One of Australia’s richest men, mining tycoon Andrew Forrest, oversees a $30 billion mining business, which employes 15,000 people. He plans to retrofit and rebrand his company, with an emphasis on clean energy production and a goal to decarbonize by 2030.
At a recent visit to his company, Fortescue, he spoke with workers about his plan to “zero out its own carbon emissions and become a renewable energy powerhouse.”
The New York Times reports on Dr. Forrest’s campaign in a recent article, Can a Carbon-Emitting Iron Ore Tycoon Save the Planet? : “Andrew Forrest made a mining fortune. Now he wants to lead a climate change revolution — and beat the fossil fuel giants along the way.”
Dr. Forrest’s vision is to change manufacturing and end the era of Big Oil while taking the climate crisis head-on, working from within an industry that is the target of much vilification.
In many ways, the criticism makes sense: The iron and steel sector emits around 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide (more than all of the world’s cars). And unlike coal, it can’t be phased out unless we no longer want new appliances or buildings. Wrenching transformation is really the only option if international climate goals are to be met.
In the NYT story, he addresses workers from alongside a huge tractor:
“Global warming, all of you know, is really serious, and it’s accelerating a lot quicker than anybody thought,” said Dr. Forrest, 59, delivering what sounded like a general’s pre-attack briefing. He told the troops — which is what he calls the workers, whom he tries to visit every few months as Fortescue’s chairman and largest shareholder — that everyone else, the government, the other big mining companies, just talked around the problem.
“What you’ll be doing,” he said, scanning the faces of miners and mechanics covered in engine oil, “will be stacks of what you’re best at, which is action. You guys are going to be at the forefront of turning the world green.”
Electrochemists at Fortescue have designed and constructed a “miniature mill” that uses electrodes and a “pressurized brew of metals and other materials” to make green iron and steel without releasing carbon. The process takes place at room temperature, using intermittent renewable energy. The model has received provisional patents. (Boston Metal, think Bill Gates investor, has done something similar.)
Dr. Forrest envisions a forest of windmills and solar panels purposed with generating the electricity to convert water into hydrogen and “that green hydrogen could travel the same routes as iron ore, gas or coal — fueling factories in the United States, steel mills in Europe and Fortescue’s own trucks and trains.”
Green steel, formed entirely with renewable energy, is the Fortescue moonshot.
“It will be a winner-take-all market,” said Saul Griffith, an electrification expert (and MacArthur fellow) who started his career at an Australian steel mill. “You can’t spend enough in the race to have the first electrochemistry pathway to steel.”
Dr. Forrest is also working on building a fleet of trucks operating on “hydrogen fuel cell technology rather than diesel.” The prototype was constructed in 100 days. They are on a 22 ½ month deadline to crank up battery storage to 20 hours, tackling one of the most complex issues: how to safely store hydrogen, which is highly flammable.
Hydrogen is more explosive than diesel and difficult to store whether it’s formed by splitting water with renewable electricity (that’s green hydrogen) or by separating hydrogen from coal and gas (brown, gray and blue hydrogen), which emits a lot of carbon.
“It’s like being there at the beginning of the industrial revolution,” he shouted out the window. “Someday you’ll look back and say, ‘I was there.’”
Action
On Friday, October 29th, youth climate activists and their adult allies are taking to the streets across the country to demand an end to the funding of climate chaos.
In San Francisco, we are taking our demands to the front doors of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor in fossil fuels. Can you join us?
There are actions happening in cities across the country. Some actions will target JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest funder of climate chaos. Others will demand that BlackRock stop investing in dirty fossil fuels. And others still will target the Federal Reserve, the US central bank which so far has refused to address the climate crisis.
In the Bay Area, Youth Vs Apocalypse will lead a mass youth march and numerous Indigenous-led organizations will lead the painting of a block-long street mural outside of BlackRock’s headquarters; the mural will be painted using ashes from the California and Amazon wildfires. They will be joined by survivors of California’s recent wildfires, including families whose homes burned in the Paradise fire of 2018.
We’re meeting outside BlackRock’s headquarters at 9am. RSVP here to get full details here.