Green hydrogen is hitting hurdle after hurdle — can anything get it moving?

A few years ago, green hydrogen was the talk of Gladstone.

A town built on coal was going to turn green, as the new zero-emissions fuel would become the backbone of its energy-hungry industry.

Chris Skerman, who runs a local civil construction and industrial maintenance firm, remembers the conversations.

“Very, very big projects were being discussed — billions and billions of dollars worth of construction in the area,” he said.

“It was pretty exciting.”

Some of the work did arrive, including Fortescue’s $150 million green hydrogen facility on the city’s outskirts that opened in April 2024.

Just over a year later, it is now sitting silent.

Fortescue has heavily scaled back its ambitions for the technology, while others have pulled out of hydrogen altogether.

Mr. Skerman said the hope — and hype — around hydrogen had left many around Gladstone dismayed.

“I don’t think too many people know what the future is for hydrogen at the moment,” he said.

A hard year for hydrogen

The news for advocates of Australian green hydrogen in the past year or so has been almost relentlessly bad.

The headline was the axing of a $14 billion project in Gladstone backed by the Queensland government-owned Stanwell Corporation.

Late last year, Origin Energy pulled out of a massive project in the Hunter and withdrew from hydrogen altogether, arguing the maths was not adding up. 

Its partner in the Hunter project, explosives manufacturer Orica, is still pushing ahead — with the federal government committing more than $430 million for a scaled-back project near Newcastle. 

And Fortescue confirmed in July this year that it had dumped its Gladstone hydrogen project, along with another in Arizona.

The resources giant has been one of the technology’s biggest backers, with billionaire executive Andrew Forrest using a 2023 speech to label hydrogen’s doubters “muppets”.

Fortescue is not pulling out of hydrogen altogether, as it remains committed to using the technology to manufacture green iron at its Christmas Creek mine in the Pilbara.

The company’s metals and operations chief executive, Dino Otranto, said there were no regrets about the steps taken so far.

“I certainly don’t think that we’ve made judgement errors or huge mistakes in this space,” he said.

“Any new energy will involve taking some risk on a number of different technologies. Some will pay off, and some won’t.

“That’s just the normal course of business. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do…