By Peter Milne
Kimberley indigenous people are backing a unique $3 billion hydroelectric and sun-powered clean energy project on their lands 45 years after they lost a famous fight to stop drilling for oil on Noonkanbah Station.
Two traditional owner groups and the Kimberley Land Council formed in response to the Noonkanbah defeat want to use hydroelectricity made available after the closure of the Argyle Diamond mine in 2020 to make clean ammonia.
Man-made Lake Argyle is 18 times larger than Sydney Harbour.
Rob Grant, head of projects at climate change investor Pollination which is the fourth member of the East Kimberley Clean Energy Project, said having indigenous groups involved at the start would speed up the project.
Grant, who worked on the hydropower plant when it was built in the mid-1990s, said new investors would gain by not having to negotiate an Indigenous Land Use Agreement which normally dictates the schedule.
Native title for all land needed for this project is held by the two traditional owner participants MG Corporation and Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation.
For Kimberley Land Council chief executive Tyronne Garstone, having traditional owners drive the project was the polar opposite of the Noonkanbah experience. Then, the right of a small American company to explore for oil prevailed after police broke up a blockade at the site.
“Now as soon as you win your native title you’ve got proponents knocking on your door to say we want to do something on your land,” Garstone said.
Garstone wants traditional owners to define a project that suits their aspirations and only then seek investors.
“Traditional owners are no longer waiting for joint venture partners to come knock on the door,” he said.
Their plan is to extract hydrogen from water from Lake Argyle using electricity generated at an adjacent 900-megawatt solar farm. The day’s output of hydrogen would be stored in a 75 kilometre-long pipeline that runs to a port at Wyndham. There a plant powered by hydroelectricity would run 24 hours a day adding nitrogen to the hydrogen to produce ammonia that is used to make fertilisers and explosives and is a potential future clean fuel.
Grant said Pacific Blue, that owns the hydroelectric plant, looked at the feasibility of making ammonia just using its own power, but the project was too small to be economical.
East Kimberley Clean Energy will use intermittent solar to run the electrolysers to make hydrogen and reserve hydropower for a 250,000 tonnes a year ammonia plant that must operate constantly.
Garstone said the indigenous-first approach to reduce the risk of project delays was essential for Australia to meet its climate goals.
“If Australia is serious about decarbonising and meeting its net-zero targets, a lot of the projects are going to happen on First Nations lands,” he said.
On Monday the Pilbara’s Yindjibarndi people announced plans for a 750-megawatt solar and wind farm to supply clean power to the area’s miners, with a possible expansion to 3000 megawatts.
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