The Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) share price spent a day in the green even though the company has been on the receiving end of negative attention today.
The ASX iron ore miner was trading 1.06% higher at $19.14 at the close on Monday. In comparison, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) closed 0.45% higher.
Fortescue aims to produce millions of tonnes of green hydrogen annually in the coming years. But, its leadership is clear on the goal – the hydrogen should be produced using renewable energy, not other forms of energy like fossil fuels.
The campaign for only green hydrogen to be produced in Australia has annoyed the Australian Workers' Union (AWU).
According to reporting by the Australian Financial Review, the AWU passed a resolution at its national conference a couple of weeks ago that the hydrogen industry should be supported "in all its forms".
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What's the problem with green hydrogen?
The media report said that the union wanted Australian governments "to reject a narrow green-focused hydrogen agenda" and instead prioritise the scaling-up of hydrogen this decade.
AWU national secretary Daniel Walton was quoted in the AFR as saying:
We can't let green activists and self-interested billionaires control the national conversation on this. If we do we'll be missing a massive opportunity to position Australia as a global hydrogen powerhouse.
There's nothing wrong with green hydrogen, it's the future. But it's also many, many years off being economic. We need to move much faster than that.
Fortescue is fully behind green hydrogen
Of course, Fortescue boss Andrew Forrest has a very different opinion. He wants Fortescue to produce 30 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually by 2030. In February 2022, he told the Queensland Media Club:
We cannot – we must not – keep relying on foreign fossil fuel imports to keep our country running – our hospitals, our schools, our homes and our industries.
We must create our own energy from the wind and the sun, and build a new ecosystem of green industries around it that is fed purely by 100% renewable electricity.
Green hydrogen and green ammonia can fully replace every form of fossil fuel and the employment demand will be greater than what we have, so those worried about their jobs need not.
Forrest said by 2025, green hydrogen was projected to "hit cost parity with fossil fuel-based hydrogen in many regions, triggering an explosion in uptake and applications".
… Why else would we go through the macabre pretence of turning fossil fuels into so-called "clean" hydrogen when the result creates more emissions than simply burning the fossil fuel in the first place?
The right decision is to invest in green energy and green hydrogen – real solutions that permanently stop global warming while creating economic choice.
Forrest added that the option to "keep burning fossil fuels and pretend we can just bury the emissions underground using the failed technology of carbon capture and storage is like taking a Panadol or a placebo when you have a fatal disease".
A spokesperson for Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), the green division of Fortescue, told the AFR it would begin production of large-scale green energy and hydrogen from the middle of the decade. The spokesperson added that FFI would welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue with the AWU.
Fortescue share price snapshot
Fortescue shares have risen by 13% over the last month but are down 3.6% since the start of 2022.
