Critical minerals are a once-in-a-century opportunity for Australia - Grattan Institute

Critical minerals are a once-in-a-century opportunity for Australia

by Tony Wood, Alison Reeve, Esther Suckling

03.02.2023 Submission
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Australia can be a 21st-century green energy superpower. Climate change provides the imperative; our vast renewable energy and mineral resources provide the opportunity.

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Meeting global and domestic emissions-reduction targets will impose transformative change on Australia’s heavy manufacturing and mining sectors – change for which we are ill-prepared. Despite the current geopolitical energy challenges, global and domestic demand for Australia’s coal and gas will decline over the next few decades.

The production of already important commodities such as steel, aluminium, and ammonia will need to be transformed to low-emissions alternatives. Extracting and processing of minerals critical in a low-emissions world and materially present in Australia hold the prospect of new export growth and job creation.

Tony Wood
Energy and Climate Change Program Director
Tony has been Director of the Energy Program since 2011 after 14 years working at Origin Energy in senior executive roles. From 2009 to 2014 he was also Program Director of Clean Energy Projects at the Clinton Foundation, advising governments in the Asia-Pacific region on effective deployment of large-scale, low-emission energy technologies.

Alison Reeve
Energy and Climate Deputy Program Director
Alison Reeve is the Climate Change and Energy Deputy Program Director at Grattan Institute. She has two decades of experience in climate change, clean energy policy, and technology, in the private, public, academic, and not-for-profit sectors.

Esther Suckling
Associate
Esther is an Associate at Grattan Institute. She previously worked on health policy as an intern at the Department of Treasury and Finance and as a research assistant for Rightlane Consulting.

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