“If Mike wants to go ahead and build that cable, I just wish him all the best,” Dr Forrest said, as he sought to play down ideas of a personal rift or vendetta.

“I’m friendly towards Mike, I’m not criticising it. They ran a very extravagant show, and then they didn’t seem to listen to their customer. So, when Mike wanted to put it into administration, we agreed.”

Dr Forrest laid out several criticisms. He said the management team had been undisciplined, spending too much on offices and racking up “massive overheads”.

More broadly, the spiralling cost of the project became a concern. “As we came closer and closer to it, we learned that the capital cost wasn’t $10 or $15 billion, it was likely to be $15 or $20 billion. Then I learned it’s going to be $20 to $25 billion, then all of a sudden, it’s $30 to $35 billion. This is a project which was out of control.”

‘Sovereign risk’

His second big worry was that Singapore, the customer, did not seem fully on board. As he tells it, they were “less excited about electrons” and keener on “hydrogen molecules, delivered on ships”.

The cable proposal also presented sovereign risk, as it traversed several countries’ territorial waters.

“Cables are fantastic, but at shorter distance and through very friendly waters. Because cables are exposed,” Dr Forrest said.

“There’s less to no sovereign risk with shipping. Sink a ship, it’s an act of war, so no one’s going to do that.”

Dr Forrest said he conveyed his concerns, with a message: “The customer is always right. Do not go against the customer”. But “it just fell on deaf ears”.

If Squadron takes over the project, its interest will be in the 17 to 20 gigawatt solar array and the battery storage of 36 to 42 gigawatt hours.

Hydrogen alternative

This would presumably help feed Dr Forrest’s ambition to export green hydrogen – not just to Singapore but also to Europe, where Fortescue Future Industries has a stake in a German terminal that will be equipped to receive shipments.

The idea of exporting hydrogen came under critical public scrutiny late last year when Rio Tinto’s chief scientist, Nigel Steward, said shipping hydrogen lost 1 per cent a day to the atmosphere, making it more damaging than burning natural gas.

Dr Forrest said this view came “directly from fossil fuel funded academics” and was “academically incorrect”.

He said other studies showed that as long as hydrogen leakage was kept at low levels, which was highly likely, it delivered a superior outcome to fossil fuels.

One Environmental Defence Fund study found that under a “best case” leak rate of 1 per cent, green hydrogen would reduce emissions relative to fossil fuels by 95 per cent over a decade; and even a “worst case” leak rate of 10 per cent would reduce warming by 85 per cent over 100 years.

“The world needs hydrogen, we have a vertical demand order book for hydrogen,” Dr Forrest said.

Under his plan, adding carbon dioxide to green hydrogen creates synthetic methane, that can be shipped using existing LNG tankers and wharf infrastructure - “totally shippable, bulletproof, one of the most traded substances in the world by sea”.

At the destination, the hydrogen is stripped off and supplied to the customer, while the CO2 bed remains in the ship and “goes back to Western Australia for another load of hydrogen”.

Dr Forrest admitted that there was “very fractional carbon dioxide leakage”, which Fortescue could cover with direct air capture technology.