“What we can do is go a step further, from extracting the ore to processing it, putting it in saleable form, and then sending it to India or any other markets,” he said.
Mr Gandhi has urged the Albanese government to fund its green hydrogen project from its $2 billion hydrogen fund, and again called on the Commonwealth to slap a tax on carbon-intensive imports to protect the company’s Australian factories.
Australia isn’t planning on competing with the $US370 billion ($570 billion) Inflation Reduction Act, which doles out subsidies and tax cuts to companies that invest in clean energy. The government has instead set up discrete pools of funding.
Subsidising hydrogen
Mr Gandhi urged the federal government to inject the smaller amount of cash it has set aside into projects built by established players, like Orica’s partnership with Origin on the Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub in Newcastle.
“Orica’s Kooragang Island manufacturing plant in Newcastle is the only ammonia plant operating on the east coast with deep-water port access. Ammonia, which does not emit CO2 when burned, is expected to become a future fuel, as it contains properties ideally suited to the hydrogen economy,” Mr Gandhi said.
Transforming hydrogen into ammonia makes it cheaper to transport overseas.
“We would like to see the government invest and subsidise hydrogen production in credible projects rather than playing the whole field.
This will give Australia the best chance to establish a robust domestic renewable hydrogen industry with export and global scale,” Mr Gandhi said, adding that the government should apply tariffs on carbon-heavy imports to Australia, akin to the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, to protect Orica’s factories in Australia.
Australian-based multinational corporation Orica is one of the world’s largest providers of commercial explosives and blasting systems to the mining, quarrying, oil and gas industries.
Mr Gandhi said it was only fair that manufacturers abroad that export carbon-intensive goods to Australia, but are not required to invest in technology to cut their emissions, cop a fee to access the Australian market.
Orica has a large carbon footprint via its nitric acid plants in Newcastle and Gladstone, which are used to produce ammonium nitrate for explosives in the mining industry.
The Melbourne-based company has embarked on one of the nation’s biggest industrial decarbonisation projects to cut emissions under the federal government’s compulsory safeguard mechanism, which covers more than 200 facilities across the country.