Gas-led recovery is a “dog”, world must stop burning fossil fuels, Turnbull says

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched an eviscerating attack on the federal Coalition’s energy policy, saying its so-called “gas-led” recovery is a “dog”, and the government should instead be focused on putting the gas industry out of business.

“The gas led recovery, my god what a dog that was,” Turnbull said of energy minister Angus Taylor’s signature policy, in an interview on The Driven podcast.

“In Australia, we’re talking about spending a lot of money on so called blue hydrogen, simply so that you can keep the gas industry alive.

“I mean, for heaven’s sake, we’re trying to put the gas industry out of business. I know we need gas today. I know particularly we need in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the sanctions on on Russia.

“But the object of the energy transition, you know, drumroll, wait for it, ladies and gentlemen, is to stop burning coal and gas … stop burning fossil fuels.”

Listen to Giles Parkinson’s interview with Malcolm Turnbull here

Turnbull also took aim at the Coalition’s attempts to revive carbon capture and storage, comparing it to the plastic industry’s attempts to recycle, when in fact very little was achieved.

“You know, someone says, ‘we want to get plastic out of the waste stream’. Okay, stop using so much plastic ‘Oh, no,’ they say, ‘No, we’ll use more plastic, but we’ll recycle it’.

“But hang on, you’re actually not recycling it at all,” Turnbull said, adding that only 15 per cent of plastic was being recycled.

“We can’t lose sight of the prize. And the good thing is, the encouraging thing is, we have the technology to complete the mission, we don’t need to invent something. We can have a zero emission electricity sector in Australia. And we can have a zero emission energy sector in Australia.”

Turnbull was also damming of the Morrison government’s demonisation of electric vehicles in the last election campaign, saying that the “ruining the weekend” and other remarks had done enormous damage to the industry.

He wondered, though, why the EV industry, and the likes of Tesla in particular, did not seek to call out the “bullshit” from the government. See more on that aspect of the story on our EV-focused sister site The Driven.

Turnbull current focus is on storage technologies such as pumped hydro, and on greed hydrogen, where he is playing what he describes as an “advisory” role as chair of Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries.

Turnbull says blue hydrogen, made from fossil fuels but with the promise of carbon capture and storage, still results in significant quantifies of Co2, and methane leakage.

“So it’s really bad from a climate point of view. But that’s how almost all of the world’s hydrogen is produced. And the people that make it that way, fossil fuel sector, they say, Oh, don’t worry, we will take the co2 from our current operations and stick it under the ground somewhere.

“And so it’s, you know, our old friend carbon capture and storage. They say blue hydrogen is clean hydrogen, well, it’s about as clean as clean coal is, you know, so, so it’s not clean at all.”

Turnbull is also a board member of International Hydropower Association, and co-chair of the International Forum on Pumped Storage Hydropower, and is in Washington this week for a major speech.

You can listed to the interview on The Driven podcast in full by clicking here. It will be uploaded this afternoon.

See also: Turnbull: Morrison’s EV lies really hurt the industry, and Tesla should have called him out.