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Tim Buckley highlights the immense opportunity and risk for Australia in the global push for green steel. As the world’s […] Read more

China has already moved to reduce its dependence on Australian iron ore via a joint venture in Guinea to unlock a vast new high-grade deposit. In the context of these shifting trade dynamics, failure to position Australia now in the green steel supply chain with China is an opportunity cost that threatens to blow a +$50bn annual hole in Australian exports. In the face of these enormous opportunities and risks, it was highly significant this week to hear the PM and Australian iron ore business leaders reaffirm their commitment to working in partnership with China to jointly drive steel sector decarbonisation. Read more

Tim Buckley from Climate Energy Finance highlights the major opportunity for Australia and China to collaborate on green steel production, describing the sector as one of the world’s most carbon-intensive industries. Buckley outlines that conventional steelmaking generates over two tonnes of carbon emissions per tonne of steel but sees significant emission reduction potential—up to 95%—by using renewable energy and modern technologies in place of coking and thermal coal. He points to South Korea’s recent $600 million investment in a steel plant set to achieve substantial emissions cuts as indicative of global momentum. Read more

The Prime Minister has spent much of the day trying to guarantee the future of Australia’s critically important exports to China’s steel industry, wrapping up a high-level roundtable on green steel in Shanghai. Australian coal and iron ore exports have fuelled China’s construction boom and underwritten Australian prosperity for years, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the budget. But as China’s steel industry moves to decarbonise — as well as diversifying its imports and winding down production — Australia’s long resources boom faces an uncertain future. Read more

Caroline Wang from Clean Energy Finance, a think tank, highlighted that China leads the world by a “staggering margin” when it comes to many energy transition sectors, such as electric vehicles and solar panels. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that for Australia to meet its emission reduction targets and build a green industrial capacity, China will be an essential partner as Australia needs access to Chinese technology and Chinese industrial capability. Read more

Highlights Our first highlight – the Capacity Investment Scheme. South Australia’s high RE % record Green Steel subsidies from South Korea US invests MP Materials a US Rare Earths materials Read more

“Griffin Coal continues to operate at below gross cashflow breakeven, such that it is struggling to pay for equipment maintenance and the interest let alone have scope to repay the capital on $A600-800 million of debts outstanding against the local Australian entity,” energy analyst Tim Buckley wrote at the time. Read more

Caroline Wang from Climate Energy Finance says China will be an indispensable partner China leads the world in renewable energy deployment and all other aspects of the energy transition by staggering margin in the two days in may this year China installed an amount of renewables that is astralia installed in the whole of 2024 she says labour’s ambitions to boost the green manufacturing will also depend on collaboration with China we need access to Chinese technology and Chinese industrial capability to do that that’s the kind of chronic pragmatic collaboration that is already happening in other parts of the world it’s a difficult balancing act which isn’t going to get any easier. Read more

She says that means China will be indispensable to reducing emissions in Australia, and to the government’s ambitions to build its own green industrial capacity through the Future Made in Australia plan. “We need access to Chinese technology and Chinese industrial capability in order to do that,” Ms Wang says. “That’s the kind of pragmatic cooperation that’s already happening in other parts of the world and that Australia can look to.” Read more

Tim Buckley, founder and director of Climate Energy Finance, says progressive cuts to feed-in-tariffs are “the logical end-point” for Australia’s rooftop solar success story. “Expecting to be paid for electricity exports when they are worse [than] worthless is ill-informed. Why should a renter or apartment dweller subsidised the richer home owners?” he writes in a LinkedIn post on the subject this week. But Buckley says moving to a “Sun Tax” is exactly that – “demanding the poor subsidise the better off.” There are better ways to ensure the grid is not flooded with excess solar during the middle of the day. Read more

The government’s $32 billion green bank says Labor’s net zero targets will be put out of reach in sectors such as aviation and long-haul trucking unless the government turbocharges investment in locally made low-carbon fuels. Read more

The projected deflation of Australia’s export earnings is a lens to threats to our future economic resilience and security, while our key trading partners accelerate their economic decarbonisation and deliver on their Paris Agreement commitments. It is a stark reminder of the need to increase our economic complexity, to diversify from fossil fuels, which face inevitable structural decline, and to prioritise value adding our resources. The projections underscore the strategic importance, for example, to pivot to green iron production rather than shipping rocks of ore. Read more