Labor Leader Bill Shorten has, this week, released the party’s National Hydrogen Plan, which aims to nurture a new hydrogen industry through regulatory changes and investments from the Clean Energy Finance Council (CEFC) and Australian Renewable Energy Association (ARENA).
Australia is well placed to take advantage of the growing global demand for clean hydrogen. Labor’s National Hydrogen Plan could create a new export industry powered by wind and sunshine, which may one day rival resource commodities such as liquid natural gas. Hydrogen can also be used as a zero-emission fuel in vehicles.
“We have a fantastic opportunity to build on the work done by CSIRO and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) recently, on creating hydrogen using renewable energy and converting it to a form where it can be exported” said Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton. “Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea have committed to making hydrogen a huge part of their energy future, giving us a fantastic opportunity to produce and export it to the Asia-Pacific region. It makes sense to take advantage of the expertise which has been developed this decade in our premier scientific organisation, combined with the investment nous of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).”
Mr Thornton said the time had come for politicians to look forward and embrace new opportunities and new solutions for the energy challenges Australia is facing today.
“We need to rapidly reduce emissions in a way that maintains the reliability of our electricity supply and at a low cost” Mr Thornton added. “This means renewable energy with storage, hydrogen and the development of other new technologies and approaches”.
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