San Francisco Frontiers - An Aussie tycoon bets billions on cleaning up iron ore giant

Even as President Donald Trump's second term has triggered environmental backtracking among many corporations, iron ore giant Fortescue -- founded by Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest -- is investing billions to clean up its dirty operations.

"We're a huge polluter right now," he told AFP in an interview aboard the Green Pioneer, a 75-meter former oil-rig supply ship given a swish makeover. "But we're changing so fast, and within five years, we'll stop burning fossil fuels."

The Green Pioneer is meant to be the first in a fleet of ammonia-powered ships.

Ammonia contains what Forrest calls the "miracle molecule" -- hydrogen -- which burns to produce harmless nitrogen and water, though incomplete combustion of ammonia can still generate a greenhouse gas.

- 'Real Zero,' not offsets -

At 63, Forrest has become a fixture at global summits, rubbing shoulders with leaders such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as he evangelizes his climate vision.

Where other companies tout green credentials by buying carbon credits -- generated through nature protection or carbon-removal projects for example -- to claim "net zero," Forrest dismisses the practice as a scam.

"Carbon credits have already been proved by science to be next to worthless," said Forrest, whose net worth Forbes pegs at more than $16 billion. "That's why we go 'Real Zero.'"

Achieving genuine decarbonization by 2030 is no small feat, particularly in one of the world's dirtiest industries.

Fortescue's plan involves replacing diesel-powered mining equipment with electric excavators and drills; building vast wind, solar and battery farms to power operations; and running battery-powered haul trucks.

Further along the value chain, the company wants to process its own iron ore -- the stage responsible for the lion's share of emissions -- using "green hydrogen" produced by splitting water molecules with renewable electricity, instead of coke or thermal coal.

"Fortescue's climate commitments are certainly different to most other corporations, including its peers in the iron ore mining sector" such as Rio Tinto and BHP, Simon Nicholas, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis' lead analyst for global steel told AFP.

"It has a 'green iron' pilot plant under construction in Australia which will use green hydrogen. The company is aiming to eventually process all of its iron ore into iron for export -- about 100 million tonnes a year" -- and even getting close to those targets would be transformative, said Nicholas.

- Technical challenges -

But he cautioned that the technological hurdles remain immense: green hydrogen is still expensive, and the pilot plant must prove it can handle lower-grade ore.

Then there's the inherent ecological cost of mining. "If you destroy parts of a forest, including its soils, for your mining operation, even if you don't use fossil fuels for your operations, you will not be 'true zero,'" Oscar Soria, co-director of The Common Initiative think tank told AFP.

Forrest's outlook is grounded in his personal journey.

Raised in the Australian Outback, where he earned the nickname "Twiggy" for his skinny childhood frame, he got his start in finance before taking over a company and renaming it Fortescue Metals Group in 2003.

Forrest said his environmental commitment deepened after a hiking accident in 2014 left him temporarily wheelchair-bound. Encouraged by his children, he returned to university and completed a PhD in marine ecology.

"That convinced me I've got to put every fiber of my being into arresting this threat so much bigger than any geostrategic issues, so much bigger than politics, so much bigger than anything," he said.

Climate now sits at the heart of his philanthropic Minderoo Foundation.

And while the Trump administration derides the "green scam" as economically catastrophic, Forrest insists the opposite is true, pointing to Fortescue's financial record.

"Don't accuse us of being unbusiness-like. We're the most business-like in the world."

C.Williams--SFF