...just for you TB:- One of the world’s most bullish advocates...

...just for you TB:-

One of the world’s most bullish advocates for hydrogen, Fortescue Metals Group, now believes batteries will beat hydrogen in the race to provide clean power to mining trucks. Australia’s biggest iron ore miner, Rio Tinto, agrees.
Carbon free “green” hydrogen has been touted for several years as the most likely way to wean trucks and locomotives off carbon intensive fuels such as diesel because the batteries needed to power such heavy vehicles were thought be too large to make economic sense.
But a shift to lighter batteries has brought batteries back into consideration, and Fortescue’s director of decarbonisation, Christiaan Heyning, said batteries would win the battle for trucks in the next decade.
“We do believe that certainly this decade, batteries in trucks are going to be the most favourable solution, maybe not in every single haul, but for most haul routes,” he told the Energy and Mines Australia Summit in Perth on Wednesday.
“The biggest reason for that is if you don’t use direct electrification … it would need to have hydrogen. Hydrogen requires triple [the] amount of power to do it, so you need a lot more generation capacity, a lot more land disturbance, and more transmission, so there’s a lot of inefficiencies.”
The comments continue the evolution of Fortescue’s stance on the contest between batteries and hydrogen, and highlight the fast evolving nature of the technology that will cut carbon emissions

In January 2021, Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest told an ABC Radio Boyer Lecture that all Fortescue’s trucks would run on “green energy” by 2030. He highlighted hydrogen and another compound that is a useful way of transporting hydrogen: ammonia.
“The entire fleet will switch to green hydrogen ultimately. Imagine that: a fleet of vehicles and massive trucks that produce nothing more than steam as exhaust,” he told the lecture.
“We’re aiming to develop a green iron ore train, one that either runs on renewable electricity or a four-stroke combustion engine that is powered only by green ammonia. Ultimately, all our trains will run on green energy, and this year we will begin to settle designs that allow our ships to run on green ammonia.”
But by January 2022, Fortescue had acquired battery manufacturer Williams Advanced Engineering which, among other things, had been working on lightweight solutions for batteries.
Upon sealing that transaction, Fortescue’s then-chief executive, Elizabeth Gaines, said the company would embrace both batteries and hydrogen, adding it was not an “either/or” equation.
Over the past 18 months Fortescue has promoted a range of clean transport technologies, including the “infinity train” which would use gravity and batteries to carry iron ore from its mines to Port Hedland in Western Australia.

Asked how Mr Heyning’s comments affected Fortescue’s commitment to hydrogen as a fuel for heavy vehicles and ships, a spokeswoman said Fortescue was “technology agnostic” on its journey to decarbonise.

“We believe battery-electric, green hydrogen and green ammonia will all be critical to our decarbonisation plan, and we are taking practical steps to apply the best solution to each situation,” she said.

“Through our partnership with Liebherr and our acquisition of UK-based WAE Technologies, our Green Fleet team are exploring options for both battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell haul trucks.
“We currently have two prototypes that we are testing, with the aim to have our first green haul truck operational at our sites during 2026.”
Fortescue has pledged to take a final investment decision on “at least” five green hydrogen projects before the end of this year.
Mr Heyning said batteries would likely have three lives: first in a high-value use like trucks; a second life providing support to grid electricity; and third, when they were recycled.

Mr Heyning was asked by attendees at Wednesday’s conference to clarify Fortescue’s pledge to achieve “real zero” emissions by 2030, rather than net zero.
He said the difference lay in Fortescue’s desire to avoid reliance on carbon offsets. But he added that zero emissions would be hard to achieve given hydrocarbons were ubiquitous in modern society.
“In all honesty, there might be some very small slivers for things like lubricants, for example, or there is a little bit of pilot fuels in explosives, so we cannot be 100 per cent sure yet that we know technically how to get rid of those,” he said.
“But that is what we mean [by real zero], we mean stop emitting Co2 rather than emitting it and then buying a certificate.”