Financial Review | 7th March 2023
Japan will allocate $2.35 billion toward a project that will use carbon capture and storage to convert Australia’s dirtiest coal into clean hydrogen for export to Japan.
The project is backed by the federal and state government as a way to stimulate economic activity in the Latrobe Valley, despite the Victorian government’s long-held opposition to onshore oil and gas extraction.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries executive Yuko Fukuma said the decision by Japan’s ¥2 trillion ($21.7 billion) Green Innovation Fund would stimulate investment in port and liquefaction infrastructure at the Port of Hastings and bring to life a plan to convert Latrobe Valley brown coal into low carbon hydrogen.
Japan’s support for Victoria’s Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project comes as Australian companies like Woodside and Fortescue pursue hydrogen projects in the US to tap into incentives offered under US President Joe Biden’s $US437 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and as pressure grows on the Albanese government to respond to the massive incentives being offered abroad for green innovations.