A new Australian green steel industry could create tens of thousands of jobs in regional areas reliant on coal mining, particularly in central Queensland and the Hunter Valley, giving them a future as demand for carbon-intensive goods falls.
That is the conclusion of a report by the Grattan Institute, a thinktank linked to the University of Melbourne, which examined claims Australia has the potential to become a green energy “superpower”.
Guardian Australia reports assessing the viability of clean manufacturing possibilities, the institute found green steel made with renewable hydrogen could become a multibillion-dollar export industry employing 25,000 people in regions likely to be hardest hit by global steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Tony Wood, the institute’s energy program director, said Australia had not typically been good at globally competitive manufacturing, succeeding instead at “digging stuff out of the ground”.
Guardian Australia reports he said the rapid fall in the cost of solar and wind energy
and the country’s world-leading clean energy resources was a “fundamentally significant change”.
“We have the potential for competitive renewable energy to drive manufacturing in a way in which we wouldn’t have imagined not long ago,” Mr Wood said.
“If we get this right, we will resolve the great climate conundrum that has stretched our political fabric for more than a decade.”
Options for diversifying Australia’s fossil fuel-intensive energy industries as the globe aims to cut emissions include exporting renewable energy, either as electricity by sub-sea cable or as hydrogen, and developing low-emissions commodities, such as metals, chemicals or biofuels.
Rather than exporting renewable hydrogen, the analysis found the most economically viable path appeared to be to use it within Australia to produce steel with near-zero emissions.
“Green steel” is created using hydrogen to trigger a chemical reaction with the oxygen in iron ore to create iron metal and water.
“The metal is then refined and cast into steel.
Hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron ore is not yet commercial, but the report says it is based on a proven technology involving gas.
Pilot plants are being built or planned in Germany and Sweden, where steelmaker SSAB recently has set a target of green steel production by 2026, a decade earlier than was previously considered possible.
German manufacturer Thyssenkrupp made headlines last November when it demonstrated that a steel blast furnace could in part run on hydrogen.
The institute’s report focuses on the future of “carbon workers”, people and communities in fossil fuel-reliant industries whose jobs will be threatened by global steps to tackle the climate crisis to meet the goals of the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement.
There are nearly 100,000 carbon workers in Australia, 55,000 of them in “carbon-intensive regions” likely to face more acute social and economic challenges than people in major cities.
More than 23,000 live in central Queensland, where they make up 15 per cent of the workforce, mostly mining coal, with another 16,300 are in the Hunter Valley.
The report says carbon-intensive electorates recorded bigger swings than average to the conservative Liberal-National coalition at the 2019 federal election, when it was emphasising it would do less to combat the climate crisis than Labor.
“Australian governments need to be honest with carbon workers: their attempts to protect carbon jobs from global forces will ultimately fail,” the report said.
“You don’t have to be a card-carrying climate activist to think this is a good idea.
“You just have to be someone making an assessment about risk,” Mr Wood added. “Our practical plan could be a win-win-win. It would create a new export industry, support carbon workers and cut emissions.”
Guardian Australia reports the Liberal-National government’s energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, did not mention steel specifically when asked for his response to the report, but said clean commodities made with hydrogen would help the country become a world leader in that industry.
The opposition Labor Party’s climate change and energy spokesman, Mark Butler, said the report showed the jobs and industry benefits of embracing a clean energy future, and accused the prime minister, Scott Morrison, of actively opposing going in that direction.
“A COVID-19 recovery plan which brings forward investment in new renewable projects like green hydrogen will create tens of thousands of new jobs, stimulate regional economies and deliver cheaper power prices,” he said.
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One Response
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