Forrest sees quick payback from dumping fossil fuels, as he touts first green mine

Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest is expecting a quick pay back from his company’s exit from fossil fuels and is urging others the rest of the world to follow.

“(Look at) the diesel price, that’s exactly why we’re going set this company beyond diesel, beyond all fossil fuels,” Forrest, now the executive chairman of Fortescue Metals Group, said in a briefing to analysts and media for the group’s quarterly production report.

“We need to step beyond the extreme risks of fossil fuel … and lead the world out of the consumption of fossil fuels.

“We can all beat fossil fuel companies up and yet because they’ve been greenwashing so long, they probably deserve it. But if we’re going to really make change, we have to stop buying, and that is what every consumer, every company, everyone on this call must think about how do we stop buying fossil fuel?

“How do we lead the world out of the consumption of fossil fuels?”

Forrest said the new $5 billion Ironbridge mine in Pilbara could be the first to operate without fossil fuels.

Fortescue did not provide a time frame for that, as it won’t happen immediately and the mine will start its commissioning next week.

The company said it couldn’t be specific about the technologies, but presumably the “fossil free” achievement will be a result of electric (or hydrogen) trucks, on site renewables and storage, and the much-touted “infinity train” that will be used to deliver the iron ore to the nearest ports.

Mark Hutchinson, the head of Fortescue’s green energy arm, Fortescue Future Industries, says some $US6.2 billion will be spent to fully decarbonise the company, but $US3 billion will be saved from cutting the use of fossil fuels.

“This means our net investment is actually $US3.2 billion, and we will save over $US800 million a year, every year from then on. We’ve done this to show the world this is possible.

“The decarbonisation plan will step us beyond fossil fuels and also significantly de-risk the business. We will avoid fossil fuel price risk forever. We will avoid carbon pricing, carbon tax and carbon offset costs.

“And we also will significantly de risk our future access to the capital markets. It’s very clear that the capital markets are quickly moving away from fossil fuels. And also customers are demanding fossil fuel free products.”

if we pushed years ago to push green energy cost in market place. cheapest cost of energy, the more use out, the lower the cost it becomes.

Forrest lamented the fact that governments had not acted sooner to force the switch from fossil fuels to green energy, and had continued to subsidise fossil fuels.

“If we’d been doing this many, many years ago, we’d have the lowest cost energy in the world and the most abundant. It’s frustrating to all of us to know that,” Forrest said.

“Adding on subsidies or whatever it is to fossil fuel exacerbates the problem. It just gives us a quick sugar hit as we crave for the fossil fuel drug.

“We need to really grow the largest source of energy in the world, not fossil fuels, because the more you use it, as we’ve all worked out, the more expensive it becomes. And you’ve got other people who play military strategy with that as well.

“What we need to bring down the operating costs of the lifestyles of every single Australian is to have pushed years ago green energy into the marketplace. It’s the cheapest cost of energy. It’s the only energy which the more you use it, the lower the cost becomes. And so it’s just common sense. We’ve got to get on and get it done.”