “The politicians will certainly decide to phase out the coal. But what will happen to all the workers then? Should they all be retrained to use solar energy? So much is still unclear.”

“Worried that the world is too slow”

Pease’s pal Mal Ford, 78, worries about his children and grandchildren. Producing hydrogen costs a lot of energy – and the infrastructure isn’t even there yet, he says. “What will happen to my granddaughter? What if the lights suddenly go out at her school and the computers don’t work anymore because they have no electricity, because we closed all the coal-fired power plants, but we don’t have enough other electricity? “

Andrew Forrest does not want to be dissuaded by the fact that some consider his goals unrealistic: in 2030 he wants to produce 15 million tons of green hydrogen. “It has to work. We have no choice,” he says. “There is no other energy carrier that is as transportable as hydrogen. I worry that the world is too slow to absorb the solutions at hand.”

But he is absolutely convinced of one thing: the days when Australia relied entirely on fossil fuels are gone forever. And hardly any other country has such sunny prospects of achieving the energy transition.

You can see this and other reports on Sunday, November 27, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. in the “Weltspiegel”.