Green hydrogen bites the dust. By Joanne Nova.

The Australian Hydrogen Council is changing it’s name to the (catchy) Australian Industrial Decarbonisation Council. That’s one way to back out of the Green Hydrogen disaster while pretending not to.

They are not even trying to give a sensible explanation (via Max Aitchison in The Australian):

“This might be the first recorded instance of a clean energy association scrubbing its original, core identity …

“Australia’s hydrogen opportunity was initially seen as broad and global,” the industry body says in answer to why it felt it needed a new identity.

“As the market developed, attention increasingly turned to the domestic industrial uses needed to support local decarbonisation, build capability and strengthen future export pathways.”

Which is a rather polite, understated way of saying the green hydrogen dream quickly turned into a nightmare.

Australia was going to be a Green Hydrogen Superpower (Stupid-power) only three years ago. Hydrogen was going to smooth out all the ups and downs of weather-dependent energy. But that fantasy crashed and burned within 18 months, as project after project collapsed.

To produce Green Hydrogen at $2 a kilogram, our former Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, said the electricity used to make the hydrogen needs to be less than $30 per megawatt hour [domestic power costs ~$300/MWhr]. So, the grand irony is that the only generator in Australia that can make affordable hydrogen is the one they would never use, brown coal.

Wind and solar power can operate “cheaper” than that for short periods, but alas, like every other industrial process, once you’ve bought the land, built the infrastructure, hired the staff, and paid the insurance — it doesn’t make any sense to use it “for short periods” and leave it and the staff sitting around most of the day watching cat videos on Youtube.

Funny how almost nothing works more efficiently on an intermittent basis.

And in another sign that the climate change movement is on the way out, world leaders are set to snub an Australian-organised UN climate change meeting in Fiji this year, despite months of planning by Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and more than $150m in government investment.