Earlier this year Save Westernport produced a detailed Briefing doc on the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC), to advise MPs, local Councillors and media about the full extent, and risks associated with producing hydrogen from brown coal, and shipping it to Japan out of Westernport Bay.
In Dec 2024 our allies at Environment Victoria shared a Japanese media report that claimed the HESC project had hit a major setback. The report said “cost and timeline pressures” had forced Kawasaki Heavy Industries—the main player in Japan’s HESC consortium— to cancel plans to make hydrogen from coal in the La Trobe Valley, and ship it from the Port of Hastings to Japan.
The surprise announcement that “major revisions to the project’s demonstration stage now meant the project’s hydrogen will be procured in Japan” was reported in The AGE.
The ABC reported that “a multibillion-dollar plan to create “clean” hydrogen from Australian brown coal and ship it to Japan is on the brink of collapse, following a Japanese media report that Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has withdrawn from the trial, blaming procurement delays.”
The project “hit a major roadblock after the international partner walked away from a trial to develop a hydrogen network in our region.”
A Kawasaki Heavy Industries media release on Dec 7 confirmed the decision, but claimed they “remain committed…to a commercial scale project in the Latrobe Valley”.
Despite KHI’s claim that “representatives of Kawasaki [had] recently met with both state and federal government stakeholders in relation to the project”, neither government has commented, remaining silent on the reports.
In 2019 state and federal governments backed the pilot project, with a combined $100 million investment of Australian taxpayer funds for HESC’s controversial new fossil fuels plan.
Information about the commercial demonstration phase on the HESC website, (not updated in over a year) still has it located here in Victoria. Opponents of HESC say it is incumbent on the Japanese proponents to explain what this recent announcement will mean for Victoria— and why their decision to relocate the commercial demonstration phase won’t also apply to the remainder of the project. With reported cost and timeline blow-outs affecting the location of HESC’s demonstration phase, it’s likely they’ll also jeopardise the full commercial stage as well.
If Japan’s commercial demonstration phase is not expected to produce hydrogen until 2030 (as stated on the HESC website), and HESC in Australia is also now on hold at least until this date, the production of dirty brown hydrogen from coal is unlikely to be competitive against sustainably produced green hydrogen projects that become more viable each year.
Two Australian producers of Green hydrogen, Coregas and Energys recently applied for a Planning Scheme Amendment to expand HESC’s hydrogen liquification and storage depot, to produce hydrogen fuel cells at the Bluescope Hastings facility that’s been out of use since the pilot project concluded in 2022.
This renewable hydrogen project aims to replace CO2-emitting diesel-powered buses, trains and trucks with no-emissions vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
For more information go to the supporting docs list in the Draft Mornington Peninsula Planning Scheme Amendment C304morn, that is open for public comment until Dec 20, 2024.
In 2018 hundreds of people joined a rally in Hastings against HESC’s new fossil fuels project, organised by Save Westernport and WPPC. Both environmental groups have fought the project at every stage since HESC was first announced in 2018.
Our call for an EES to assess the project’s impacts was overturned in 2019, when the project was fast-tracked for approval, and the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain to Japan was called an “essential project in Victoria”.
Save Westernport’s members and supporters couldn’t be more thrilled by the recent news that HESC’s out-dated fossil fuel project may no longer involve burning Victoria’s brown coal, or using Westernport Bay to ship it to Japan.
We’ll continue to make sure decision makers in state and federal parliament know that HESC has No Social License to operate in Victoria. Japan’s Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (Brown Coal to Hydrogen) project looks set to meet its end. Join us in seeking confirmation from your local representatives of these recent reports about HESC.
