In one sense, this is worse than pointless. The hydrogen was made from brown coal, so this shipment has caused more greenhouse gas emissions than any other way Japan could have imported that energy. The capture and storage part of this project is still a fantasy, and no doubt it will extend the unbroken record of failure established by all the previous attempts.

It's not doing the people of the Latrobe Valley any favors by playing along with their pretence that coal mining has a future. They might well have a future in electicity storage, but it won't involve digging things up or burning them.

On the other hand, this is an impressive achievement, and it would be fairly straightforward for Australia to generate hydrogen with no greenhouse emissions. The only question is how many governments we'll have to overthrow before we get there.