Tasmania’s Bell Bay industrial centre continues to be a field of dreams for hydrogen companies, with the latest proposal a $1.5 billion 3D printing manufacturing hub.
Perth company PolarBlue is proposing to combine its hydrogen energy technology and its fibre glass-based 3D printing tech to make, the company says, floating wind turbines and low-emissions fuels.
It’s signed an initial agreement with the state around jobs training and port and marine access.
Bell Bay is an industrial centre and deep-water port in northern Tasmania that has long been the focus of the state’s renewable hydrogen production and export plans.
PolarBlue is just the latest in a long line of hydrogen hopefuls to send out a viral press release about future plans for Bell Bay. To date, none of these plans have been realised.
State and federal governments poured $330 million in grants into the Green Hydrogen Hub concept, which was hoped to be up and running by 2028. But proposals floated by the likes of Fortescue, Woodside and Origin have so far fizzled out.
PolarBlue founder Grant Reynolds says the company doesn’t want cash from the state government.
“We never asked Tasmania for a cent, only a fair process, and we got one. Bell Bay is where we start advanced manufacturing at scale,” Reynolds said in a statement.
“We are not asking anyone to take that on faith. We are asking them to come and watch.”
More big promises for Bell Bay
The company is making some big promises, with a pre-launch press release making very big claims.
It’s promising “Bell Bay’s biggest arrival yet” will “give Tasmanians access to the cheapest and cleanest power on the planet”.
That’s in addition to the 150 jobs in the first phase, almost cancelling out the 250 lost when the Liberty Bay smelter closed in July, and a $1.5 billion capital investment.
It says it will spend that enormous sum within 36 months “subject to regulatory approval to operate at 8 GW/month production capacity”, according to a press release announcing the launch of the site.
And then there are the 3D printed offshore wind turbines intended to power the hydrogen equipment that makes low emission fuels.
According to the AFR, modular wind turbines and platforms will be fixed together to form a “harvester” that will sail to windy waters off Tasmania’s south and generate electricity or use seawater to produce ammonia, methanol or hydrogen.
The plan is to put them out in the open ocean, outside any government jurisdiction. The company reportedly has a prototype it is testing.
Tasmania industry minister Felix Ellis says the three year investment to build the manufacturing centre “will be a boon for the entire state.”
“PolarBlue’s vision to deliver globally significant outcomes using Australian technology is welcome in Tasmania,” he said in a statement.
“Tasmania is open for business, and we welcome PolarBlue’s commitment.”
The Steven Bradbury of hydrogen
Tasmania is still hopeful hydrogen at Bell Bay will be the industrial injection the north needs, with state officials openly calling it “the Steven Bradbury of hydrogen”.
Bradbury was an Australian speed ice skater who won a gold medal in the winter Olympics after all of his competitors crashed out on the final corner.
In addition to PolarBlue, last year Abel Energy’s then-$1.7 billion Bell Bay Powerfuels project was tapped to produce hydrogen at the port.
These are replacing the initial wave of green hydrogen projects by very large companies.
While PolarBlue reportedly has a suite of big investors, from Japanese giant Sumitomo to Wilson Transformer Company, green hydrogen has defeated other proponents with equally deep pockets in the recent past.
Bell Bay was supposed to be the location of Fortescue’s first hydrogen plant, but the company couldn’t lock in an agreement on low power price with the government.
Origin hit pause on its 500 megawatt (MW) project in 2023.
Oil and gas giant Woodside was the latest to withdraw from running, pulling its proposed H2Tas project from the federal environment approval process in August 2024.
Woodside said the decision had been informed by the “lack of availability of new renewable energy generation” in the state to underpin commercial-scale electrolysis-based hydrogen production.
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