Harsh reality check for green hydrogen fantasy

It was good to see Nick Cater bring his customary reality to the issue of green hydrogen (“No strategy behind green hydrogen fantasy”, 10/4). And this latest solution to ridding the planet of CO2 demands the type of forensic study that Cater has applied to other alleged fixes in the renewable space.

His comparison of coal and wind turbines’ capacity to deliver a per megawatt of electricity, and the density that requires, is revealing. It may explain why a wind farm in Germany is being dismantled to allow for the expansion of the neighbouring Garzweiler coalmine in western Germany. And why nuclear power plants are being recommissioned across Europe. The hydrogen idea is an easy sell – just add electricity to water – but, as with most things in life, if it sounds too good to be true there’s likely a problem.

Kim Keogh, East Fremantle, WA

I hope Energy Minister Chris Bowen reads Nick Cater’s damn­ing assessment against renewables. Cater reveals the massive environmental damage renewables are capable of causing by citing the example of Squadron Energy, a company owned by a miner who has become a promoter of renewables, especially green hydrogen.

Squadron Energy wants to erect a wind turbine plant in Queensland’s Upper Burdekin. But an environmental assessment, released in December, found that nearly 3000ha of native animals’ habitats would be destroyed if the development goes ahead. Not only would koalas, rock wallabies, greater gliders and red goshawks lose their homes but vast tracts of native bushland would be razed. And for what? To massage the virtue signalling of some ego?

At least Apple has scruples. Last week, it announced it is pulling out of a deal to purchase energy from Squadron Energy’s project. All we need is for Bowen to show the same common sense. But we shouldn’t hold our breath. With his determination to have 82 per cent of electricity coming from renewable sources by 2030, Bowen may be endangering many of Australia’s native animals.

Dale Ellis, Innisfail, Qld

Nick Cater touches on key issues that will derail Australia’s move to a 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 when he mentions developments pushing beyond farmland and the environmental assessment for Squadron Energy’s proposed Upper Burdekin wind plant.

If major renewable energy generation projects and associated infrastructure are subject to the same rigorous environmental assessments that are required for other projects of similar magnitude, it will be impossible to have sufficient capacity in place by 2030.

To show he is serious, Chris Bowen needs to get commonwealth and state environment ministers together now to agree on streamlined environmental assessment processes. They need to consider the levels of harm to existing environments, including strategic cropping, that will be acceptable to allow renewable energy projects to proceed in a timely fashion.

There is just not enough time for thorough site investigations with requirements for investigations like wet and dry, or warm and cool season flora and fauna surveys.

Bob Reid, Fig Tree Pocket, Qld

In Nick Cater’s piece on green hydrogen, he describes the removal of swaths of native vegetation for a wind power project in northern Queensland as marking the beginning of the end for renewable energy. While he is right, in this instance, to be concerned about the impacts, a link to wind industry vulnerability is very unclear.

Similar, more extensive, destruction did not stop either agriculture or mining in this country. There’s no shortage of degraded landscapes for wind proponents to use.

Jim Allen, Panorama, SA

Nick Cater makes a critical assessment of our renewable energy policy and the potential for becoming a super power manufacturing green hydrogen.

I am unconvinced green hydrogen is economically viable. If electricity is generated from wind or solar this does not matter, but hydrogen manufacturing plants have to operate 24 hours a day when wind/solar is not available. If the electricity is generated by burning hydrogen, it will take more hydrogen to generate the electricity than is manufactured.

R. Watson, Sunnybank Hills, Qld