Labor faces Senate probe into offshore wind, as Nationals push for nuclear-fuelled hydrogen cars

The federal government is facing a Senate inquiry into the consultation process of its newly announced offshore wind zones after a cliffhanger vote this week on a motion put forward by the Nationals, who are now apparently in favour of nuclear-fuelled hydrogen cars.

The Senate voted 31-30 in favour of the inquiry, with the Greens and Senator David Pocock siding with Labor, but ultimately outvoted by the Coalition, Jacquie Lambie, One Nation, the United Australia Party and independent Lidia Thorpe.

The matter will now go before the Environment and Communications References Committee, with a report due in February next year. The motion was put forward by the Nationals, which have vowed to stop offshore wind farms and other large scale wind and solar projects, with an amendment put forward by Thorpe.

The inquiry will look at the consultation process on offshore wind zone, particularly the level of community engagement, the consent of traditional owners and the impacts on marine life.

Labor argued against the move, saying it had run a “considered, staged process” to declare offshore wind zones, which was consistent with the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 that was legislated by the then Coalition government.

“Across the six zones, we’ve held face-to-face sessions with more than 3,800 people and reviewed more than 23,000 written submissions,” Finance minister Katy Gallagher told the Senate.

Earlier, the Nationals Senator Ross Cadell described the floating offshore wind technology proposed for zones in NSW, including the Hunter (where he lives) and Illawarra as “unicorn” technology.

“They (Labor) want to talk about things that don’t exist,” Cadell said this week. “Show me a floating offshore substation anywhere in the world. I know those on the other side cannot show me, because it does not exist.”

Cadell argued that nuclear was the “only emission-free firmed power” that could power an economy. “Of all of the countries in the world, none has a plan to get to zero emissions on wind and solar alone,” he said, before going on to suggest that trains and cars – such as Hyundai’s N74 prototype – could run on hydrogen produced by nuclear power.

Given the inefficiencies of hydrogen production, and the cost of nuclear, that should make for some interesting bills at the hydrogen bowser, if they can find any.

“Battery technology is not evolving,” Cadell said, which is news to the industry given its scale of production, the growth of electric vehicle sales, and the fact that big batteries often now trump gas as the biggest supplier of power in California’s demand peaks. It should be an interesting inquiry, but the offshore wind industry will need to turn up.