According to global oil and gas giant BP, Western Australia is prime hydrogen territory.
BP says “the production of green hydrogen and green ammonia using renewable energy” was now technically feasible at scale in Australia and especially in WA.
BP was involved in a 2020 feasibility study with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, solar developer Lightsource and professional services firm GHD Advisory and as a result it now all enthusiastic about hydrogen.
There are an estimated 30 projects in WA at the moment looking at the feasibility of hydrogen production. Companies and individuals involved include BP, Andrew ’Twiggy’ Forrest and Wesfarmers which this week revealed plans for a deal to supply gas for vehicles in NSW.
WA is already the major source of Australia’s rapidly growing lithium extraction and processing industry (besides having most of Australia’s natural gas and LNG, as well as is where the majority of the burgeoning nickel mining and processing sector is located.
Wesfarmers is moving deeper into lithium and processing through Kidman resources, IGO controls 51% of the Greenbushes operation with Albermarle, the world’s major lithium company 9and US based) and Mineral resources has significant investments. Pilbara Minerals is another emerging player, as is Liontown, to name a few.
WA has some copper – and prospective copper projects such as Rio Tinto’s huge low grade find at Winu in the eastern Pilbara where several other finds are located.
Companies already in the sector range from the biggest in BHP and Rio, to smaller players such as Western Areas, Mincor, IGO. And there are new finds like the emerging palladium, nickel, platinum and copper deposits being explored north of Perth by Chalice Mining.
In this week’s statement, BP said Western Australia was “an ideal place” for the development of “large scale renewable energy assets that can in turn produce green hydrogen and/or green ammonia for domestic and export markets.”
BP said the study found that production of green hydrogen and ammonia using renewable energy is technically feasible at scale in Australia and also supported BP’s belief that West Australia is ideally positioned for green hydrogen and green ammonia production.
But as with all new ideas, there are extra costs that will have to be borne by industry and government – the study found that hydrogen development will require significant infrastructure investment in ports, water and electricity networks and distribution.
BP said in its statement that the International Energy Agency sees hydrogen as a “versatile energy carrier,” and can be deployed in sectors such as industry and transport.
It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source, such as wind or solar, then some label it green or renewable hydrogen.
BP said green ammonia could be generated through the combination of green hydrogen and nitrogen from the air. Ammonia could then be used as a “hydrogen carrier.”
Among other things, the report examined the “hydrogen supply chain and domestic and export markets” at different scales: a pilot facility which would produce 4,000 tonnes of hydrogen to generate as much as 20,000 tonnes of ammonia; and a commercial scale project where 200,000 tonnes of hydrogen would produce up to 1 million tonnes of ammonia.
BP Australia’s president, Frédéric Baudry, was quoted in the statement as saying the study confirmed “the potential for scaled-up green hydrogen in Western Australia.”
“This looks particularly promising in the mid-west of WA, which has existing infrastructure, access to land and abundant renewable energy resources such as wind and solar.”
But BP acknowledged that development would need “significant infrastructure investment in ports, water and electricity networks and distribution.” The commercial viability of “general hydrogen fuel use” would need significant scale, BP added.
The attraction of green hydrogen is that it would enable to offset (not fully) the carbon contained in Australia’s coal and liquefied natural gas exports.
The WA government has already released the results of a study into hydrogen production in the state.
In May of this year the government says the state could play host to a staggering total of 100 gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity to produce green hydrogen by 2030, and could double that number by 2040.
A speech last week by the WA hydrogen industry minister Alannah MacTiernan revealed the ambitions. The Renew Economy website put that in context by pointing out that “WA currently has less than one gigawatt of wind and solar capacity and the entire country has barely more than 10GW of operating large scale wind and solar.”
To meet those ambitious forecasts, would, as BP conceded, need a lot of new investment as Renew Economy went on to point out.
“W.A. is already host to around 30 renewable hydrogen projects and proposals, including several massive wind and solar projects such as Andrew Forrest’s aspirational 40GW plan in the Pilbara, CWP’s 26GW Asia Renewable Energy Hub in the same region, and smaller, but still substantial projects put forward by Siemens, BP and others.
“But these projects are either still vague about their detail, or still have much work to be done before coming to fruition, so MacTiernan’s numbers indicate a massive and rapid scale up of opportunities.”
This weeks’s announcement from Wesfarmers indicates it is looking to start its hydrogen involvement at a different place on the production and sales chain.
Green hydrogen will be made available for fuel-cell trucks, buses and cars across NSW for the first time next year under the deal between Wesfarmers and gas giant Jemena (which is owned by State Grid of China and Singapore Power).
Jemena plans to supply Wesfarmers’s subsidiary Coregas with hydrogen generated from its $15 million Western Sydney Green Gas Project, which manufactures hydrogen using a process powered by renewable energy that ensures the final product is emissions-free “green” hydrogen, the two companies said in the announcement.
Jemena’s Western Sydney Green Gas Project, is being co-funded by the federal government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and also creating hydrogen gas that can be blended and stored in Jemena’s gas distribution network to supply homes and businesses for heating and cooking.
Small steps, but as we saw five years ago, small steps were being taken in the lithium industry in WA and the advances have been rapid to the point of overwhelming, especially as the expansion came at the same time as the mining industry started better understanding the surging demand from renewables (especially EVs or electric vehicles, solar and wind farms) for nickel and copper in particular and sparked exploration for the likes of cobalt, molybdenum and PGE group metals such as palladium and platinum.
