This web service contains marine geospatial data held by Geoscience Australia. It includes bathymetry and backscatter gridded data plus derived layers, bathymetry coverage information, bathmetry collection priority and planning areas, marine sediment data and other derived products. It also contains the 150 m and optimal resolution bathymetry, 5 m sidescan sonar (SSS) and synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) data collected during phase 1 and 2 marine surveys conducted by the Governments of Australia, Malaysia and the People's Republic of China for the search of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean. This web service allows exploration of the seafloor topography through the compilation of multibeam sonar and other marine datasets acquired.

This web service contains marine geospatial data held by Geoscience Australia. It includes bathymetry and backscatter gridded data plus derived layers, bathymetry coverage information, bathmetry collection priority and planning areas, marine sediment data and other derived products. It also contains the 150 m and optimal resolution bathymetry, 5 m sidescan sonar (SSS) and synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) data collected during phase 1 and 2 marine surveys conducted by the Governments of Australia, Malaysia and the People's Republic of China for the search of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean. This web service allows exploration of the seafloor topography through the compilation of multibeam sonar and other marine datasets acquired.

<div>This product is a one page flyer designed to be carried by survey teams in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.&nbsp;The flyer aims to explain the work of Geoscience Australia and collaborators who are trying to better understand the impacts of flooding in 2022 on businesses in the Northern Rivers region.</div>

<div>Hydrogen is expected to be a key driver of the globe’s transition to net zero. &nbsp;</div><div>Australia is investing significantly, across government and business, as it pushes towards scalable and cost-effective hydrogen production. The Australian Government wants to develop and cultivate the domestic hydrogen industry to become a hydrogen superpower – exporting clean energy across the globe. With current expectations that the hydrogen industry could add an additional $50 billion to Australia’s GDP, the industry presents a great opportunity to support economic growth as Australia transitions to net zero (DCCEEW, 2022a). &nbsp;</div><div>However, much of hydrogen production remains unproven commercially at the necessary scale and there are still a lot of unknowns about how to effectively build this industry in Australia. &nbsp;</div><div>Geoscience Australia (GA), as Australia’s national geoscience agency, is undertaking precompetitive geoscience data and analysis to support the hydrogen sector. This includes conducting research and data analysis to lower the risk of exploration for natural hydrogen and salt caverns, the development of tools to support decision-making by hydrogen producers, and economic assessments into the feasibility of green steel production.&nbsp;</div><div>The economic benefits of precompetitive geoscience data and analysis for the hydrogen industry Deloitte Access Economics (DAE) was engaged to identify, quantify and, where possible, monetise the economic benefits of GA’s work across four case studies. &nbsp;</div><div>As hydrogen is a nascent sector, there is little to no current commercial activity. This limits the ability to estimate the full extent of the economic benefits of GA’s work. As the hydrogen industry matures over the next five years, we expect more economic benefits will be realised, particularly as tenement uptake translates into hydrogen production. &nbsp;</div><div>Through analysis of four current case studies, it is evident that GA’s work is providing clarity and confidence to support large-scale investment decisions. Overall, GA’s work has the potential to deliver Australia an important competitive advantage and fast-track development of the local hydrogen industry. &nbsp;</div><div>Hydrogen Economic Fairways Tool (HEFT): found to enable timely and informed decision-making and lower the risk of investing in, and entering, the hydrogen industry. Specifically, the tool provides significant efficiencies for hydrogen companies, saving $30,000 to $50,000 per prospective project in time and reduced due diligence costs. &nbsp;</div><div>GA research on natural hydrogen: expected to have stimulated tenement uptake activity in South Australia, to explore for natural hydrogen. If even just one tenement was taken up as a result of GA’s data, it could be associated with economic benefits of around $22 million to the hydrogen industry, over a ten-year period (2022-23 to 2031-32). &nbsp;</div><div>GA research on salt cavern storage: hydrogen storage can be prohibitively expensive, which can stall the development of hydrogen projects. GA’s research highlighted salt caverns as a cheaper alternative. If just one industry player switched from conventional gas storage to salt caverns, salt cavern storage could lower the cost by $208 million, over ten years. In addition, salt cavern storage could avoid the loss of $4.1 million worth of hydrogen over the same period (2022-23 to 2031-32). &nbsp;</div><div>The techno-economic assessment of green steel production: GA’s research identified cost-effective locations for green steel production, which could be competitive with conventional steel at a carbon price of $148 per tonne of carbon dioxide&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

<div>The energy and resources industries are two essential pillars of Australia’s economy and vital sectors in the global transition to a sustainable and net-zero economy. To enhance Australia’s competitiveness, there is an urgent need to explore technical and strategic challenges and opportunities to unlock domestic hydrogen and green steel development pathways that are suitable for the Australian resources and manufacturing ecosystem. </div><div><br></div><div>Held on 30 August 2023 in Perth, Western Australia, this workshop provided Australian stakeholders in the hydrogen, iron ore and government sectors a forum to share, discuss and provide insight on a broad range of aspects relevant to hydrogen and green steel development opportunities across Australia—including identifying investment hurdles, technical challenges and knowledge gaps, and fostering new innovation and collaboration opportunities.</div><div><br></div><div>As part of the Exploring for the Future program, Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with Monash University, premiered its Green Steel Economic Fairways tool, which utilises geoscience knowledge and data to highlight regional opportunities of high economic potential for hydrogen and green steel industries in Australia.</div><div><br></div><div>The recording of the workshop presentations is available on YouTube.</div>

<div>Steelmaking value chains are economically important to Australia, but the need to decarbonize traditional steel-making processes could disrupt existing supply lines. Hydrogen-based iron and steel production offers one pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of steel. Here, we present maps assessing the costs of hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron oxides (to produce hot briquetted iron), optionally coupled with steelmaking in an electric arc furnace (i.e. the H2-DRI-EAF value chain). Developed as part of the Exploring for the Future program and in collaboration with Monash University, these models build off the functionality of the Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper (beta release), with additional enhancements to the modelling algorithm to reflect constant furnace operation, the incorporation of costings to transport the produced hot briquetted iron or steel to domestic ports, and the optimisation of facility capacities. The capacity of facilities (including solar and wind generation, proton exchange membrane [PEM] electolysis, battery storage, and hydrogen storage tanks) are determined by the 1 Mtpa production target and the local availability of renewable energy resources, as modelled according to 2019 data sourced from the Renewables.Ninja (https://www.renewables.ninja/; Pfenninger & Staffell, 2016; Staffell & Pfenninger, 2016). The high-resolution (approximately 5.5 km pixels) maps reflect our preferred technology cost assumptions (see Wang et al., 2023) for the year 2025. Iron concentrate feedstocks are assumed to cost AU$150 per tonne, reflecting approximate costs for 65 % Fe pellets as derived from magnetite ores. Conversions to USD assume US$1.00 = AU$0.73.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia's geology and resource potential. This leads to a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of all Australians. This includes supporting Australia's transition to a low emissions economy, strong resources and agriculture sectors, and economic opportunities and social benefits for Australia's regional and remote communities. The Exploring for the Future program, which commenced in 2016, is an eight year, $225m investment by the Australian Government.</div>