Responding To The Budget - Green Metals and the Net Zero Economy

‘Are we building the future in Australia?’

The Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers started his Budget Speech with the statement that ‘We are genuinely turning the corner on our economy’. His numbers do encourage this conclusion. But his major concern into the future is global uncertainty due to issues like Trump’s attack on global trade, wars that are impacting costs of materials and energy, and climate change.

He is hopeful we will be able to face this global uncertainty better than most and at the National Press Club on the day after the budget speech, he said ‘We are more ready for the uncertain global future than anyone’.

To explain this, he pointed to the Building a Future Made in Australia program where $30b is being provided for green hydrogen, green metals and their renewables which enables the transition for new industries to emerge in urban and regional Australia. On the 7.30 Report after the budget, he said that he feels strongly we will be able to lead on ‘Green metals and the net zero transition’.

It is important to see that this is the exact opposite of the political rhetoric coming out of the US which is now closing down anything to do with the net zero transition. The world of finance has $80 trillion committed to net zero with $2 trillion already being built. It will be very interesting to see now whether Trump actually makes such economic activity illegal in the US as that is the only way to stop businesses going down this path.

What this means is that global leadership is no longer coming from the US and their economic activity will increasingly become more like the autocratic systems that favour a few highly corrupt elites. I really hope that is not the case but its looking likely, which is truly amazing.

Australia may well take a leadership role in the net zero transition not just because the US has turned into a cul-de-sac. The reality is that in the past decade we have already demonstrated leadership in how to deliver net zero, with rooftop solar, followed by batteries and electric vehicles. Renewable energy is now growing so fast it is making fossil fuels and nuclear completely peripheral over the next few decades.

The challenge then is how we take this new confidence that the economy has ‘strengthened’ to now suggest how we can grasp this global opportunity to lead on the next economy – the net zero transition. We need to continue with the electricity transition as the options are economically feasible now. But there are issues still to be solved with industry, especially on green metals and the necessary green hydrogen for the processing of the minerals.

Alexander Mils for Unsplash

Our research at Curtin is on this transition in our cities and regions. We are examining what we can learn from the best net zero urban developments and how they can be mainstreamed and others are researching how we can do the industrial transitions to net zero.

Two big announcements in WA in the past few weeks have been very reassuring that WA’s unique opportunities have been recognised: the Green Hydrogen projects in the Murchison and the Nullabor/Esperance/Kalgoorlie region. These are designed to take us to commercial stages in processing minerals into net zero/green metals.

WA has a number of ideal sites for the industrial net zero transition, as it needs a lot of space and sunshine near to the mining; these assets are not available in industrial centres in Europe, Japan, Korea and maybe even the US. The Murchison and Nullabour sites are likely to be enabling the world to see how to make green metals and there are a lot of others across Australia.

In Perth we have a major opportunity that is growing in significance: the redevelopment of the coastal area south from Fremantle as we create a new port, new industrial processing in Kwinana, new ship building, and new urban development associated with all these. A big part of this will be how to do industrial net zero in partnership with the net zero electricity transition that is underway. All the projects together can demonstrate in a cumulative process how to enable large scale opportunities. It is probably the biggest urban development project in our history.

The budget didn’t do more than suggest this net zero transition as being the way forward. Perhaps the election will highlight how we do it and the options for how we create this new economy. I hope so. At least we can see the green shoots.

Peter Newman AO, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University

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