Large Australian mining and energy companies have advanced targets or increased spending to curb carbon emissions ahead of COP26, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties being held in Glasgow. Going a step further, one company has evolved a radical plan to build a new copper-nickel mine that will be zero-carbon from day one, while another has created an entirely new business around decarbonization.
A couple of months after acquiring BHP’s oil and gas business, energy major Woodside Petroleum announced plans to build a $1 billion hydrogen and ammonia production facility to produce and export up to 1,500 tonnes a day of liquid hydrogen and ammonia.
Meanwhile, BHP is aiming to cut its Scope 3 emissions by striking R&D partnerships for steelmaking decarbonization with companies that account for 10% of global steel production. BHP intends to achieve net-zero for Scope 3, as well as operational emissions, by 2050.
Rio Tinto, the world’s largest iron ore producer, dramatically advanced its targets for Scope 1 and 2 emissions last month. The company intends to halve these emissions by 2030 compared to a 2018 baseline.
Rio will no longer buy any diesel heavy mobile equipment from 2030 and is electrifying the autonomous trains on its 1,700-kilometre rail network.
It has also budgeted $10 billion to be spent by 2030 on the development of decarbonization technologies for its iron ore and aluminum operations, and on renewable power such as wind and solar.
“Renewables are now cost-competitive in a way we probably didn’t even imagine five years ago,” said Simon Trott, Rio’s Iron Ore chief executive to ABC.
Talking of imagination, Oz Minerals is building West Musgrave, a carbon-neutral new mine in Western Australia. In the words of Oz CEO Andrew Cole, it’s a “complete rethink of how you design a new mine.”
However, pure-play iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group stands out for its target of 2040 for net-zero Scope 3 emissions. Further, in an innovative move, it has created green hydrogen-focused Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) with a two-pronged objective: To help achieve its own decarbonization goals and as well to become a world leader in hydrogen technology.
FFI plans to produce 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030.
“We are the demand for green hydrogen, green electricity, and green ammonia, and we will also be the supplier into that,” said FFI CEO Julia Shuttleworth. “Then we will leverage off our learnings from that into all these other projects that we’re doing.”
“There’s a huge export opportunity with green hydrogen,” she added.
Source: ABC News
Image of 100% carbon-free, green hydrogen, haul truck at FFI’s R&D facility at Hazelmere, Perth: FortescueFuture