Page 9 - AsiaElec Week 17 2021

AsiaElec HYDROGEN AsiaElec

Australia unveils hydrogen,

CCS funding

AUSTRALIA THE Australian government has announced of the investment, with leading industry body
nearly AUD540mn ($416.5mn) in new funding Australian Petroleum Production and Explora-
for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage tion Association (APPEA) saying the new fund-
(CCS) projects over the next decade. ing would help boost the hydrocarbons sector.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison APPEA CEO Andrew McConville said many
said on April 21 that AUD275mn ($212.1mn) of of the association’s members were already at the
additional investment had been earmarked for forefront of hydrogen and CCS development
four new hydrogen hubs. and that the funding would help speed up their
Morrison also announced AUD263.7mn projects.
($203.4mn) for CCS projects that would help the “Natural gas is a pathway to a large-scale
economy make the transition towards a net-zero hydrogen industry,” McConville said, adding:
emissions future by sequestering carbon emis- “Australia’s LNG export success means the Aus-
sions from “particular industries”. tralian upstream oil and gas industry has the
While Morrison described hydrogen as a technology, expertise, commercial and trade
“zero emissions gas”, which is only strictly true if relationships to make, in particular, hydrogen
the fuel is produced using electrolysis power by exports a reality.”
renewable sources, Energy Minister Angus Tay- The government’s critics, however, have been
lor opted instead to talk about “clean hydrogen”. quick to dismiss the funding as either too little
Clean hydrogen can mean either green or simply designed to benefit oil and gas players.
hydrogen or blue hydrogen, with the latter cre- Former Liberal Party adviser and CEO of the
ated using natural gas whilst using CCS tech- Blueprint Institute think-tank Harry Guinness
nology to eliminate carbon emissions from the told the Guardian that Australia’s investment
generation process. plans paled in comparison to those of the US.
Taylor said: “Low-cost, clean hydrogen is Guinness said Washington intended to spend
where Australia has the potential to be a world around 35 times the amount Canberra had ear-
leader in energy, just as we have been and con- marked for green stimulus projects in the last
tinue to be in LNG, in coal, in other crucial federal budget.
resource industries. That’s where our future lies, The Green Party, meanwhile, said the govern-
alongside those fantastic industries that we’ve ment’s plans to fund both blue and green hydro-
built over such a long period of time.” gen projects boiled down to “just more cash for
The oil and gas industry welcomed the news coal and gas”. ™

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