Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest creates climate for green hydrogen energy revolution

Andrew Forrest has spent four years studying and preparing for this moment: convincing the world that green hydrogen is the future.

Andrew Forrest in London to push his green energy plans. He says that under his revolution ‘we have complete sovereignty over energy at all times, and it’s made here by local punters. Why wouldn’t you do it?’

Australia’s richest man, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, has spent four years studying and preparing for this moment: convincing the world that green hydrogen is the future.

At the very time Prime Minister Scott Morrison has achieved a commitment to net zero by 2050, Dr Forrest, the Fortescue Mining Group chairman, is pushing to transform Australia into a hydrogen pioneer ahead of COP26.

“This is the age of water now, not the age of oil,’’ he likes to say, taking a line from his mother, Judith, who quizzed him about why he is turning away from Pilbara iron ore to hydrogen.

“I talked her through the economics and the fact that if you couldn’t make eliminating global warming profitable it probably would never be eliminated,” he told The Australian this week.

“I told her how I was going to do it and she said, ‘This is the oil-versus-water argument’ and I have never forgotten. I would much rather be in that water corner than a polluting fuel from the bowels of the earth corner.’’

In the past few weeks in phone calls from London, the billionaire founder of Fortescue has been steering politicians, including from the National Party, to come on board to net zero in 2050 and to support his green revolution.

Dr Forrest says he has never worked harder in his life than while trying to stop global warming after taking a “hellish four-year” PhD in marine science in 2019 to understand the impact of warming oceans. He said those on the land, from farmers to miners, are often misportrayed because they are the “most innovative people’’.

He has shown sceptical politicians how farmers, frustrated with the soaring cost of fertiliser, can benefit if fertiliser plants use green hydrogen, sourced locally, rather than imported gas.

Practically, he will spend $400m converting the Brisbane plant of Incitec Pivot to green energy, keeping 400 local jobs. It will produce about 50,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen, which will be converted to green ammonia for domestic and export markets. Dr Forrest said such examples of industry “underscores the whole sovereign risk of energy, which Australia suffers’’.

“So, our future, our standard of living for ourselves and the kids, are being determined by people who we will never meet and they will probably never visit,” he said. “Why would you do that if there’s one shot? We have complete sovereignty over energy at all times, and it’s made here by local punters. Why wouldn’t you do it?”

Here in a central London street, Dr Forrest, 59, is making waves ahead of the UN climate conference, which starts on Monday in Glasgow. The players — from royalty to billionaire investors and global business leaders — pay attention when one of the world’s biggest miners and industrialists is in tune with European sentiment that carbon emissions have to go.

Dr Forrest is not only talking about green hydrogen, but putting billion-dollar investments into making it happen.

Some might need a translator when the plain-speaking Dr Forrest talks about “the punters’’ and “the cockies’’, but no one misconstrues his impact and a desire for immediate and practical pathways. He will have two key speaking spots at the COP26 conference to explain his vision.

This month Fortescue Future Industries announced construction of a Green Energy Manufacturing Centre in Queensland with 2GW of electrolysers — which make hydrogen out of water — expected in 2023, as well as making wind turbines, solar panels and electrical cables.

“I put $120m on the table to double the world‘s capacity of electrolysers. I think it’s a pretty small investment. We’re taking that up several times to a billion dollars, because if you have a state which is really encouraging green energy and a great future — which is Queensland — then you need to put the manufacturing there,” he said.

In August Dr Forrest injected $1.03bn in funding to Fortescue Future Industries for future hydrogen investments.

Dr Forrest said that by the end of the COP26 fortnight he wants leaders of the industrial world to have a different understanding of Australia being behind the starting blocks of the green revolution.

“The truth has been denied entry into our country. It allows people to really peddle misinformation of fear,’’ Dr Forrest said.

“And there are still politicians who will stand by a platform of peddling misinformation of fear, whereas the future I see very clearly for the Australian farmer, the Australian regional worker, is at long last their future won’t be pegged to how a couple of sovereign leaders from Russia and Saudi Arabia, wake up with a headache or not and adjust (the price of oil and gas) and impact on whether or not cockies can send the kids to school.’’

He added: “We can make all our energy right here at home’’.

But he wants a level playing field where the “fat’’ billion-dollar subsidies to “old technology’’ are put on a level playing field so that within eight years Australians could be given a choice of buying fossil fuels, or buying green hydrogen, green ammonia or electrification.

“It is important for global leaders to know that Australia will be a huge part of the world‘s green industry revolution, that we will not drop the ball at that, and we will be a major player,’’ Dr Forrest said.

Green energy sovereignty is within the grasp of Australia for the first time and the country will be a competitive supplier to the world.

Australia will quickly catch up and overtake other nations, Dr Forrest said, adding talk of “a transition’’ from fossil fuels to green is illusionary. No one talked about transition from the typewriter to the computer, he argued. The cost of green energy will quickly be on par with fossil fuels.

He said the change will come soon as green ammonia, green electricity and green hydrogen can feed every part of the industrial supply chain — “be it cement, be it steel, be it fertiliser, be it mobility”

“You can answer any of that with electricity, with ammonia or hydrogen, and that can all be pulled down from an infinite source now,” he said.

“So I just want them agreeing. Let’s get on with a practical, implementable solution.”