I wish I could tell them that yes, it came close, but we did save the Denniston Plateau. I wish I could say to my grandkids that, looking back, by 2013 the tide was turning. Maybe it was the movement to divest from fossil fuels that clinched it, as Bill McKibben’s 350 campaign began to grow that year from a little ripple to a wave, linking with the climate movements sprouting like so many connected gas wells across the landscape, across the world, rolling together into a tsunami that even reached New Zealand’s West Coast – at about the same time as the beautiful Denniston Plateau was abandoned to its fate by the highest court in our land.

Maybe the tanking of the coal price helped clinch it, as Solid Energy’s 2013 financial report revealed the full extent of the brutal Hand of the Market on the lives of workers. And maybe, the unfortunate consequence of egotistical power fuelled by an ideologically blinded government, some people just got too greedy.

Or maybe we finally got mad enough.

There was a feeling, I’d tell my grandkids if I could, that we were on the edge of a turning, a wind change, of one of those moments where history is made. It was the end of coal, coming to pass in the nick of time to save the planet.

In my favourite dream I’d say to them, yes, I was there yelling my heart out at the 2013 Wellington Petroleum Summit, calling for climate justice, for them to leave some world for you. Back then, those men in their ill-fitting suits thought they had it all. They, in their striped shirts, spotted ties and corporate cabs. They, with their faces set to studious indifference towards the brightly painted truth, dancing before their eyes on placards and banners across the fence.

We were starting to get mad enough to act, I’d tell my grandkids. They were selling off our power companies from under us. They spied on us, arrested us, tried to silence us. They turned our own lawmakers and lawkeepers into enemies of the future. They auctioned off our oceans as if they were lifeless commodities. They drilled, mined and fracked even as record floods and droughts hit their precious GDP square in the guts.

Then they got ready to dig up the Denniston Plateau, with its precious sandstone pavements, giant snails and tiny trees, for coal – yes, even in 2013 – coal, the most polluting fossil fuel of them all. In those days workers still clung to the hollow promises of out-of-town benefactors and dispatchers of their fortunes. They needed jobs and couldn’t see beyond coal; that only beyond coal would they control their own destinies.

We hadn’t yet begun driving the corporate fat cats and their backers off our precious lands and oceans.

This is what I wish I could tell them next: that’s when we got mad enough, I’d say. We rose up. We “got free” as the Greenpeace campaign urged us back then. “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” said Dr Ranginui Walker. We got organised and we resisted.

We went to Denniston. We went out onto the oceans. On the farms we locked our gates. In the cities we occupied their stuffy offices. We camped outside parliament and made a ruckus. We made them listen. We want future, we said, and we’ve had enough of you being in charge. There’s no more time to waste.

We should have moved much sooner. We wasted so much time, and that is unforgivable. But – in my favourite dream I’ll say to my grandkids: we saved Denniston for you.

The post What’ll I tell the grandkids, thirty years from now? appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa applauds Fonterra for no longer accepting milk from farms that have converted marginal land into dairy pasture using oil and gas drilling waste (known as “land farming”). Fonterra say the perception of a safe clean dairy industry was a factor in this decision.

It’s not a good look for Fonterra to collect milk from farms contaminated with toxic waste from the fossil fuel industry and they are right to stop that practice.

But if Fonterra are worried about perception, they should stop using coal in their milk drying plants. Fonterra milk comes at a terrible cost to the environment and the climate, tainted as it is with coal.

“Did you know your cheese comes with coal?” ACA members handing out Fonterra products in Auckland in March 2013.

Mining and burning coal is the highest emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet. If we don’t phase out all coal before 2030, says retired NASA scientist-turned climate activist Professor James Hansen, and begin significantly reducing all fossil fuel emissions, it’s game over for the climate. That’s game over for our children’s future.

Fonterra have options. They could use less polluting wood waste in their boilers, but instead choose coal.

ACA sign near proposed new Mangatawhiri coal mine, Easter 2013

Pure milk and green pastures aren’t normally associated with dirty coal, or are they? Surprisingly, Fonterra are the third biggest users of coal in the country after the Glenbrook steel mill and the Huntly power station.

Their Southland Edendale factory, currently the biggest milk drying plant in the world, dries 25% of Fonterra’s powdered milk, processing enough powder to fill 35 shipping containers every day. This powder gets marketed worldwide as a pure, natural product, yet Edendale uses low grade lignite coal to power its boilers. 60-70% of nearby New Vale mine’s lignite goes to Edendale. Lignite is the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

Fonterra’s newly built Darfield milk powder plant in Canterbury could have chosen a cleaner burning fuel but chose to burn coal – because it’s cheaper. They don’t have to pay the real cost because our emissions trading scheme allows them to dump carbon into the atmosphere for free. When fully up and running Darfield’s CO2 emissions (the real cost), in just 22 hours, will cancel out all the emissions savings achieved by EECA’s (the government’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority) 31 school coal-to-wood pilot scheme conversions in 2007-2010.

The new “Milk in Schools” programme is great, Fonterra, not only for the kids, but also for your image. But what’s the use of strong bones and teeth when our children’s future existence is being threatened by the greenhouse gas emissions from your use of coal? What’s more important to you? Higher profit margins, or our children’s future survival?

Auckland Coal Action (ACA) have been protesting against Fonterra’s plans to open a new coal mine at Maungatawhiri in the Waikato.

In the midst of the drought, Easter 2013, ACA banner near Mangatawhiri

On their website Fonterra say “Climate change is a genuine issue and greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced.”

Come on Fonterra, actions speak louder than words. You did the right thing with your decision not to collect milk from land farming. For the sake of our planet, and a safe clean dairy industry, you need to quit coal.

The post Do the right thing, Fonterra: Quit Coal appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Solid Energy’s financial woes will be alleviated somewhat with the news of a new development at its troubled Craig Road briquetting plant. The $29 million plant ran into unforeseen difficulties since its completion in June last year, and commissioning of the plant, which was intended to turn lignite into briquettes for local and export markets, has not been completed.

Solid Energy and their partner GTL Energy Ltd, which developed the briquetting technology, have formed another company, Liquid Energy Ltd. This new wholly owned NZ subsidiary will lease and run the plant for a one year period beginning 1 April, 2013, producing and distilling their “Mataura Malt” brand of Hokonui moonshine whiskey.

“Everything is still shiny and new” said Liquid Energy’s new CEO John Smith. “The plant is clean and ready to produce its first whiskey consignment. We have a promising market for the whiskey, unlike the market for briquettes, which has run into difficulties.”

“It has been a steep learning curve but we have been fortunate to draw on the expertise of the local Hokonui moonshine whiskey distillers’ fine tradition.” Smith said.

In a modern version of the traditional Scottish method, which uses water from peat bogs, Liquid Energy will use water from lignite beds. “Lignite is very close to peat in quality. We are so fortunate to already own vast resources of this fine natural water filter relatively undisturbed in the Mataura Valley.”

“Our venture will truly be a sustainable boost to the local economy” Smith said.
Solid Energy group manager of strategy and corporate affairs describes the turn of events as an exciting development

Money raised from whiskey sales will go towards covering the costs of ex CEO Don Elder’s gardening leave.
-Ends

The post Solid Goes Liquid appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

I was making mid-morning toast and coffee while listening to Kathryn Ryan’s National radio interview with Mark Ford, new Chair of Solid Energy. When he mumbled that yes, Southland lignite was one of the non-core assets Solid Energy would exit, I almost dropped the black currant jam.

Mr Ford’s quiet tone made me wonder if I’d heard correctly. It must not be easy to admit that you’re going to have to cut your losses after your company made a monumental business balls-up, buying up a whole valley, dispersing the community of farmers who lived and worked there for generations, wasting $29 million of taxpayer money on the likes of a briquette plant that uses dirty lignite.

But, he did say it, and it is great news for our campaign. It’s all about CO2, and Solid’s plans would have contributed to the approximately 8.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from the 6 billion tonnes of economically recoverable lignite in Southland. CANA intends to stop this insanity and give the future a fighting chance.

Lignite and briquettes

In the same radio interview Geoff Bertram from Victoria University said the cyclical downturn in coal was easy to spot a year ago. Solid Energy’s lignite champion and now ex CEO Don Elder didn’t spot it, nor did his cheerleaders in Government. During that year, they egged him on while the briquette plant on Craig Road, Mataura turned from this…

into this

…still no briquettes, more than half a year behind schedule, and now dropped, like a ton of hot coals.

This plant wasn’t just Solid Energy’s baby; it’s also the flagship project of Australian company GTL Energy, whose new, unproven technology the plant showcases. GTL’s 2012 annual report is full of high hopes for their world-first commercial coal ‘beneficiation’ plant.

“When achieved, completion of the Solid Energy New Zealand plant will be a significant milestone.” (GTLE annual report to June 2012)

GTL’s dream is to ‘improve’ the quality of the world’s junk lignite/brown coal, from Southland, NZ to USA, Australia, and Indonesia – for starters – giving owners of junk coal a means by which to palatably market this stuff as

DRYER, LIGHTER, CLEANER, MORE CONVENIENT BRIQUETTES!!

and hey, there’s money to be made, right?

Wrong. Firstly, coal, in whatever form, is an unacceptable fuel for a CO2-choked twenty first century. Second, coal is not the place to put your money these days. Even the most optimistic investors know the volatility of coal prices and must realise they are very soon going to have to pay the true cost of its environmental damage.

The coal industry has a problem; it’s their product. Coal is the planet’s tobacco; a deadly addiction, and the more record heat waves, droughts and floods planet Earth throws our way the more people understand the connection and are calling for its phaseout.

However, it was not a surprise to hear that three months ago GTL formed a ‘wholly owned NZ subsidiary company, GTLE Development Ltd’, and have taken over the Craig Rd briquette plant for the next three and a half years. They have far too much to lose, financially and credibly, to let this baby go.

But that does not solve the briquette plant’s main problem: who’s going to buy them? Briquettes, anyone? If coal is your thing, you can get the same quality heat from the plain old sub bituminous stuff down the road at Nightcaps. Even Fonterra, the coal salesman’s dream buyer, prefer the Nightcaps coal to stoke their boilers.

Clean coal? Yeah right

The third reason why GTL are on to a loser is simple mathematics. Energy analyst Steve Goldthorpe has calculated that the process of digging up the lignite, transporting, squeezing out the water and making the briquettes emits 10 % more CO2 than if they had simply burned the lignite in the first place.

As long as the Mataura briquetting plant exists we will oppose it – and the expansion of this technology.  Energy expert Steve Goldthorpe explains why here:

CANA and Workers

On a tour of Stockton in last May we were told that the high turnover of workers has led to a younger and more inexperienced workforce than desirable in such a dangerous industry. “We are the training ground for Aussie” said one worker we spoke to.  Worker dissatisfaction is nicely portrayed in this lovely poster in the onsite smoko room:

Who can blame them? Rumours were rife of a management push to change shift hours that would mean lower take home pay for them, while Don Elder’s CEO salary sat at $1.4 million. And sure enough, the moment coal prices dipped, Stockton workers were faced with the threat of job losses or a change in shift. A year later, they are again being squeezed. In his National radio interview Mark Ford said that while he couldn’t comment on job losses at Stockton “there needs to be different work patterns there to extract that optimal coal production”.

CANA has never advocated the closure of working coal mines. That’s why we supported Spring Creek miners when job losses were announced. We want a just transition out of the industry by 2027, by which time we have calculated that current mining permits will have expired and current mines worked out.

We do not presume to know how coal mining towns should achieve this transition. But it has to happen. While we stand in solidarity with workers against profit-hungry companies, we ask: would you work for the tobacco industry? Coal was once an important industry, and mining towns have a rich history that must be preserved, but we now know its destructive effect on the future. It is morally wrong to keep mining coal, knowing what we do. Coal is worse than tobacco. It’s time for an exit strategy, starting now.

The industry line is that we still need coal for steelmaking, so West Coast coking coal will always be required. They are wrong. New technologies mean steel can be made without coal and CANA will soon be releasing our latest report into the benefits and pitfalls of this. Steel recycling, which produces a fraction of the carbon footprint of new steel production, can be considerably stepped up. Many of steel’s current uses are wasteful and can be replaced with lower carbon alternatives.

Stockton is NZ’s second biggest user of diesel. A steady withdrawal from Stockton will save us 55-60,000 litres/day of imported diesel. The money saved, and some of the fuel, should be contributing to new sustainable industries for the Coast.

Miners pride themselves on their hard working culture, bravery and stoicism. While coal must be relegated to history, those cultural traits are what’s required in the years to come as we move out of a fossil fuel charged economy and towards stabilising an out of control climate. What’s the use of profits with no planet left to spend them on?

CANA and Solid Energy

Solid Energy’s situation from a CANA perspective is clear. They are in the climate destruction business. There is no future for coal. Solid Energy must work towards phasing it out. Any other option is unacceptable.

Now is our window of opportunity. We can thank Don Elder for his contribution to our campaign with his over-exuberant ambitions on the lignite front. They got in the way of common sense, and the fortunate outcome is Solid’s new boss deciding to leave the Mataura valley coal in the hole.

A 2027 phaseout gives companies and the government time to exit the industry in a socially responsible way. True, socially responsible is something the industry likes to keep for their glossy websites, but maybe even coal company bosses can learn new tricks.

Then again, maybe not. Solid Energy’s recent announcement that they are seeking permission to investigate open cast mining at Pike River looks as though, even without Don, rote behavioural over-ambitious thinking threatens to lead them down the same debt- ridden track all over again.

No Bailout

To Solid Energy: your future is clear. Our call to you is to transition out of coal in a fair and sustainable way, starting right now.

To the Government: don’t bail-out Solid Energy to the tune of $389m (and growing) of our money. Don’t sell it to overseas interests. The bailout money should be used instead for the transition to new industry and new jobs away from coal, towards the future. Because coal has no future.

Lignite is dead – and coal is not far behind.

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