Australia’s potential to become a renewables powerhouse

Former ACCC Chairman Rod Sims has shared his vision for Australia to become a renewables powerhouse. “I’m very keen to focus on the real opportunities Australia has to take advantage of its really inexpensive renewable energy,” Mr Sims told Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood. “At the moment we export the iron ore, we export the metallurgical coal … and we export the gas or thermal coal to make the energy, and all that goes to China and they make the iron metal there using fossil fuels. “In the net zero world, the way to make iron metal is to use renewable energy for the heat and you need a lot of renewable energy to make green hydrogen, hydrogen substitute for metallurgical coal. "But it's really difficult and expensive to export renewable energy or hydrogen. “If we turned our iron ore into iron metal that would reduce world emissions by 3- 3.5 per cent, three times the benefits you get from decarbonising Australia. “So if you're interested in emission reduction and interested in Australia’s prosperity taking advantage of that renewable energy, particularly up north is definitely something to do.”