A credit to Ngai Tahu for their economic development push, but if mana whenua can’t get a consent, nobody can.
The government predicted this should be a future $3 billion industry with a third coming from the south.
It therefore doesn’t bode well for other developers like offshore wind farms.
On a more positive view, I recently attended a Hydrogen NZ summit 2023 conference.
I often get asked if green hydrogen is ‘‘pie in the sky’’ and too expensive to produce (due to the need for intense levels of electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen cells).
I’ve always assumed that if three massive companies (NZ’s Meridian Energy, Australia’s Woodside and Japan’s Mitsui) are putting billions into such a project, it must be a good long-term supply of fuel.
And with local company HW Richardson converting trucks to hydrogen-injected fuel, there has to be a future.
The conference reinforced that with speakers from New Zealand, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, Korea, Japan and Singapore.
The last three named countries are economies that are clearly reliant on overseas fossil fuels and wish to convert to cleaner fuel.
Many of these countries are focused on renewable energy and their net carbon targets for 2050. Most also have interim 2030 goals.
The main use for this new fuel are long-haul transport trucks, rail, shipping, aerospace and fertiliser.
There are still issues around transporting liquid hydrogen or the ammonia product.
I often also get asked why would New Zealand set up a plant where the company wants to export most of the hydrogen to South Korea, Japan and Singapore, when we have needs in the South Island for long-haul trucks, trains and agriculture?
The reply was not what I expected. I expected we get a better price in those countries.
What threw me was ‘‘it doesn’t matter where you do carbon reduction in the world, so long as you do’’. That meant that even if we are carbon neutral today, our climate change impacts will be the same, as we are only a fraction, a very small fraction, in this world.
And if they can make better money overseas, that helps the company develop their processes even further through research and development or encourage more investors into the transition to clean energy.
So, bring on Southern Green Hydrogen.
— Nobby Clark, Invercargill mayor.
