Year 9 Science · Unit 3 · Lesson 21

Future Energy Technologies

Challenge Worksheet

Name

Date

Class

Learning Goals

Evaluate green hydrogen as an Australian export using economic, environmental, and social lenses.
Predict the consequences of nuclear fusion becoming commercially viable by 2060.
Construct evidence-based arguments about energy transition ethics and strategy.

Warm Up

Three-lens evaluation, Green hydrogen as Australia's future export

Australia is currently the world's largest LNG (liquefied natural gas) exporter. Some argue green hydrogen could replace this role. Use evidence from the lesson to fill in each cell of the table below.

Lens	Supporting evidence (reasons it works)	Limiting factor (challenge or risk)
Economic lens (revenue, markets, cost)
Environmental lens (emissions, vs blue/grey H₂)
Social lens (jobs, communities, land rights)

Go Deeper

What if…? Nuclear fusion goes commercial

Scenario

Imagine it is 2060. The ITER project and several private fusion companies have succeeded, nuclear fusion power stations are now being built worldwide. They can generate virtually unlimited electricity from deuterium (extracted from seawater) with no CO₂ and only tiny amounts of short-lived radioactive waste. The cost is falling rapidly. Australia is still the world's largest LNG and coal exporter, but fusion energy means these fuels may soon have no buyers.

(a) Predict how commercially viable fusion energy would change Australia's energy export strategy. What would happen to LNG and coal exports?

Challenge 3 marks

(b) If fusion energy will be commercially available by 2060, would it still be worth building solar farms and wind turbines in Australia today? Justify your answer.

Challenge 3 marks

(c) Give one ethical argument FOR and one ethical argument AGAINST a strategy of waiting for fusion rather than transitioning to renewables now.

Challenge 4 marks

Wrap Up

In one sentence, what was the main idea of this lesson?