“You cannot put the genie back in the bottle:” Forrest says world energy markets have changed forever

At a time when words can seem cheap and rhetoric empty – and when we must remind ourselves that there are myriad infinitely worse consequences of the current Middle East conflicts than the cost-of-living ripples from global oil shocks – it is easy to become cynical.

So when someone pipes up who has consistently put their money where their mouth is on decarbonisation – and who continues to invest with optimism and good faith in solutions to break industry’s dependence on fossil fuels – it’s worth a listen.

“World energy markets have changed forever – you cannot put the genie back in the bottle,” Fortescue chair and “real zero” seeker Andrew Forrest said on LinkedIn on Friday.

“Fossil fuels carry volatility, political cost and risk for mums and dads relying on it. If you are not energy secure, you do not have a free country, you do not have an independent company.

“Australia can remain exposed, or we can rapidly decarbonise and move to a renewable energy system that is secure, predictable and lower cost, and the best part – it’s Australian – made right here.

“The technology is already here, Fortescue is proving it. The only question is how quickly we all choose to deploy it.”

Forrest is investing billions to prove that point, building multiple gigawatts of wind, solar, and battery storage, and transmission lines, to provide the renewable energy and firm supply to completely decarbonise his giant Pilbara iron ore mines – by 2030, in just four years.

In a recent media tour, Fortescue executives suggested the goal of eliminating fossil fuel use at the mines might even be achieved earlier, and at lower cost. And given the surge in diesel costs, probably with greater savings.

Forrest, however, finds himself at loggerheads with other big iron ore miners. BHP is not yet convinced the technology exists – even if it does at Fortescue up the road – and wants to put a damper on decarbonisation efforts. Rio, which is working with BHP on electric trucks, also has weak targets.

Gina Rinehart, obviously, is not interested. She is a sharp critic of renewables, even if her main lithium mining venture Lionheart Resources, is achieving shares of 80 per cent wind and solar (an average over the last six months) at its main mine.

But other clean energy leaders are starting to find voice.

Greg Jackson, the CEO of Octopus Energy, which is the largest domestic energy supplier in the UK, serving 12.9 million accounts in 7.3 million households, and active in 27 countries, has also had some things to say.

“The reality is the future is electric,” Jackson said on a television interview this week.

“Electrification, the technology behind that is improving exponentially. The technologies of burning stuff are not getting any better. So the reason I’m relaxed about where we get our gas from is, it’s the burning that’s the problem, and we need to burn less stuff now.

“The reality is, the economies that are investing in the technology electrification over the next decade are going to end up making the economies that are going back to fossil fuels look like middle income countries, and it’s a huge risk for us as we sit here having this debate.

“[If you look at China], not only are more than half the cars that are sold there electric … 25 per cent of the [heavy-duty vehicles] are now electric. That’s the pace of change.

“Of course, we’ll hear, ‘Oh yes, but China burns all this coal.’ The reality is, 75 per cent of all the renewables being built in the world today are being built in China.

“And to put in perspective, the Chinese state oil company reckons that by 2040 they’ll have no petrol stations.

“Now we are going to look like a backward country, if we’re going back to burning more stuff rather than taking on these technologies. They’re not only cleaner, they’re more efficient, they’re vastly more versatile.”

It’s obvious enough. Some times it’s just surprising how few business leaders are prepared to say it out loud, even in the midst of a global fuel and economic crisis that has huge implications for the welfare and future of billions of people.

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