Almost three years after Anthony Albanese promised to build a new hydrogen-powered generator in Kurri Kurri in NSW using public funds, the plant is now likely to run entirely on diesel fuel for its first year.
This means the plant will produce about 80 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions, according to Snowy Hydro, the public company responsible for building it.
The request by Snowy Hydro to use six times the originally approved level of diesel will also mean at least double the number of trucks needed to transport the fuel and twice as much wastewater produced by the plant.
The Kurri Kurri project was initiated by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who insisted it was necessary to replace NSW’s aging coal-fired power stations, and was originally intended to run on gas, a polluting fossil fuel.
Before his election in 2022, Anthony Albanese committed to building the plant, promising an extra $700 million for the project on the condition that it was built “hydrogen ready”.
After Albanese’s election, however, it was revealed that the generator would initially run entirely on gas, as there is not enough green hydrogen being produced to service the plant.
Energy experts warned from the beginning that the Kurri Kurri plant would be an expensive and inefficient means of energy production.
Meanwhile, the cost of building the plant has increased to almost $1 billion and is estimated to grow to $1.5 billion, largely due to the extra 21 kilometres of pipeline needed to supply hydrogen to the generator.
This absurd waste of money and resources, alongside Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s approval of another three coal mines this month, reveals the hollowness of Labor government’s commitment to climate action. The billions of dollars of public money being wasted on the Kurri Kurri project should be spent on publicly-owned energy that comes from truly renewable sources.
By Caitlin Doyle
