Hydrogen

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:26): I rise today to talk principally about hydrogen. There was a question asked yesterday of the Minister for Energy and Mining. Of course, the Minister for Energy and Mining is my neighbour in the vast north of the state. I have respect for him, and I think he is a decent and moderate individual, but I have stood up now on a number of occasions to correct the record, if you like.

The question was a worthwhile question. Hydrogen is something that might well present a number of opportunities for our state, so I do not have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the failure of the minister to acknowledge that he is actually building on a very solid piece of work, both in a tangible way and a research way, that the previous government undertook when it came to hydrogen in this state. I am one of those old-fashioned people who believes that credit should be given where it is due, and the previous government—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: Are you going to thank Malcolm Fraser? What about Malcolm Fraser?

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HUGHES: —should have been given some credit when it comes to the work that is being done on hydrogen. I stood up in May last year, also in response to a Dorothy Dixer to the minister. That was in May last year, just after the election, when the minister got up to virtually rebadge a whole range of projects that were going on in South Australia as things that the Liberal government could lay claim to regarding energy policy.

All those projects, whether it was development approval, financial closure or actual physical commencement, had started under a Labor government. We were talking about renewables. Some opposite had some real problems with renewables. It is good to see they have had a road to Damascus conversion now that they are in government and like to boast about the state being on track to achieve a 75 per cent renewable energy target. I think the minister was actually talking in Melbourne about a 100 per cent target. I have no problem with that. That is excellent stuff and is an indication of the of the fantastic legacy that a Labor government left.

I have a particular interest in hydrogen and not just because of the contribution it could make to addressing global warming. I come from a community that could benefit very significantly from hydrogen production or, alternatively, ammonia production, with ammonia potentially being an export vehicle for hydrogen. The reason why the community in Whyalla should be interested in hydrogen is that we do have the only hydrocarbon export facility in the state at Port Bonython and to replicate a facility of that nature these days would probably cost somewhere between $750 million and $1 billion. That is already in place in Whyalla in a location close to massive renewable energy resources both in terms of wind on Eyre Peninsula and elsewhere and the massive solar resource in the north of our state.

There is not just the hydrocarbon export facility at Whyalla but there are also the steelworks at Whyalla. The steel industry globally contributes something like 2.3 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions a year. It is a significant contributor to CO₂ emissions. To put that in some sort of context, energy generation globally is around 13.6 billion tonnes a year. Hydrogen is one way that you can address that and produce clean iron and clean steel, given that using coke as a reducing agent in a blast furnace is about up to 90 per cent of the steel industry's contribution to CO₂ emissions.

The Swedes are moving in this direction. It is going to be long-term work and they are talking about their first commercial steel plant using hydrogen as a reducing agent by 2035. As a state, we should get involved in an international collaborative effort when it comes to looking at hydrogen, and especially given that, as a state, we have over 10 billion tonnes of magnetite in reserves.