Government plans to make “blue hydrogen” from natural gas are based on a strategy which is “purely marketing”, “a charade” and “a con” according to Andrew Forrest, Founder of Fortescue Mining Group – which has just signed a multi-billion-pound deal with JCB to spearhead the UK’s hydrogen push.
“You can get hydrogen from fossil fuel. But the problem with that, whichever way you cut it and all the bulldust which is out there, is it's a charade,” said Forrest, in a Money Talks interview with Liam Halligan for GB News.
“If you get hydrogen from fossil fuel, you're going to warm the planet quicker. You might feel good because you're burning hydrogen. But the one path that will lead the world into quicksand, with us sinking into global warming, that’s hydrogen made from fossil fuel”.
The government's delayed hydrogen strategy, set out in August, sets an ambition of using hydrogen to power heavy industry, buses and lorries, and heat some homes. The plans allow producers to make blue hydrogen by processing natural gas, a technology that results in significant carbon emissions. Most, but not all, of those emissions would be captured and buried underground.
Andrew Forrest, Founder of Fortescue Mining Group has emerged as one of the world’s leading advocates of hydrogen energy
GB News
Hydrogen created from natural gas with carbon capture is known as “blue hydrogen”. Forrest, who has emerged as one of the world’s leading advocates of hydrogen energy, told GB News that carbon capture is “failed technology that doesn’t work most of the time”. He advocates the use of “green hydrogen”, created from water via electrolysis powered by electricity made from renewable energy.
“Hydrogen made from fossil fuel is purely marketing. If it doesn't come from renewable electricity, it's going to compound the problem,” says Forrest. “So it's got to come from wind, solar or any other form of renewable energy, like geothermal or hydro – and using renewable energy you can then make all the hydrogen the world will ever need, period. You will not have any more pollution”.
Lord Bamford, Chairman of JCB – a prominent Tory donor - has just teamed up with Forrest, signing a deal with Fortescue Future Industries to make “green hydrogen” available in the UK next year. JCB and Ryze Hydrogen, set up by Lord Bamford’s son Jo Bamford, will buy 10 per cent of Fortescue’s global green production and will then manage its distribution in Britain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been a vocal advocate of hydrogen – but the government’s strategy allows the use of blue hydrogen, the production of which generates significant carbon emissions.
“Fossil fuel is going to run out and it’s getting more expensive -you’re seeing this here in Britain,” says Forrest, who is attending the COP26 summit in Glasgow. “I'm talking about something which is going to run out. Seventy-five per cent of the universe is made from hydrogen, including most of the world - and we're never, ever, ever going to run out of it.
“The battery lobby and the electric car lobby are now lined up with the fossil fuel lobby – and what they’re promoting is a lovely, big illusion,” Forrest said. “You can plug in your car, but the smoke comes out of the stacks somewhere else. It's a fake. Hydrogen from fossil fuel is a con when we've got all the green energy the world could ever need”.
Money Talks is a daily in-depth interview feature within On The Money, presented by Liam Halligan, which airs Monday to Friday, 1pm-2pm, on GB News.