Salt caverns and minerals can support local hydrogen industry

Australia has the right ingredients to become a global hydrogen superpower, according to new data from the Australian Government’s Exploring for the Future program.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King said scientists had uncovered the potential for large-scale, underground storage of hydrogen in salt caverns across the country.

“We know that the technology exists to store hydrogen underground and thanks to this work we now also know that Australia has the right geology to support the development of an economically viable hydrogen industry on our own soil,” she said. “Geoscience Australia has uncovered potential for the development of multiple caverns underground in salt deposits across the Canning Basin in Western Australia, the Adavale Basin in Queensland and the offshore Polda Basin in South Australia.

“A single large salt cavern could provide the same amount of energy storage as Snowy Hydro 2.0, with multiple caverns this size possible in the same area. Hydrogen is a clean fuel and large-scale, cost-effective storage of hydrogen will be essential in achieving our long-term goals for the future.”

Using Geoscience Australia data, Chalice Mining, through its Julimar project, has also uncovered a massive supply of palladium, platinum, nickel, copper, cobalt and gold just 70 km north-east of Perth in the Gonneville deposit.

“Some of the minerals found in this deposit are essential to generating hydrogen, so it is fantastic that the world’s biggest discovery of such minerals in the last 20 years was in our own backyard in Western Australia,” said King.

The $225 million Exploring for the Future program has been gathering precompetitive data about Australia’s geology since 2016. It puts key information in the hands of Australians, creating jobs for regional communities and enabling landholders, industry and government to make informed decisions.

“As a government, we are dedicated to supporting a sustainable, long-term future for Australia through an improved understanding of the nation’s mineral, energy and groundwater resource potential,” said King. “We have already seen great value from precompetitive geoscience that has come from investments like the Exploring for the Future program, which identify areas of rich resource potential, thereby decreasing the risks and accelerating exploration across Australia.

“This work is vital to Australia’s low-emissions future.”

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