Macquarie Group sidesteps nuclear energy and backs renewables, green hydrogen

Macquarie’s chair says the company is ‘standing aside’ from the national debate on nuclear energy, as it doubles down on renewables and green hydrogen.

Macquarie Group chairman Glenn Stevens says the company is “standing aside” from the national debate on nuclear energy, as it doubles down on existing renewable energy sources and potential solutions including green hydrogen.

Mr Stevens, who is also a former Reserve Bank governor, said Macquarie didn’t want to take sides in the political wrangling on whether nuclear energy was a feasible option for Australia’s future.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to establish at-scale nuclear power generation in Australia if the Coalition wins the next federal election.

“Nuclear power is part of the energy mix in a number of jurisdictions but not in Australia. There is of course now debate about that in Australia but we haven’t, and won’t, offer a comment on that,” Mr Stevens said ahead of Macquarie’s annual general meeting on Thursday. “Nuclear generally is not a thing that Macquarie feels that it has much expertise in historically, it hasn’t had any involvement, so I think for the moment we are sort of standing aside from that debate.

“I am not sure how the nuclear energy debate in Australia is going to unfold…. I don’t think whichever way that goes that there is a material risk for Macquarie assets.”

Macquarie chairman and ex-RBA governor at the Macquarie AGM Thursday.

Mr Stevens reiterated the scale of the challenge involved in transitioning to lower-emission sources of energy, as many markets sought to achieve net-zero targets by 2050.

“The transition that is in prospect to shift from hydrocarbon fuels to non-carbon fuels is easily the biggest re-engineering of the modern economy that we live in, that there’s been since the industrial revolution,” he said. “It is a huge undertaking.”

Macquarie on Thursday recommitted to pursuing green hydrogen projects and partnerships, even after players, including billionaire Andrew Forrest, reined in ambitious green ­hydrogen targets.

The backdown by Mr Forrest’s business earlier this month has threatened the Albanese government’s pledge for the energy source to help drive the transition to net-zero emissions.

Macquarie chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake said as markets around the world looked for sources of energy with low or no emissions and provided firming, she believed green hydrogen had to be considered. She noted nuclear was an option, as was hydro.

“We think green hydrogen is one of things the world needs to work on,” Ms Wikramanayake said.

“Initially that investment is not … going to be financially returning unless governments step up to support the investment. That happened with wind, it happened with solar. Today the Inflation Reduction Act in the US provides the biggest incentives for hydrogen.”

She also noted, as well as participating in the US, Macquarie was also involved in the Australian government’s hydrogen Headstart program

Macquarie Group CEO Shemara Wikramanayake.

“There’s a long way to go, we’re going to have to look at a range of options,” Ms Wikramanayake said.

“We don’t know which of the technologies is going to be the one that will emerge, but we certainly think it (green hydrogen) is one that we are committed to pursuing in regions where the support is there.”

Originally published as Macquarie Group sidesteps nuclear energy and backs renewables, green hydrogen