2SM Radio | Chris Smith spoke with Liz Storer about major companies abandoning large-scale green energy projects.

Chris Smith spoke with Liz Storer about major companies abandoning large-scale green energy projects.

Chris Smith:
And she contributed to many of the edgy programmes on Sky News until recently. Now back in the private sector, she’s also a common-sense regular right here on the show. Good morning to you, Liz Storer.

Liz Storer:
Good morning, Chris, and good morning to your listeners.

Chris Smith:
The ABC is reporting this morning that some of our largest companies are ditching some of their biggest carbon reduction projects — in what looks to me like reality winning out over grand plan ideology. Fortescue has just slashed its electric train program. And now mining giant BHP has dumped plans to build a major renewable wind, solar, and battery project at its flagship iron ore operations. All these things sound great at the beginning until reality bites, Liz.

Liz Storer:
Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, shareholders aren’t philanthropists, Chris. At the end of the day, unless the company knows this is going to be lucrative, they’re not going to do it. It doesn’t matter how many bleeding-heart stories even they themselves tell about climate change and our imminent doom. At the end of the day, the mighty dollar wins out.

Chris Smith:
And we’ve seen that happening for months now.

Liz Storer:
Exactly. These major companies have been pulling out of huge projects. BP most notably from the $54 billion Australia Renewable Green Energy project in the Pilbara. We’ve also seen Blue Float Energy withdraw from the $10 billion Gippsland offshore wind farm in Victoria.

And the list goes on — Flotation Energy, Copenhagen Energy, Oceanex. They’ve all walked away from these major projects. It just keeps going. In the last few months alone, BP has pulled out of at least three of these massive projects.

And Fortescue, the same. They’ve been stepping back from green hydrogen ventures. In July this year, they axed their hydrogen projects in Queensland and Arizona. Woodside has done something similar with some of their major U.S.-based projects.

Chris Smith:
So as you say, the business case for hydrogen remains challenging.

Liz Storer:
That’s right. These companies are just licking their finger, putting it in the air and saying, “You know what? The time is not now.”

Chris Smith:
Because they’re not successful by being totally benevolent. They’re not going to get into electric trains or try to power their iron ore operations with renewables if it doesn’t make economic sense. They’re not stupid.

Liz Storer:
No, and as I said, they’d get into a lot of trouble with their shareholders if they continued down that road.

Chris Smith:
But they all say the same thing — it’s not a never, it’s just a not now.

Liz Storer:
Exactly. And for now, they’re redirecting their energies elsewhere. In the case of BP, that means focusing more on oil and gas projects.

Chris Smith:
Those terrible fossil fuels — keep winning out for now, Liz.

Liz Storer:
Yes, Chris, because we need baseload power. And the alternatives just don’t provide it.