MELBOURNE, Sept 23 - Reuters : Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest has launched a green hydrogen organisation GH 2 in a push to accelerate development of the clean fuel to help curb global warming.
GH 2's goal is to ensure that by 2050 a quarter of the world's energy is from renewable electricity which is extracted from water with electrolysis, an energy-intensive but carbon-free process if powered by green electricity.
Fortescue Metals Group is ambitious with plans to open the iron ore company he started; Fortescue Metals Group, to diversify into renewable energy and possibly bet on green hydrogen as a major new business venture.
Green hydrogen is, in a way, the sleeping giant of energy transition, and I believe will have a bigger impact than any other technology, Forrest said in a GH 2 launch statement.
GH 2, chaired by former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, aims to draw together governments and development institutions to step up support for green hydorgen production and use in emerging markets.
It also aims to get in the private sector and governments to collect demand forecasts, publish data on projects and set accreditation standards for the emerging industry to ensure that green hydrogen production involves close to zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Fortescue Future Industries aims to produce 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year by 2030, which it wants to use to decarbonise heavy industry such as steel making.
GH 2 wants to make sure that governments don't promote blue hydrogen, produced with natural gas, or grey hydrogen, extracted using gas, with the carbon dioxide emitted in the process captured and stored.
Too many national hydrogen policies and the hydrogen association ignore the fact that hydrogen produced from fossil fuels will generally result in more CO2 emissions, not less, Turnbull said in the GH 2 launch document.
GH 2 will have an international secretariat spread across London, Perth, Sydney and Geneva, where its chief executive Jonas Moberg is based.