Bouquets and briquettes

What's happening with the $25 000 000 briquette factory at Mataura?
Driving past, I see no signs of industry at all.
I have to give credit though, where it's due. The native tree roadside plantings Solid Energy did in order to screen the proposed open cast lignite mines from the travelling public, are doing really well and look great!

Lucrative gardening

I'm jealous. My gardening brings me very little by way of money, yet I work quite hard at it (see previous post :-) Don Elder, on the other hand, dabbles in his garden, if he does anything at all, yet he receives $1 million per year, for pottering about his carrots and cauli.
It's disgusting, in my view, that a man who has run up massive debts for taxpayers, can exit the position he managed so badly, and merely slip into the most highly paid gardening position in the country, perhaps the world, without a word from him about what he did to ruin the country's biggest mining company.
He's untouchable, it seems. Those huge bonuses he was being paid were offered for this very reason, I suppose. Don will have his name dragged through the mud, quite rightly, but will take it on the chin, because he's wrapped it in wads of $10 000 notes.
Sick.

Solid Energy burns coal underground.

Don Elder's excited about his SOE's next great idea - setting fire to coal while it's still in the ground. It's a tremendously clever idea. Why let the coal lie deep underground when you can set fire to it and collect the exhaust for further burning here on the surface? It's worth a lot of money, so it's full steam, or rather coal-fire fume, ahead. Will Don's exciting process add to New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions? He doesn't mention that at all in his breathless press releases. Perhaps it doesn't matter any more. The mental image of deep underground coal-fires, open cast lignite mines and fracking rigs up and down the country reminds me of scenes from the Middle Earth and I see three small hobbits, returning to the Shire, appalled.

Bless those briquettes

I arrived a little late to the blessing of the Solid Energy briquette plant at Mataura, which in itself was a blessing because I didn't have to wear one of the stupid hi-vis vests like the ones the other guests, including all of the rangatahi were wearing. Even Bill English had one stretched over his MP suit. Roly had mis-timed our entrance, so we slunk in at the back of the marquee and watched the proceedings in relative anonymity. We thought.
The kapahaka group belted out a mighty haka and the wero was laid down by a fearsome lad wielding a taiaha that seemed to hypnotise Bill so much that someone from the crowd had to yell out 'Pick it up!'.
A karakia was intoned over a white china bowl of briquettes.

A sod was turned (I'm resisting a very strong temptation here!)

There were plenty of media, suitably attired for the dangerous environment of gravel and grass.

My best shot, photographically speaking, was of two 'coats' left lying on a table while the speechifying went on: a Solid Energy vest and a korowai from the Hokonui Runaka. Poignant much?

After the hole was dug, and as I stood in the sunniest, warmest spot out of the keen wind that blew in from the southwest, Bill Luff, Group Manager External Affairs came and introduced himself and we had a very convivial talk about issues of Christchurch and Solid Energy respectively. Don Elder joined us (he has a Hone Hariwira handshake, warm and prolonged, in case that sort of detail interests you) and made a good job of allaying my concerns about some things. Not all by any means, but we only had 20 minutes until the show was closed and I had to leave for Invers.

The smell of burning rubber

Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee, Solid Energy's Don Elder and L&M Energy's Chris McKeown are 'talking up', 'aggressively pushing' and bullishly describing how 'the rubber is about to hit the road' in their fields of interest: coal-seam gas, urea and diesel production and methane.
That's Big Boy talk from the Energy Men.
The biennial Petroleum Conference in Auckland is giving their passion wings and they are bristling with confidence about their projects.
Elder went all coy though, when asked whether Solid Energy "should be privatised following a moment of controversy the day before when the chief executive of New Zealand Oil & Gas suggested that the Government should sell it's assets to private buyers".
Bit of a wet blanket, that chap, letting the cat out of the bag like that!

Coal Corp moves

Don Elder, Solid Energy C.E.O. is breathlessly over-excited (Aug 28) about Southland’s lignite, saying he expects his company to ‘aggressively move forward’ with it’s lignite projects and that Solid Energy was ‘very serious’ about turning that grubby lignite into crude oil, diesel and urea.


Mr Elder says he wants to make his multi-billion dollar plans ‘as real as possible, as soon as possible’.

What he’s not telling us is how much extra his grand plans will cost taxpayers. On October 1st, you and I will start paying for the gas that big industries like Solid Energy belch out, thanks to the Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme.

Don Elder’s plans to put much, much more of that gas into the atmosphere here in Southland, will have to be paid for.

You can guess who will be paying.

Don Elder on Jan Wright on lignite or wood

Dr Elder says 'lignite'.
Dr Wright says 'wood'.

Elder:

“We will take full responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions in developing our Southland lignite projects."

Government-owned coal miner Solid Energy came out with a sharp comment on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Environment over a view on biofuels. Solid Energy said the Parliamentary Commissioner for Environment, Dr Jan Wright, was misinforming the important national discussion on the country’s transport future.
By *focusing solely on environmental issues*, Dr Jan Wright concludes that the future does not lie in lignite-derived fuels.
This, said Solid Energy chief executive Dr Don Elder, ignores the real question: “How do we provide New Zealanders with transport fuel security and affordability while addressing environmental sustainability?”
Dr Elder acknowledged Dr Wright’s contribution to the debate around New Zealand’s emerging biofuels industry but said her focus was* too narrow *and risks cutting off valuable options.
“Solid Energy believes the Southland lignite resource is capable of producing a secure, affordable supply of transport fuel and we are committed to addressing environmental impacts.

Wright:

The country's environmental watchdog is taking aim at a state-owned coalminer's plans to turn lignite into diesel.
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright said the Government should only support Solid Energy's plans for a large-scale synthetic-fuel facility in Mataura, Southland, after *considering if wood
could be used instead*.
"Solid Energy is a state-owned enterprise and when it invests in infrastructure it pays a lower dividend, thus reducing Government revenue,"
Wright said in a report released yesterday.
"The *responsible ministers* should take a strong interest in any *major long-term investment by Solid Energy*, especially one with the potential to  *increase national greenhouse gas emissions.*"