Clean Living

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What's going on?

Oil major BP announced this week that its bought a stake in one of the worlds biggest green energy projects.

What does this mean?

BP knows full well that it needs to diversify away from traditional oil and gas projects if it wants to keep investors on side. So thats exactly what its been doing, both by expanding its solar and wind businesses and by targeting a 10% share of the hydrogen market by 2030. But this latest move really sets out its stall: the company said this week that its acquired a 41% stake in a solar, wind, and green hydrogen project in Australia one thatll cost over $30 billion to develop. The projects stakeholders are hoping itll produce the equivalent of a third of Australias entire generating capacity, along with 1.6 million tons of green hydrogen a renewable alternative to gas-generated blue hydrogen every year.

Why should I care?

Zooming in: When they go low, we go with hydrogen.
This is part of a wider trend where governments and companies are investing billions into zero-emissions fuels. Take French oil and gas major TotalEnergies, which said on Tuesday that its planning to buy a 25% stake in green hydrogen business Adani New Industries. This sudden push might be why analysts are expecting the global output of green hydrogen to jump 18-fold to about 12 million tons a year by 2030 (tweet this).

The bigger picture: Little brother syndrome.
BP also said this week that its sold its stake in one of the biggest oil reserves in the world the Canadian oil sands for around $1 billion. Its the latest in a string of producers to have sold heavily polluting projects in the region, and analysts dont think itll be the last: smaller local producers are flush with cash as the oil price continues to boom, and theyre more than happy to buy the majors hand-me-downs.

Originally posted as part of the Finimize daily email.

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