Fortescue aims for impossible dream. Twiggy's grand bet on Australian iron ore turns sour. Investors dump Fortescue Metals. I'm happy to be chained to the tracks because I know that I will not be killed by a train. Fortescue amounts to nothing more than a $1 billion concept stock.
Poles and Forrest's green trucking dream. This is not real zero, this is just real stupid. Fortescue pulls pin on more green ambitions. Twiggy whitewashes his own green emissions. A rough year for Australia's Fortescue. Green energy plans in doubt by arrival of Trump. It's not feasible. Promises have been made to electrify. That is not achievable in our view in the time frame that has been suggested. There is no replacement for the use of that diesel to grow our food, to our mines which make all the money for us all. Decarbonizing large industrial sectors depends on technologies that are not yet commercially viable at scale, rely on immature supply chains, or lack established markets. This is a classic case of sensible policy and logic being lost in the fog of grandstanding and virtue signaling by Fortescue.
So, just want to introduce that loser. Great to meet you all, and we're still here. And we're going green. Of course, we're all going green because we absolutely must. If you're enjoying organic, then climate change is with you, and it's going to change all our lives. However, it's also highly economic. And while you've seen all the blurb, you've seen all the critics, you've seen all the people with very serious vested interest to make sure there's no change. I would like to show you now, if I could, what change looks like. Thank you.
Cast your mind back 3 years. We set the bold ambition to decarbonize Fortescue's operations. Fortescue Metals is planning to ditch oil and gas. It's going to cost about 6.2 billion US dollars. Fortescue is proof that heavy industry can decarbonize. We're eliminating fossil fuels right now, and by 2030 we'll stop using 1 billion liters of diesel equivalent every year. We're showing that real zero is entirely possible. And not only is it possible, we're showing that it's profitable.
At Fortescue, we're building the world's largest independently operated replicable green grid designed to deliver reliable firm power at scale. Every day we're installing over 3 and a half thousand of these solar panels. In the future, we're going to automate this process and scale up even bigger. By 2028, we will deliver enough solar, wind, and batteries with advanced transmission infrastructure and AI-driven energy management systems to end fossil fuels, eliminate volatility, and unlock cheaper green energy. These battery energy storage systems store the energy from our solar and wind farms so that we can dispatch it 24 hours a day into our operations.
And this is where it all connects, our stored renewable energy powering our battery electric fleet. Hundreds of pieces of new green equipment delivered to our sites in less than 5 years. You can see them in action right now. By the end of the year, 40% of our dig fleet will already be replaced with green units. And our tech goes beyond the Pilbara, the green pioneer showing the world how we can eliminate emissions from global shipping. We're not even phased anymore about the critics. We're going to show everybody out there that it's a no-brainer to do it. Real investment, real progress, real zero in motion. That's the power of now.
Okay, thank you, fellow Australians. We're out there, we're having a proper crack on behalf of all of you. That's what you'd expect large companies to have done well riding on Australia's fabulous economy to do. You don't expect us to hide behind diesel fuel rebate credits. You don't expect us to hide behind next year's bonus as an excuse why we shouldn't move. We have to move. The big end of town, you should hold to account, ladies and gentlemen. Companies like mine and bigger is where we can afford to innovate, where we can afford to drive. So, when you hear from large companies that they can't afford to, that the technology isn't there, get hold of your local politician and say, don't ask these companies to go green when you've got a diesel fuel rebate worth billions of dollars of net cash to them to stop them going green.
It's absurd politics that we have a situation in our country where we're being asked all the time to switch off diesel so there's more for moms and dads, yet there's a rebate going to the biggest consumers in the world who are the people who least need it. Let me introduce our company Fortescue. We've executed $46 billion. So when I hear ah they don't know what they're doing, I've just got to point to that. That is a record with time and cost compared to peers 50% faster, 50% less cost.
Let's look at diesel only. Now we burn like all our peers a hell of a lot of gas as well, but let's just look at diesel because with the Strait of Hormuz closed, you could be looking at three to four dollars a barrel of diesel, a liter of diesel. The Strait of Hormuz is now weaponized and commercialized. It wasn't before the invasion, it was an open sea lane. It won't be again, ladies and gentlemen.
My own small experience with Ukraine has taught me in the number of years that Ukraine has had to shield itself from an overwhelming force and it's done it. It's switched a front line to a front zone 30 to 40 kilometers wide. You enter that 30 to 40 kilometer zone, you die. Drones, which cost dozens of dollars only, will take you out. That front line's not moving, ladies and gentlemen, and while not wanting to, I've been shown the factories where these weapons are made. They're not in caves, ladies and gentlemen. They're like Iran will be hiding in plain sight. You'll never know where they are.
So, I just look at Iran and say, 'There's not a lot of way out now. If the president wants to extend past 60 days, past his ceasefire, he's got to go back to Congress. That's effectively a win for Iran.' Well, I can't judge where this is going to go, ladies and gentlemen, but I can tell you the Strait of Hormuz is not opening up anytime soon. So, for diesel, it's all bad news. And I'm imploring the Australian government to stop the rebate.
Every company enjoying, every digger, every tradie who drives a ute, every fisherman, every farmer, you get a full rebate up to $50 million a year. At $50 million a year, you can't really say you're just an Aussie battler now. You're not really on struggle street at over 50 million a year. So, let's not have the big end of town, the Minerals Council of Australia, who supposedly represent the mining industry, but just represent the big end of town, cuz we're not in it. Don't let them say, 'Oh, we can't survive without that extra 2.5 billion in our back pocket.' It's just not true.
You can do this, big companies. 2.3 gigawatts, 1.5 gigawatts of solar, sorry, 800 megawatts of solar, 800 megawatts of wind. 5 gigawatts plus of battery storage. 600 km transmission lines and technology which sure didn't exist last year. But does now and I want to get to a guy called Glenn Corowa in a second, who will explain how miraculous this new tech is and it's available to all of us.
Let's have a quick look at the grid of Fortescue over the other side of Australia where we're generating the wealth we all enjoy here in Sydney. A green grid emerging. This is a green grid. Looks pretty simple. That's because it is pretty simple. This green grid can be replicated all over Australia. There's nothing Dr. Who, Dr. Seuss, or Harry Potter about this grid. This is just massed in physics and engineers and a bit of courage and leadership.
We all worry about what the critics say. If we all worry about a point in time and make judgment calls on a point in time and not the trends like the straight of a maze that you see in front of you, then we're going to make some pretty bad decisions. And those directors of big companies who make the decisions on points in time, they're going to make bad decisions. I would have asked them to look at this trend. There's a massive trend sitting in front of you. Here is encapsulated all we're doing, wind and solar. But battery electric storage systems. Rail which is going green. These are the biggest, heaviest railways on Earth, ladies and gentlemen. I know bigger. I mean, don't take my word for it. Guinness Book of Records. And fast chargers which we invented. This is the ecosystem of a green mining company.
Will burn billion liters plus of diesel a year equivalent going to will burn zero. Saving a billion dollars a year. Now, that's not chopped liver. A billion a year, I don't want that to just flip off people's minds. That pays for a truckload of dividends of people's dreams, hopes, and aspirations, and philanthropy. What it does is 800 pieces of heavy diesel-consuming equipment already gone. Already gone. So, we're not talking about in the future, we're talking about right now. Electric drills, these things chop through a million liters of diesel a year. 240-ton battery-electric trucks and these huge excavators.
Now, I just want to talk to you a little bit about big power generators which you can see dotted around the horizon here in Sydney or Australia or anywhere in the world. You have these massive spinning flywheels. It's called rotary kinetic energy or massive spinning turbines. When the grid goes down, when it gets attacked by a missile in Ukraine or Iran or by a weather event in the Pilbara or by some fruitcake running into a pole somewhere else, when that grid is attacked, what keeps it going right now, think of a wheel on a horse and cart. I want to take you to that because that technology probably hasn't changed much since horse and cart.
This tech is quite simple. It spins. Your big generators around New South Wales have this huge spinning kinetic energy. So, when your grid goes down, that rotational kinetic energy keeps the grid going while you run around and fix it. It's declining fast. It's very basic. Why Glenn Corowa said this, 'The grid healed itself in front of my eyes. For most of my 35-year career as a power systems engineer, I thought this was impossible. This is a glimpse of the future and bar the birth of my child, the most exciting thing I have ever witnessed.' I got to say to Glenn, you've got to get out, mate.
But what he's saying is that without any spinning inertia, which you see in every single generator around the world, AI and batteries simply when that grid got attacked, it reversed the electrons. The batteries held the electrons. It sent them the other way. That grid stayed untouched. If you're watching these lights, when the grid got attacked and the grid went down and AI fixed it, you would not see these lights flicker. That's how efficient it is.
Now, did this AI emerge on us last year? We put ourselves in the position of success and AI got us there. You'll put a cloud floating over a solar bank or a slight drop in the wind in a wind farm and you've connected a whole grid to it. Everything changes in nanoseconds. Humans cannot make decisions that fast. But AI can and has and as you can see with Glenn, has done it.
So, just quickly, what's happening right now? I mean, you're talking about the future, Fortescue. What's happening right now? Well, 300,000 megawatt hours of energy already, 22% of our electricity used right now, 62% of our non-Iron Bridge, which is all our hematite operations, that's 180 million tons a year from shifting a billion tons of earth per year was met through solar. And December 27, a very happy day, 100% was met purely from solar.
Timeline to 2030 when we're going to be out of diesel, out of gas is upon us now. The green grid fully complete will be mostly complete next year, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, we're banking savings as we speak. But mostly complete by '27, done by 2028, by 2030, by 2028, ladies and gentlemen, by November 2028, Fortescue is locked and loaded. All we're waiting on is the delivery of equipment. The pain is behind us by the end of '28. And by 2030, the final equipment is delivered and we've stopped burning fossil fuel.
And I just want to point out, what does it mean? It means big companies all across Australia don't complain about fruitcakes, despots, oligarchs, and invaders who don't care for your company, who don't care for your shareholders, who don't care for the moms and dads of our country. In fact, the words were couldn't care less. Don't complain when they control your future, when they drive your standard of living cuz they drive your cost of living. Don't complain if you've stayed locked into diesel. 90-odd percent is it imported. Don't complain. Just say, 'I didn't move. I had a diesel fuel rebate. The politicians stopped me from moving.' No volatility, no imports, no shocks. Made here in Australia. What's not to love about Australian made? That's what I want for our energy.
So, as I mentioned, each digger saves a million liters of diesel a year. Fuel costs already down 100 million US dollars. Not chopped liver. And aiming at a billion dollars out by 2030. US dollars. I just want to say, why are we alone? Why aren't others following? Well, here is the answer. The diesel fuel rebate. Why would you change? 90% imported, that's the reason. No control over your own future, that's another reason.
Shareholders and moms and dads suffering the shocks because you big diesel consumers chop through billions and billions of liters of diesel, which you've seen from Fortescue, you could replace with homegrown energy, and all those liters of diesel could go back to moms and dads on struggle street in Australia pushing down the cost of diesel, pushing down their cost of living, rising their standards of living all because you took decisions. But no, we have a diesel fuel rebate.
Mining alone burns 9.6 billion liters of diesel a year. That tax credit system allocates 10.8 billion. I'm sorry to use all these big numbers, but just imagine the schools, the hospitals, imagine the teachers, the nurses. Forget the huge numbers. Walk in the shoes of people who are struggling. And then ask, 'Really? 10 billion dollars? 4.5 billion to the mining industry? More spent on diesel rebates than the army or the air force of our nation?' Hold the phone, did we know that? A rebate which is more than our armies and air forces. Makes no sense to me.
That fuel tax credit system, let's just look at some of the damage. Since 2006 it swallowed 122 billion plus of your money. 55 billion to miners. By 2030, we keep this insane policy going. It's going to cost you punters 184 billion. You could build the state of New South Wales with that. It's just horrendous. 83 billion to mining.
Now, I'm a miner. Trust mostly what someone says, trust completely what they do. As a miner, I'm receiving these credits and as a miner, I'm saying this is all pork barrel politics from John Howard's era when he was sliding into losing election and he thought he'd buy off the farmers, he thought he'd buy off the fishermen, the cockies with the diesel fuel rebate. But what he did was hand a huge wad of cash inadvertently to a part of the economy which didn't need it. Which is the big end of town in the mining industry.
Now, at a 50 million dollar limit, all those people which Howard wanted to win votes from, they're looked after. Big Mining, don't go jumping in after the farmers and saying, 'I'm going to hide behind the little cockies of Australia. I'm going to hide behind the fishermen of Australia. The tradies in little utes. I'm going to hide behind them. I'm going to say, don't take it from them.' When really what you're saying is, 'Don't take it from me.' Hear that when you hear this rubbish advertising it's coming. Fortescue, that bloke Forrest, he's going to try and debilitate poor farmers and poor fishermen, poor youth driving tradies. Just say, 'Mate, when was a 50 million a year person a youth driving tradie?' Don't give us that crap. You're hiding behind the moms and dads of Australia.
It's literally like when someone walks into a room with a pistol and you grab a child and you put it up in front of you to defend you. That's what you're doing when you hide behind farmers, when you hide behind fishermen, when you hide behind tradies at the big end of town. So, just quickly, the Minerals Council calls this an industry wrecking proposal. I don't know. I'm from industry. Do I look like a wreck?
Let's just have a look at this, shall we? BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue collected 1.35 billion last year from taxpayers net net net profit to us. Cost us nothing. We just got it. While we made it at the same time 34.6 billion. Just look at the maths. 5%, 5%, 34 billion and we're winging about 1.35 billion being taken from us. Hold the phone. Is this fair? Is this sensible? No, it's not. There, that's a quick shot of the margins, that little bit of yellow. I think you can survive without it, miners. BHP, Rio, Fortescue.
I'm really proud that we are the major taxpayers in our country. I want to talk to you about big tech. Much bigger companies than us. Big foreign gas companies, much bigger companies than us. They pay less tax collectively, kerchunk, collectively than one little Aussie battler does called Fortescue a year. That whole big tech sector, that whole big foreign gas sector pays less tax collectively than just Fortescue. How is that fair? How is that fair?
So, look, there's the 18 companies. They won't like being named. Imagine what the federal government could do with that 2.5 billion. Just look at it, 22,000 teachers, 2 and a half thousand homes, 10 million $250 household energy rebates to 10 million Aussies. Or 16,000 aged care places. This is each year, ladies and gentlemen. This is not collectively to the next budget, blah blah blah politician speak. This is a year. Come on, Australia. We can do better than this.
Then you've got the safeguard mechanism. Now, this is groovy. We hear a lot about the safeguard mechanism. It gives you a safeguard mechanism for $37. You wind that up against $194 you get as a credit as a mining company. What are you going to do, baby? Huh? What are you going to do? You're going to go for the safeguard mechanism or the diesel fuel rebate? You're going to say, 'Thank you, Mr. Bowen, for the safeguard mechanism cuz I'm going to pay it because I get another $160 in my back pocket. Thank you, taxpayer, from the fuel tax credit.' There you go. That's why we all love the safeguard mechanism. It's the cheapest get out of jail free card. You get 200 bucks on the way past go. Woohoo.
So, here we have it. Australia spent an extra $4 billion on fossil fuel since the start of the Middle East conflict. We can continue to support imported fossil fuel, or we can make all our own energy. Ladies and gentlemen, Australia can make its own energy. Let's get out there and do it.
We have an issue where we have grids, and we just plant energy near the grid. I have a little company called Squadron Energy. It's probably the largest wind player in the country, and we work and work and work with our communities to get them across the line to support. We're the only developer of a wind farm in New South Wales this year, full stop, one. That's us. But, I really say to our leaders, put the grid where the energy is. Don't try and jam the energy where your old dilapidated design for fossil fuel system, not sustainable energy, grid is. Put it where the energy is, team. Team Australia.
So, look, we're here. There's a great big truck on the left-hand side. We call it a dinky toy. Try running this on a battery. It looks big, but we could put a few of these great big multi-wheel, multi-axle trucks in the back of that 240-ton loader, and we run that on a battery. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Now, do I just sit down, or... Yeah. Do you want to walk to the... Over here? No, no, no. Sit down. Well, thanks. Want to turn me on? Thank you.
