BP has stood down contractors working on its biofuel plant just weeks before discovering if its adjacent green hydrogen project will win $1 billion of government backing.
Australia's largest export has a problem - its low grade and high impurities make it unsuitable for producing low emissions iron and steel with current technology
Australia will lose thousands of jobs to rival resource-rich economies if the federal government fails to kickstart the nascent green iron industry, experts warn.
WA's iron ore miners must develop wind power and drop decades of rivalry to share transmission networks to meet their emissions reduction targets, according to Alinta Energy.
In the race to decarbonise iron ore shipping Rio and BHP are chasing incremental improvements with LNG while Andrew Forrest's Fortescue wants zero-emission green ammonia ASAP.
WA's industrial greenhouse gas emissions are dominated by four products and a handful of companies, including a few that have managed to keep a low profile in the climate wars.
The iron ore price that had held up in the economic chaos of 2020 is beginning to fall, and the worst case of $US50 a tonne would shatter government revenue just when it is needed the most.
