By Simon Gascoigne

One of our greatest challenges in getting things to a better place, is challenging human thinking and human behaviour. We are embedded and conditioned in a system that has evolved through our history with increased technological complexity. Add in things like debt and time pressure and it’s little wonder more ‘convenient’ and ‘efficient’ solutions are embraced.

When it comes to complex abstract and less accessible concepts, such as scientific data or even legislation, things can make for pretty dry reading. Pages of modeled emissions data, listening to intense debates on scientific results and methodology, the finer details of new exotic ‘high tech’ processes or tables of chemical residues listed in micrograms are prime examples.

Similarly, everyday things that we cannot  see, can quickly disappear off our personal horizon once incorporated into everyday activities.    Electricity is a classic example (hence the monthly bill surprise). The waste that we throw in the bin that gets removed is rapidly relegated to cognitive history.

So, imagine the human drama when all these elements are wickedly combined together – greenhouse gas emissions, rubbish, electricity, scientific methodology, dense tables listing chemical residues, legislation and legal processes – not to mention debt and time pressure.

The small Waikato town of Te Awamutu has been embroiled in such a drama. A company is propos to build a plant that will supposedly deal with rubbish by incinerating it at 850 degrees – and to make steam, to spin electrical generators thus potentially powering the town.

It might sound like a viable option – getting rid of waste and creating electricity at the same time. As we have discovered however, ‘convenient’ options are at risk of creating insidious unexpected outcomes on the longer timescale.    For an example with some evolving consequences (literally, in terms of fertility) think no further than microplastics being discovered everywhere in the human body where we finally decided to look – from human blood, to brain tissue, reproductive systems, breast milk and surprise – even inside bone marrow.

For incineration, the laws of thermodynamics very much apply, no matter how good the marketing material. The equation of reducing rubbish volume into ash is perfectly balanced by the release of greenhouse gas emissions (in this case some 150,000 tonnes per year), the ash, heat and the creation of exotic toxic compounds (think families of dioxins and furans). Nor does this come cheap, costing around $250 million to reduce a daily load of 450 tonnes of rubbish into around 23 tonnes of ash (or more), for the next 30 or so years.

A Municipal Incinerator – photo: Denfran from Pixabay

The application for the consent to ‘discharge to air’ (gas emissions from the chimneys and any other air pollutants), mapped Te Awamutu with static gradient lines extending away from the proposed site.  It looked like the simple line isobars on an old weather map but in this case for pollution levels. As bland and uninteresting as a modeled map could be.

Enter ‘PlumePlotter’ – a depiction of modeled exhaust plume behaviour that is updated every hour.

Plumeplotter software visually depicts exhaust gas from point sources like chimneys, using real time meteorological air data to show the behaviour of modeled exhaust plumes from either real or proposed incinerators. It also gives a visual depiction of cumulative time spent by the exhaust plume in a location.  Plume plotter also estimates ‘fallout’ – for gases such as nitrogen dioxide – of concern for respiratory effects and acidic residues, as well as anything else that might get through the plant’s filters over its 30-year lifetime.

Being modeled hourly, more data can be combined into a video and speeded up – see such video based on 2023 weather via a YouTube search for ‘Waipa incinerator plume 2023’, or see it at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfnGZyVxNJg.

Waipa Plumeplotter image (used with permission).

Right now, having listened to various arguments for and against allowing such a plant, the Board of Inquiry (convened as the issue is of national precedence) is deliberating it’s decision. We may find out as soon as mid-August as to where the decision falls.

Either way, the underlying age old root cause issue still remains – how to ‘deal with waste’, and the unforseen future consequences thereof.  Our old human habit of ‘extract, use and throwaway’, has been vastly accelerated with a fossil fuel energy surplus, combined with technological hubris, plastic prowess, powerful interests and blinded consumer choice.

The incineration proponents have argued that the highest technology will get all the ‘nasties’ out. Unconvincingly they only had to consider 10 and 2.5 micron particle sizes (PM 10 and PM 2.5) in the evidence.  Just as we have just begun to find out with ‘nano’ plastic contamination (below PM 2.5) the particle numbers just go exponential.

The longer such spreading of ‘nano’ sized particles go on, the more the waste we thought we got ‘rid’ of starts popping up, everywhere, and in everything, bioaccumulating through foodchains and soils.

We expect a decision from the Board of Inquiry soon.

The post The Te Awamutu Incinerator Proposal appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

I can now add a rider: even if the cruel Mr Burns introduced zero-hours contracts, removed half the typewriters and banned bananas from the workplace, the monkeys would still produce work of better quality than Mokau South Resources’ application to strip-mine the Mokau River catchment for coal.

It beggars belief that, as the world’s hottest year ends and another hot year begins, anyone would even consider opening a new coal mine. It beggars still more belief that an application that fails to meet so many of the requirements of the Resource Management Act would be allowed to get to the point where it will be seriously considered.

But what’s even more incredible is that the Resource Management Act explicitly prevents us challenging fossil fuel projects on the basis of their contribution to climate change – and in case you think we’re having a go at National yet again, that explicit exclusion of climate change from the RMA was a decision by the last Labour Government. Thankfully, there are now moves afoot to remedy this, not least by the RMA’s author.

Even without the use of this key argument, however, there are so many things wrong with Mokau South’s application and their plans that the many people who responded to our call for submissions had plenty of arguments to choose from: such as the complete inadequacy of the applicant’s ecological assessment, their failure to carry the required iwi consultation, and their cavalier attitude to the effects mine effluent can have in a major water catchment.

In its story on Mokau South, Radio New Zealand chose to portray the Sampson brothers, who are behind this application, as dear old duffers who just wanted their lifetime dream of owning their own coal mine to be granted. But that’s not a thing anyone should want on their bucket list. There is nothing cute, funny or touching about people who want to rip apart an area of regenerating native bush and put a major water catchment at risk just so they can have a crack at making climate change even more disastrous.

So thanks to everyone who submitted by the closing date of 2 February. When we know the story with the hearing on this application, we’ll keep you posted. Although the Mokau South resource consent application reads like it was typed by a roomful of monkeys, the threat it poses is serious, and with our friends in groups such as Waikato Climate Action and Climate Justice Taranaki, we’ll be putting in serious work to stop it.

The post Of Monkeys, Mr Burns, Mokau South and the RMA appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

• Already know you want to help? Find out how in our Mokau South submission guide (Word | PDF)

Some people have said they don’t have time to make a long submission – and that’s fair enough, as we know how busy people are! Your submission doesn’t have to be long, but we think its is important to meet the formal requirements laid out in the submission guide. And here’s why.

Climate Change, the RMA, and Grounds for Submissions

The applicant, Mokau South Resources, was unhappy at the idea that their resource consent application might be publicly notified. They asked why this was being done, and Waikato Regional Council’s scanned response is very revealing of both the scale of the project and the applicants’ attitude:

So there we have it: the project is massive, in an environmentally sensitive area, in a river catchment with high annual rainfall, and the applicants want to avoid a fight on climate change grounds!

Unfortunately, on this last point, the Resource Management Act as it is currently worded is with the applicant: it explicitly excludes consideration of the effects of a project on climate change. A movement is underway to put climate change back in the RMA, but in the meantime, a submission that only mentions climate change can be “struck out for disclosing no relevant case”. That’s appalling, but it’s the law.

(However, some arguments related to climate change can still be made – our submission guide explains how to do that.)

So that’s why we encourage submitters to put in a submission that can’t be struck out, because it refers to the many, many other environmental and economic grounds on which the project is a bad idea. Our submission guide (Word | PDF) provides you with plenty of talking points. Pick one or pick just a few, and make your submission as brief as you like: but please do submit. And once you’ve included grounds that ensure your submission can’t be struck out, we encourage you to state clearly which this project is a terrible idea on climate change grounds.

Mordor on the Mokau

Finally, this Radio New Zealand story provides more information about the applicants and their proposal. It makes them sound like a couple of dear old duffers pursuing their lifelong dream. It’s just a pity that their lifelong dream involves ruining an important natural environment and trashing the world’s climate.

The post Don’t Take Our Word For How Bad Mokau South Is – Take Waikato Regional Council’s Word. And Submit By Next Tuesday. appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

As NASA has confirmed, 2015 was the hottest year on record. So the idea of starting any new coal mine represents a dangerous disconnection with reality. But sometimes, we come across a proposal that has that whole extra level of insanity.

Many years ago, before the Resource Management Act came into force, Mokau South Resources was granted a mining licence for an area of regenerating native bush on the Panirau Plateau near the Panirau Stream, a tributary of the Mokau River on the North Taranaki Coast. Their current permit expires in 2016.

So now, despite the state of the coal market and the imperative need not to increase greenhouse gas emissions, Mokau South Resources has applied to Waikato Regional Council for resource consent to strip mine a large area near the Panirau Stream. That’s a terrible idea on climate change grounds. It’s also a terrible idea for the natural environment in North Taranaki and the Waikato.

Coal companies around the world are crashing. China’s coal use has declined and the Chinese Government has banned new coal mines. And the Paris Agreement has signalled the end of the fossil fuel era. But here in New Zealand, while the Government tips them a nod and a wink, the coal industry keeps trying to dig up more of the stuff. They must be stopped.

How To Submit

Submissions on this project close on Tuesday 2 February – so you don’t have long. Working with Waikato Climate Action, we’ve prepared a submission guide (Word | PDF) with many different reasons for objecting to this proposal, and we’d like as many people as possible to submit. You’ll find all the details of how to submit in the guide. You can also read the official Waikato Regional Council information on this application.

Let’s send Waikato Regional Council and the coal industry an unambiguous message: no more new coal mines, no more increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and no more destruction of our natural habitat for the sake of private profit.

• Get started on your Mokau South submission now with our downloadable submission guide (Word | PDF)

The post The Coal Industry Wants To Strip Mine The Mokau. Help Us Stop Them. appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.