Can Australia lead the way in Green Steel? - Tim Buckley Ep63

Spark Club Podcast Ep 63 -21st Nov 2025

Hosted by Grant McDowell and guest this week, Tim Buckley

Highlights
BESS deployments booming

• Batteries are the biggest disruptive force in global energy markets in 2025. Australia becomes world’s third-largest utility battery market.
• Rho Motion reports Grid-scale BESS market saw 12.7GWh of new capacity enter operations globally in October 2025, +29% y-o-y. Meanwhile, global YTD deployments have reached 156GWh, +38% yoy.
• China led new operational capacity with 8.8GWh of utility scale BESS added in the Oct 2025 month – double what Australia will do this year – including one giga-scale vanadium flow battery.

Powering Past Coal Alliance
South Korea announces Powering Past Coal Alliance at COP30 in Brazil. Has consequences for Australia’s future coal exports.

Lowlights

China RE capacity installs slow significantly

• China ended a major VRE incentive program in May 2025, which saw a massive pull forward of solar and wind installs, with a world record month of >90GW installed just in the month of May 2025, meaning ytd installs were double in 5MCY2025.
• Fast forward the following 5 months, and new RE installs have been running at just 12GW per month (still a monthly run rate double what Australia will do this year).
• The silver lining is that national emissions in China are still 10 months into 2025 down yoy, having possibly peaked back in March 2024. Steel and cement production in the month of Oct’2025 was down 5-10% yoy, so despite strong electricity demand driving thermal power generation +5% yoy, emissions overall for the month of Oct 2025 were down yoy.

Tomago Closure Threats

• Rio Tinto is threatening to close Tomago aluminium smelter due to their inability to access cheap coal power beyond 2028.
• It is great to hear that the Federal Govt. is closely evaluating a financial intervention that provides a permanent decarbonisation solution that is globally cost competitive – but will, if delivered, represent a major shift away from the “free markets” doctrine of Australia over the last few decades that has guttered our manufacturing and value-add sectors.

COP31 goes to Türkiye.

What does it mean for Bowen and Adelaide.

Main Story –
Whyalla steel works

• CEF released our new report A Strategy for Whyalla: Enabling the Transformation and Decarbonisation of the Steelworks
• Leveraging targeted industry and climate policy to support a first-of-a-kind Australian capital deployment into firmed RE to produce GH2 & then green iron.
• Our report discusses the challenges facing SA in terms of energy supply pathways – there is a fork in the road ahead, methane lock-in or going the higher cost, higher risk GH2 route that aligns with the global need to drive decarbonisation and hence in building a commercial deployment to show how this can be done. This comes with all the risks of very slow GH2 deployments globally to-date and the still very high capital costs, and FOAK risks. So we would suggest a cautious evaluation of this, whilst pursuing policies of no regrets now.
• We recommend the SA Govt:
• Build magnetite mining capacities – high quality, low impurity
• Build the enabling RE firming and grid infrastructure ahead of demand
• Build a green steel EAF
• Build downstream steel fabrication capacities for domestic market needs
• Underwrite FOAF semi-commercial technology deployments in the Australian context – Calix ZESTY was one of our picks, but they are going to Kwinana WA thanks to a major new deal this week with Rio Tinto, Element Zero and DryFlow?
• Prepare the ground work for a GH2 powered DRI value-add plant as phase 2 to say reach FID in 5 years time
  Meanwhile, keep putting bandaids on the end of life steel works to elk out another few years.

All of this gives clarity to the workforce and communities that they wont be left behind, but avoids locking in unproven GH2 till smaller FOAK deployments are proven up e.g. Also, news on Orica’s 50MW at Newcastle here in NSW.

What’s coming up?

• Next WED Tim is in Canberra joining ATSE for a diesel fuel rebate conference in Canberra.
• In early December Tim is joining the NSW Government delegation for a battery forum in Guangdong China – this is a sister state arrangement going for 46 years now.

End