(Sorry Bernie - your comment was languishing in my spam bucket and I only found it this morning. I'd like to add my thoughts later.)
I am happy to debate climate change issues with anyone, including Mataura meatworkers. I respect Jeanette Fitzsimons, however, cannot agree with her views, and views like it, on the global climate change response. On CCS, I suggest you read the Transfield Worley report on our web site. Commissioned by the NZCCS Partnership, it was written by people who know a lot about CCS, and that forms a counterpoint to your source. To the bigger issue, what NZ should do by way of a climate change response, at issue is that taxes from the direct and indirect economic activity arising from Fonterra pays for one in four hospitals, and schools in New Zealand. Much of Fonterra's wealth is earned by using coal and gas to turn milk into milk powder. Fonterra competes against subsidised producers of dairy products, so it uses cheap energy and other inputs. Sure, we could be more aggressive with our climate change response, put a much bigger price on carbon in our domestic economy, and then risk the collapse of our economy, because no one else is doing anything significant. New Zealand, in fact, has the most comprehensive framework for any ETS in the world; on that sense, we are the world leader on the climate change response. Meantime Canada pulls out of the Kyoto Protocol, there is no guarantee Australia will introduce its fixed price carbon scheme, Japan and Korea are dragging the chain, the US is not doing anything worthwhile, etc etc. Yes, we should be prepared to take serious action, but this is only worth doing if everyone takes action. It's the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, granted. How to get around it? James Hansen's global carbon tax is hopelessly naive. For now, CCS has to be a crucial part of the global response. Jeanette, and others, should get behind this technology, instead of criticising it at every turn. Regards, Bernie Napp, Straterra
Saturday, February 18, 2012
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15 comments:
Poor Bernie, his arguments have more holes than a sieve.
We should follow Canada and the US as the pathway to prosperity and embrace existing CCS technology more enthusiastically?
If his views were expressed in an academic journal it would be considered satire.
Not swayed, bsprout?
Bernie, if you're out there (and your spiders are working), can you answer this question you posed?
" Yes, we should be prepared to take serious action, but this is only worth doing if everyone takes action. It's the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, granted. How to get around it?"
Aside from ploughing ahead regardless of the consequences, how do you propose to 'get around' the potential harm Solid Energy's mining proposals present?
Excuse my failing memory but remind me what is CCS?
Re Fonterra use of fossil fuels for production and with it economic gain....
Bernie are you not aware that this is 2012 we do have other answers for use in production such s Fonterra its called renewable and they have proven to be a good replacement to fossil fuels and don't produce greenhouse gasses like fossil fuels do !
Not such a great arguement, Bernie.
If I may paraphrase, "if they aren't going to change, why should we".
Problem is, Bernie, that what is proposed in the Mataura Valley is going to wreck good profitable land in order to extract low grade sub-bituminous coal that is unlikely to create efficient fuel without binders for briquettes. And by so doing, ending forever New Zealand's claim to clean and green.
Add 20% additional carbon output from NZ, and we are per head of capita, amongst the world's worst producers of emissions.
Tourism will be severely effected, and I suspect that Tourism (oddly John Key's responsibility, you would think he would work harder for the image)certainly adds considerably to NZ's income.
We need new solutions to our energy problems, and not the return to the "industrial age" where coal was king, and pollution was the inevitable by-product.
The world has seen the effects of large scale open cast mining, and nowhere does it seem to operate to the fantasy standards claimed by proponents.
The "trust us, we will make Mataura rich" is the same lie that has been told to people in mining areas world wide, but the truth is, few get rich.
The mine's neighbours lose access to aquifers and clean water, clean air, peace and quiet, health, and equity in what they own and worked hard for.
The land depopulates leaving only those who cannot afford to move.
Employment in the mine will be small, as most of the work is automated.
And once the infrastructure is built, little further employment will arise.
And where will the investment money come from?
How do you say "Solid Energy" in Chinese?
And they will take the profits off shore with them.
Sorry Bernie,
cannot agree with you.
Bernie - Dave R has trounced you somewhat (a lot) by my reckoning, though I'll hope you'll rejoin (On Monday perhaps? Not in the officeover the weekend I hope!).
Dave's arguments are heavy with commonsense, whereas yours seem ideological and representative of industry. Still, we all hope for more from you.
Pauline - Carbon Capture & Sequestration - pipe dreams.
Don Elder says the captured CO2 will be pumped into the wells beneath the seabed of the Great South Basin - how does that resonate with your believe-it-or-not radar?
Bernie, where to start?
Our ETS comprehensive? Not when most big polluters are 90% exempt.
CCS the answer? Well:
1. CCS can never capture and store more than a fraction - maybe 50%? of the stationary emissions - ie nothing from transport.
2. the total CO2 captured and stored worldwide up till now is equal to about one year's emissions from the Huntly power station. It has never been used on a commercial scale power station.
3. To capture and store just 20% of the emissions from stationary sources (eg power stations) globally would take 1.7 times the total current infrastructure of the oil industry - pipelines, pumps, wells. They were built over decades at great profit - this much greater infrastructure would have to be built immediately at no profit. And then what about the other 80%? and on top of that, the emissions from non-stationary sources?
Bernie, we need to change the way we live. If we don't, it will be changed for us anyway.
Jeanette
Bernie,
Carbon capture and storage needs to be 'up and running' before any lignite is mined. Reports, no matter how well researched and written, are no substitute for a functioning plant/scheme. Perhaps Straterra might like to get behind the idea of a 10 year moratorium on new coal in NZ. It would give the industry time to set up CCS and then come back to the people of NZ and show us how you could safely use the lignite and not add to climate change. We can't use it yet because NZ's carbon dioxide emissions are continuing to rise every year.
If, as you say,"we are the world leader on the climate change response" then the future is looking extremely grim for our children & grandchildren. So, if CCS is the answer- why isn't it being used now and why aren't global carbon dioxide emissions going down because of it? If it's not ready yet then please leaver the coal in the hole until it is.
I think I picked up a bit of a Southland accent on my weekend in Mataura, adding extra rrr”s
“Leave the coal in the hole until it is"
ps Bernie- It's not James
Hansen's carbon fee and dividend scheme that's "hopelessly naive", that description is better applied to your suggestion that " For now, CCS has to be a crucial part of the global response"
I hope Bernie has has a refreshing weekend 'cause he's got some talking to do when he gets to work on Monday :-)
The point Jeanette makes about the cost of CCS is very significant and one I'll be labouring in Timarau on Tuesday night's public meeting. The only example world-wide of successful' CCS that is analogous of of the proposed briquetting plant at Mataura involves 300km of pipeline transporting what amounts to only a percentage of the CO2 from a processing plant, into an existing, half-exhausted oil well, where the CO2 is employed to push the oil up and out for the purpose of recovery. In other words, the CCS pays for itself through its use by the oil industry. CCS built for the sake of the atmosphere, doesn't and won't ever exist, imho, it's far to expensive to be practicable.
Don says they will, I say they won't.
Viv - your suggestion is a sound one. Solid Energy might be willing to 'suck it and see', but the public shouldn't be. The risk falls on our children and grandchildren and while the Straterra and Solid Energy people doubtless have them also, they don't seem to be figuring in their figuring.
Robert for Bernie to suggest CCS us the answer has obviously has not got his head around how big the proposal is ...that it the lignite field goes from North of Mataura to the sea.... no way will CCS work for this production ...even if most of the lignite goes to China as I suspect it will are we not responsible for sending a product to a another country for it to pollute the atmosphere with ....
Coal was something e used for production in the 18th/19th/20th century ..Bernie now in the 21st century we are a lot more educated ...there are other renewable answers like wood energy proven to work and perfectly suitable for Fonterra etc to use for its production ..and create a lot more long term employment than the lignite mine will ever create in employment ...
Now I haven't mention the horrific long term pollution to the water ways the lignite mining will cause the environment in acid mine drainage AMD with the tons of residue that will be left behind from this open cast mining...Bernie what is your answer to this ?
And NO the residue lignite droppings will never be able to be cleaned up properly that is impossible as there will be too much too scattered around the finished mined area.
1. It is very likely that when all the factors are taken into consideration (rather than just the immediate bottom line of the company in question) it would be worthwhile to use our extensive resources of wood waste to make Urea instead of using lignite. Our wood waste, by the by, would be even more extensive if we were milling and selling our own timber rather than selling off raw logs.
2. Since a big part of the total energy used by fontera is by the farmers who own the company, if they were to all convert their dung, urea and washings into methane, power a diesel generator or a mini turbine with it put the electricity into the grid and capture the waste heat to produce the needed hot water for the milking parlor, Fontera would possibly be a net producer of energy, all of it Green
3. None of this really matters since we are doing our best (labor and Nats) to sell off our farm land to foreigners of all ilks.
It hurts when you talk sense like that, William (Don Elder would say, "It burns! It burns!")
What to do, what to do??
I'll use you ideas on Monday night, at Timaru, if I may.
There's some interesting research being done at Waikato University, into the use of anaerobic digesters to create methane from milking-shed wash-off, and micro-turbines to convert it to electricity. As opposed to aerobic ponds, which manage to create the CO2 more slowly and without the useful energy as a byproduct. I've forgotten the fellow's name, he lives just out of Morrinsville.
As I understand it, the technology is there, the obstacle is the need (or lack thereof) to replace existing infrastructure, and the traditional fear of change.
Not that I'm a fan of dairy farming, but where there is an opportunity to improve...
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