First, Wellington’s Dominion Post newspaper said in an editorial that it was time for New Zealand to slash its coal use. Then, the same day, Genesis Energy announced that it would close the coal-fired power generators at the Huntly power plant by 2018.

No more coal at Huntly … who’ll be next to abandon coal?

But the writing was appearing on the wall even before these announcements. Not only had the thermal coal price dropped precipitately in response to the rise of renewable energy and environmental concerns in coal’s major markets, but there is a growing political consensus that thermal coal mining in New Zealand must stop.

This consensus does not yet include the National Government. While Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges welcomed Genesis Energy’s Huntly decision, and noted that it created further opportunity for renewable energy, he conveniently ignored the Government’s continuing subsiding of fossil fuel mining and use and lack of support for renewables.

The Green Party has long opposed coal mining, and now Labour and New Zealand First are, at least partially, moving in the same direction. In response to the Government’s statement that state-owned coal mining company Solid Energy might be facing liquidation, Labour Party leader Andrew Little – himself a former head of the coal miners’ union, the EPMU – drew a distinction between using coal for heating and power generation, which he agreed was on the way out (audio at 1:41), and using coking coal for making steel, which he said was “part of a green economy.”

New Zealand First’s Richard Prosser was similarly bullish on Solid Energy’s future, but both in his reported comments and in separate discussions with Coal Action Network Aotearoa, NZ First has drawn a distinction between coking coal and thermal coal. New Zealand First’s 2014 election policy calls for a progressive phaseout of coal:

The most effective way to reduce the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (primarily carbon dioxide and methane) is to progressively phase out the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, and instead use renewable energy eg wind-power, photo-voltaic electricity from sunshine, wood fuels, etc. (Climate Change section of NZ First Environment and Conservation policy)

When we met with New Zealand First, they advocated a similar position to the Labour Party: that is, they expressed continued support for coking coal, but agreed that it was time to move away from the mining and burning of thermal coal.

But while businesses and political parties are moving to end the use of thermal coal, there is one large New Zealand company which is bucking the trend – and that, of course, is Fonterra which, as we reported last month, has increased its coal use 38% since 2008 and plans a further major expansion of coal-fired milk drying plants. Fonterra’s low-value-add, high-energy-input business plan is coming unstuck as global milk prices fall. It’s time for Fonterra to take another path.

Though the political consensus is growing against thermal coal, Labour and New Zealand First are both continuing to back the mining of coking coal – that is, coal used for steel production – even though the coking coal price has also slumped, and burning coking coal is no better for the climate than burning thermal coal. You can read Cindy Baxter’s take on the shaky state of coking coal in her recent analysis of the state of play in the coal industry.

The message to companies such as Fonterra is clear: by backing the increased use of thermal coal, you are on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of science, and the wrong side of a growing political consensus.

The post Political Consensus Grows Around The End Of Thermal Coal appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Energy and Resources Simon Bridges with the Indian steel delegation in his office in January

Statements made in Indian media by Indian Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma after he met with Energy Minister Simon Bridges on 30 January indicate a clear expectation of some kind of deal between the two Governments on coal, said the Coal Action Network Aotearoa today.

“We are looking forward to the Government of New Zealand for allocating mineral assets to Indian public sector companies on a Government to Government basis,” said the Minister in an official press statement after the meeting with Bridges.

Today in the House Steven Joyce, on behalf of Simon Bridges, denied that any promises had been given, but refused to rule out sales of coal mines to the Indians.

The “asset” likely to be of most interest to the Indian steel industry would be Solid Energy’s Cypress mine at Happy Valley on the West Coast, where the company has now begun work to remove the “overburden” of the West Coast habitat that has lain idle for several years.

Solid Energy also owns permits for seven other, as yet undeveloped coal mines, four of which contain the coking coal for steel the Indian Government delegation was after.

“The last thing NZ needs, in this era of impending climate change, is a powerful overseas company with an insatiable appetite for coal, entering our country. It would clearly not stop at just one mine,” said Coal Action Network spokesperson Jeanette Fitzsimons.

“Coal Action Network is opposed to any new mines opening in New Zealand, and wants to see a gradual phase out of coal mining as the mines deplete and the miners retire”.

“New Zealand has a wealth of opportunities to invest in clean energy that will not change the climate or damage workers’ health. That should be our priority,” she said.

More than 80% of India’s coal is produced by state-owned Coal India (or its subsidiaries), which has a reputation for breaking environmental regulations – the reason the company’s growthdropped to two percent in 2010.   342 mine deaths were recorded in the four years to 2012 in mines operated by Indian Government-owned coal companies.

The Pike River mine was partly owned by Indian coal companies, who had four representatives on its board. 

“Given the Indian coal industry’s terrible environmental and safety record – would you trust them to operate safely in New Zealand’s environment?” asked Ms Fitzsimons.

The post What agreement did the Government make with Indian coal interests? appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

The beauty of the Denniston Plateau that Bathurst may remove for nothing. Photo: Forest & Bird

Coal Action Network Aotearoa today called on the Minister of Conservation, Nick Smith, to not issue Bathurst Resources the DOC consent it needs to enter and operate its planned mine on the Denniston Plateau, in light of the company’s terrible financial state.

Bathurst has announced today that it is making 29 workers redundant and that it’s not going to mine coal at Denniston until international prices have recovered. However, it intends to go ahead and set up everything else on the plateau in readiness for mining.

This could include the removal of the “overburden” – the beautiful, biodiverse-rich landscape.

“Bathurst is in a terrible financial state.  Like Solid Energy, it’s facing a ‘perfect storm’ of tanking coal prices and a strong NZ dollar – quite a different situation from 2008 when the company started sniffing around the West Coast for coking coal,” said Cindy Baxter of CANA.

“There is no way this company should go ahead with wrecking the plateau, only to sit and wait until the coal price improves, something international commodities commentators are not forecasting to happen any time soon, due to an oversupply in the market.”

“We could find ourselves in a situation where the company goes under, having destroyed the beautiful Denniston Plateau – for absolutely nothing.  The Minister of Conservation needs to step in and refuse to let the company do this,” she said.

“There is no way Bathurst will be able to front up any time soon with the $22 million promised to DOC in the deal Mr Smith made with the company.”

The latest statement from BRL shows the company is having to restructure to keep afloat, and is to shed 29 jobs, instead of providing the 225 jobs it keeps promising – the 225 jobs that would only be there if it ramped up production to one million tonnes a year.

The price of coking coal has tanked, miles below the $165 the company needs to even break even, let alone make any profit. This break-even price was confirmed in a “caucusing agreement” between Bathurst and Forest & Bird at the Environment Court in November 2012, when they agreed that “a minimum expected price for the project to proceed is perhaps US$190.”

See also CANA’s recent blog on Bathurst’s perfect storm.

The post Minister of Conservation should halt Denniston Plateau mining appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

The last month or so has seen a number of revelations on several of our coal fronts.  From Solid Energy walking away from the briquetting plant in Southland to ongoing developments for Bathurst Resources’ efforts to start mining the beautiful Denniston plateau, it’s been hard to keep up with it all.  Yet still, none of them are digging up any more coal. Let’s try and keep it that way.

What’s in this update?

1.     Lignite briquetting plant

2.     Denniston update

3.     Bathurst, new neighbour in a small town

4.     Bill McKibben tour and divestment

5.     Auckland Coal Action’s fight against Fonterra’s coalmine

6.     Coming up:  Generation Zero’s “What’s the Holdup” Tour

7.     Film about “Bidder 70” coming to NZ

8.      International – and climate science catchup

9.     Other news and resources

1.  Lignite briquetting plant

The trials of the Solid Energy/GTL briquetting plant continue at Mataura, with Solid Energy announcing late last month that it will walk away from the plant.  The media covered little of this announcement, but you can find out a lot more about what’s been going on there from our press release on the day.

Given our network includes locals living near to the plant, we have been able to get a lot more information about what’s been going on there – a lot more than what the media’s been covering.  And none of it’s good.

We also managed to get, through the Official Information Act, a document showing us what we suspected: the GTL plant in North Dakota had a massive explosion and is now being dismantled.  So this technology remains experimental.  Why should beautiful Southland farmland be dug up so that GTL can continue to try out its dirty technology to sell it on to Indonesia?

Solid Energy sponsorship under scrutiny:  You may also have missed this article about the millions Solid Energy spent on sponsorship.  We call it buying out criticism and it’s something that most coal and oil companies do to stop local protest about their activities.

2.  Denniston update

The ins and outs of Forest & Bird’s legal wrangles with Bathurst have been very complicated. But now Debs Martin has set it all out in an update.  Tim wrote a blog about it, but you might want to go directly to Debs’ update.  Suffice to say, the process continues – there are still Forest & Bird appeals in the pipeline and the company continues to struggle financially.

3.  Bathurst, new neighbour in a small town

Meanwhile, down in Southland, Rosemary Penwarden went to see Bathurst’s mine at Nightcaps. This is her account of what she found.

“Open cast mining explicitly turns the soil, it’s a bit like farming, the difference is once mining’s finished you put it back.” – Hamish Bohannan, CEO of Bathurst Resources

Bathurst Resources CEO Hamish Bohannan has never actually worked in the mining industry. He’s been around minerals extraction in Australia.  But Bathurst, his so-called “New Zealand” company that wants to destroy the Denniston Plateau, is actually his first ever coal company. Trust us, he says to Coasters. We know what we’re doing. For example, see how well we are going in Southland.

Last week CANA members went to Nightcaps to see Bathurst’s Southland operation for ourselves. The first thing we noticed, apart from the acrid coal smell that sits in the back of your throat, was that the little historic art deco butcher’s shop on Nightcaps’ main road has disappeared, so mine trucks can turn more easily. At a glance, a few more houses have had a coat of paint this past year. The art deco hotel has been repainted, and is still for sale. The Four Square store is doing a roaring trade, as apparently is the local contractor, Transport Services Ltd, though trucks were all lined up and shiny with nowhere to go at this time of year. Bathurst gives the local school free coal.

Down at the mine, things are not going quite to plan. Last year the hillside above the main pit fell in, sending about four million tonnes of overburden onto the coal. Bathurst paid the farmer about $14 million (one neighbour thought it was $40 million plus payouts) for the $1.1 million property.

The land is on a fault line, so is prone to slipping. That also makes the seams variable in size and the coal variable in quality. As local miners know, the best coal is already long gone. One miner said he prefers lignite to Takitimu coal. (When Mataura briquettes were mentioned, we only got chuckles.)

That has not stopped Bathurst opening a new pit, Coaldale, along the western side of the town, doubling the size of their operation. This is also prone to slipping. When we were there the same sticky mud that foiled 19th century miners was still foiling Bathurst and their contractors, Stevensons. Operations stopped completely the previous week because of snow, and wet weather was slowing work while we were there. “Smoko” appeared to last the whole hour and a half of our visit. What looked like a small waterfall was described as “just runoff” into the pit.

A new and very expensive coal sorter is supposedly arriving soon from Germany to replace the current dangerous (but still in action) old one. Where does Bathurst get the money to pay for this? It didn’t look like they were making much while we were there.

The next phase of Bathurst’s expansion plans would be “hilltop removal” of currently forested land even further to the west, near the town’s beautifully preserved and meticulously kept cemetery. A walk around this cemetery is a peek into a history, common to all mining towns, of tragedies, young men’s lives lost to coal.

4.  Bill McKibben tour: Divestment discussions begin – and campaign takes off internationally

In the wake of Bill McKibben’s tour of the country last month, many people are beginning to discuss divestment campaigns. It’s what Bill was encouraging, and we at CANA are also getting to grips with it.  Standby for updates to come soon.

Meanwhile, Jenny Campbell of Coal Action Murihiku and member of the Dunedin Climate Justice Group, has this news:

Divestment begins in Anglican Church. Good news!

People from Auckland’s St Paul’s Cathedral Climate Change Action group have organised a motion to be presented at their Diocesan Synod (decision making body) in September about encouraging those involved in investing funds on behalf of the church, to be required to divest from companies involved in extraction and/ or production of fossil fuels within 2 years, and not to invest in any new fossil fuel initiatives as part of their commitment through their present ethical investments policies. Their accompanying notes help explain the imperative for this action.

They have plans to spin it around all the other New Zealand Dioceses to get them to action this policy as well. They intend to get the Bishops involved and think there will be a keen interest in doing this because of Anglican’s commitment to ‘Care of Creation’ as one of the guiding principles of the Anglicans internationally. We have a special responsibility here in Aotearoa/ NZ because  ours is a 3 tikanga church involving not only Maori and Pakeha but also Pasifika peoples who are already seeing the effects of climate change on their people, other living things, their way of life and their economy.

It is hoped to appeal to other peoples of faith in our country to join us with this decision and ensure divestments in the places we have influence.

Rangimarie, kia kaha

Jenny.

But there are also very good signs coming out of the US, where President Obama made his first big climate change speech.  Along with talking about needing to stop emissions from coal, both at home and with international US investment banks,  Obama specifically called on people to “divest” from fossil fuels to bring about social change.

The campaign is beginning to take hold.  The massive United Church of Christ has adopted a resolution to divest from fossil fuels.  Dutch bank Rabobank has announced it will not invest in shale gas (will this policy be repeated by Rabobank in NZ?), and a huge Financial group in Norway, Storebrand, has pulled its investments out of 19 companies associated with Canada’s filthy tarsands.

5.  Auckland Coal Action support fight against Mangatawhiri coal mine

The main focus of ACA’s work this year is opposing the new coal mine planned for Mangatawhiri near Auckland. The mine will be owned by Fonterra and is intended to supply its factories for drying milk powder.

Last month we stood along state highway 2, near the proposed mine site in protest as a long line of cars filed back to Auckland after the holiday weekend.

Locals weren’t keen to get out with us in front of their friends and neighbours, but were happy for us to be there. And, make no mistake, they are strong in their opposition to the mine. Last month they held the inaugural meeting of the Coal Free Mangatawhiri group with around 20 founding members.

This week we are busy painting anti-coal signs to go up on Mangatawhiri properties, as requested by some of the locals. For next month we will be organising to get as big a contingent as possible to attend the consent hearings for the mine.

To get in touch with us, or, if you would like to help, please email aucklandcoalaction@gmail.com

Our next meeting will be on Saturday 4 August, 1-4 pm at the Quaker House 113 Mt Eden Rd, Auckland. New members welcome.

6. Coming up:  Generation Zero’s “What’s the Holdup” Tour

Coming to a town near you, from next week,  is Generation Zero’s “What’s the holdup tour”.  It’ll be a great opportunity to talk transport solutions, obstacles to climate action and showcase Aotearoa’s opportunities to move beyond fossil fuels.   They’ll have high level experts – and young Kiwis who are working on solutions.

This very positive-sounding tour will be at 13 different towns up and down the country, with the first in Dunedin on Monday 15^th.

Find out more here. Or their facebook page.

7.    Bidder 70 film coming to NZ

Tim de Christopher, a young US climate activist, was recently released from two years in federal prison for bidding at a US oil and gas auction as an act of civil disobedience. Bidder 70, a documentary just released in the United States, tells the story.

Of the film, Tim says: “At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like.”  He says that his actions of civil disobedience are appropriate to the scale of the crisis we face.

Of the environmental movement, Tim says:

“The way the environmental movement has been, it’s like a football game. And our team is getting slaughtered. The refs have been paid off and the other side is playing with dirty tricks. And so, it’s no longer acceptable for us to stay in the stands. It’s time to rush the field. It’s time to stop the game.”

Climate groups around Aotearoa, including CANA and with the support of Greenpeace NZ, have banded together to bring Bidder 70 to New Zealand, beginning with a first screening in Wellington later this month. We hope to have a local Coal Action presence at each screening, and we want as many people as possible to see this film.

Watch the trailer  And Watch Tim on the David Letterman show 

Share these! Keen to help? Email Rosemary rose.p@ihug.co.nz for details.

8.  International – and climate science catchup

Arctic melt picks up

This year’s Arctic melt is starting to take a nosedive.  While it isn’t yet at the same low levels at this time last year, it’s worth keeping an eye on.  This page gives you daily updates.  Also worth noting that the Arctic tundra is suffering unprecedented fires from a heatwave up there.

Climate consensus

In case you missed it, this new study was released, showing that more than 97% of scientists agree that global warming’s man made, caused by the burning of fossil fuels.   On the back of the study they launched the Consensus Project – do check it out, as it has great graphics you can use in your own work and send to friends.

400ppm milestone reached

Since our last newsletter, the atmosphere reached a scary milestone – of 400ppm of C02 in the atmosphere.  This is not something we were aiming for, unfortunately, indeed even 350ppm is considered not very safe, especially for our Pacific Island neighbours.  This is the highest it’s been since humans walked the planet. Since the Pleistocene, 3-5million years ago.  Of course the NZ media pretty much ignored it.  Scientist Jim Salinger wrote a great piece in the NZ Herald, who then went and “balanced” it with a piece by climate denier Chris de Freitas two days later that was riddled with basic scientific errors. The sooner our media stops treating climate denial as having equal standing with our climate scientists, the better.

NZ and global warming

The wild weather we’ve been having is not going to be an unusual event in the future, warns Victoria University’s Dave Frame.  Indeed, this is the same message delivered by James Renwick after the Wellington storm. While that storm couldn’t be put down to climate change, Dr Renwick noted to Radio New Zealand that actually every storm we get now “has a little bit of climate change in the background” as our warming world loads extra moisture into the atmosphere.

Australia lignite fight:  There’s another fight going on around lignite vs farmland – in Australia’s state of Victoria, where the Government wants to dig up all the lignite (brown coal) under some of the state’s most fertile farmland. This great feature covers it all.

Also, on Australia, Kristin Gillies and Jenny Campbell were lucky enough to spend three days with a bunch of coal activists from across the country.  Read their account of the meeting.

9. news and resources 

RMA “reforms”

We’re all very worried about the impact of the proposed RMA reforms.  The Greens have got an open letter to Amy Adams calling on her to save the RMA.  If you want to support the campaign and sign this, go here.

Coal for Steel

You may have missed Jeanette Fitzsimon’s great editorial in the Nelson Mail about the alternatives to coal for making steel.

Coromandel Watchdog closes down drillrig for 30 hours

While this isn’t about coal, it’s about inspiration – congratulations to our brave colleagues in the Coromandel who shut down a Newmont Gold drilling rig on conservation land for 30 hours last weekend.  See the story on TVNZ. And the full story and photos from the team over at their website.

The post Newsletter July 2013 appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Coal is the most concentrated source of carbon dioxide and the biggest threat to the climate through accelerated global warming. Leading climate scientist James Hansen of NASA and Columbia University says that if we are to stabilise climate at a safe level the world needs to phase out coal burning to zero by 2030.

This is supported by analysis by Carbontracker and others that 80% of the known reserves of coal must be left in the ground forever if we are to limit warming to two degrees.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) is committed to opposing all new coal mines in order to meet that target. However, 60% of Solid Energy’s coal production in NZ is for steel making, mainly for export, and the company says that “there is no way of making new steel without coal”.

If this is true, principled climate campaigners must either stop opposing new coking coal mines on climate change grounds, (Happy Valley, Denniston Escarpment, Mt William, Pike River) or propose a world with no new steel. (There are of course strong biodiversity reasons for opposing some of these mines but it is a different argument.)

Fortunately Solid Energy’s claim is not true.

Why is coal used to make iron and steel?

Firstly coal is converted to lump coke in a coking oven. A particular rank of coal, known as “coking coal”, is required to make the preferred quality of coke.

Then raw iron is made by reducing (removing the oxygen from) iron ore (iron oxide) by reacting it at high temperature with coke in a blast furnace. About half of the carbon in the coke combines with the oxygen from the iron ore to make CO2. The rest of the coke is burned in a blast of air in the blast furnace to provide the required high temperature; making more CO2. The resulting pig iron typically contains 2.5-4.5% carbon, making it relatively brittle and unsuitable for most uses.

Steel is made in a subsequent process as an alloy of iron and carbon (along with some other elements). Around 1% of the carbon from the coke remains in the raw iron to provide the source of that carbon. So coal (as coke) is a reducing agent, a source of energy to drive the process and a source of carbon to incorporate in the steel. Alternative processes need to meet all three functions. This is why you have to do more than just substitute a different energy source.

In New Zealand, the coking coal occurs on the west coast of the south island. The bitumen in the coal binds it into lumps in a coke oven. Coking coal is higher in carbon content than cheaper coals and lignite which are used in power stations and industrial boilers.

New Zealand’s Glenbrook Steel plant uses a different process. It is a unique design, developed to use NZ iron sands and sub-bituminous coal from Huntly.

What quantities are we talking about, globally and in NZ?

World steel production in 2011 was 1518 Mt and used 761 Mt of coal – 12% of all hard coal mined.

The Glenbrook plant (now owned by Bluescope) makes 600-650,000 tpy steel and uses 750,000 tpy Huntly coal plus 1,000 GWh electricity and some Natural Gas, supplying 90% of NZ’s needs. It also recycles steel.

Can we make steel with less coal?

For a start, we could recycle much more than we do.

Steel can theoretically be recycled indefinitely, with the remelting and alloying process ensuring its quality. That requires energy, but much less than to make new steel, and it needs no new source of carbon so is generally produced in electric arc furnaces. The current global rate of steel recycling is 30%, helping keep carbon emissions from pushing ever higher. Obviously there are limits to what can be collected for reuse but it should be possible to raise it to 80%, and would be if there was a sufficient price on carbon. Failure to price environmental damage leads to massive waste because collecting material for reuse is “just not worth it”.

The Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) process makes raw iron with inputs only of electricity and natural gas. India produces some 68MT/y by this method. If the electricity is renewable and the gas used is biogas from waste, this approach could be made sustainable. However DRI is often alloyed with scrap steel in the steel making step, so to add DRI to recycled steel complicates lifecycle analysis.

There are various processes that reduce the coal needed for a tonne of steel. The University of NSW has developed a polymer injection technology where some of the carbon and energy come from used car tyres, with 1 million car tyres substituting for 15,000 tonnes of coal. (1) This is useful while there are large quantities of used car tyres but is not a long term solution. Alternatively, the Hisarna process uses coal directly rather than making coke, reducing coal input by around 20%. (1)

The steel industry worldwide is putting serious effort into finding ways of reducing carbon emissions from steel making – within the current economic framework. But we are looking for something that could replace coal altogether.

Is it technically possibly to make steel without coal?

The obvious answer is that it must be, as early iron and steel production used wood-derived charcoal instead of coal-derived. However the scale of today’s industry is vastly bigger than two hundred years ago.

Electrolysis has been shown to be capable of coal-free steel production but the technology is said to require another 20 years of development before full commercialisation. (1) However, this is roughly the time it will take under Hansen’s scenario to phase out coal directly, making it a possible option for the future.

Charcoal made from wood or other biomass can provide the reducing function, a source of energy and the minor carbon component in steel; with further heat obtained from electricity or natural gas (or biogas). However, even the small quantities of iron and steel made a couple of centuries ago, along with the heavy demands of ship building, had a serious impact on Europe’s forests. The scale of steel demand is now many times greater, so the real question is about scale and sustainability. Climate change cannot be considered in isolation from land use, food production, and forestry policy.

Is there enough wood or other biomass, and where would it come from?

Wood could be grown in plantations for use in the steel industry, just as it is now grown for timber. But land is a limited resource and is also needed for food and buildings and for the protection of wild nature and other species. There have been various attempts to calculate how much land you would have to devote permanently to rotational wood harvest for each tonne of steel to be made annually. The estimates vary between two and seven hectares per annual tonne, depending on species, climate, soil and process efficiency. Clearly the world is not going to devote 2-7 billion hectares (13%-50% of the global land area) – or even a small fraction of that – to steel making, and nor should it.

However, all existing forestry operations have residues of woody material of low commercial value. As well as prunings and thinnings, harvesting residues like branches, bark and damaged logs average at least half the tree. Woody waste from crops – such as coconut shells and husks, corn stover, grain stalks – can be added to this.

Figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (2) estimate annual waste from commonly cultivated crops is in the region 25-176 exajoules (Ej – 1018 joules). Parikka (3) estimates annual waste biomass from all sources is around 64 Ej and compares this with total global energy use from all sources for all purposes of 440 Ej. For comparison, global coal use for steel making is around 22 Ej. (5)

Carbonscape, a NZ firm which has developed new very efficient technologies using microwaves to process wood waste into charcoal, calculate that with their process it would take 1.6BT biomass globally to replace all the coal currently used in iron and steel making. That is around 3% of the 50 B tpy of world annual biomass productivity. Carbonscape is not yet in commercial production but has produced test batches of charcoal to secure an order for 9,000 tonnes from NZ Steel.

While these numbers are far from precise they do indicate that far more waste biomass than needed is available. Of course, not all waste can be easily recovered; some of it will be too far from steel mills to justify the transport energy and cost; some of it already has alternative uses; and the green leaf and twig waste (a small proportion of the forestry total and probably more of the crop waste total) should remain on site to return nutrients to the soil.

However, the most important question is whether the forestry and other biomass operations on which steel making might piggy-back, should all continue.

Are the forestry operations that produce the residues themselves sustainable?

Brazil produces some 23-36 million m3 of biological charcoal each year to make iron and steel. Some of it is from planted woodlots on a 7 year rotation but most is from old growth forests. There is a major international campaign to stop this logging of old growth forests to supply the steel industry.

Much logging in tropical countries is actually illegal as well as unsustainable and the world’s old forests are diminishing fast, along with the wildlife and indigenous communities they sustain. We cannot both campaign against cutting forests unsustainably, and rely on residues from this practice to fuel our steel mills.

If a plantation forest is managed well, using its residues for energy and carbon is a big environmental plus. But how is the steel maker (supposing they even care) to tell the difference between charcoal from sustainably managed forests, and that from illegal and unsustainable cuts? It seems impossible.

Yet there is already a world wide system in place to do just that for timber, paper and packaging.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification system operates in 80 countries and five continents. It certifies that a product comes from a forest that is legally harvested and well managed with regard to environmental protection, wildlife conservation, and safe and fair working conditions. It also outlaws genetically engineered trees, citing risks of increased flammability, invasiveness and contamination of native forests with engineered traits.

Forests may be planted or well managed natural forests where high wildlife densities and populations of animals like great apes and tigers, are retained.

Globally 165 million ha of forest are certified, and this number is growing fast. The system includes chain of custody certificates in 105 countries so a product can be tracked through the value chain. NZ has 1.4 million ha under certification. Currently the system is not applied to residues but there is no reason why it should not be and there is some reference in the literature to extending it to residues for biofuels.

A similar area of forest is certified under the parallel certification system, PEFC. The two systems are gradually converging.

Is the wood residue in the right place?

Handling, drying and transport are major costs to recovering wood residues for use. However, if it is planned right the forestry industry already has much of the equipment needed on the site, and removing waste can be a bonus for an industry which otherwise has to work around it or burn it.

There are many different logging practices, some of which make it much easier to recover the residues. Practices such as taking the whole logs to a skid site, cutting and stacking at the time of logging, and the use of mobile chippers can reduce costs. Carbonscape says their micro-wave charcoal technology lends itself to small scale units for decentralised processing in the forest. A NZ wood fuel supplier says the energy required to haul a truckload of dry chip regionally is equal to only about 4% of the payload.

Some residues will of course be on steep inaccessible slopes, in areas too remote from steel mills. It is beyond the scope of this paper to estimate how much of the globally available wood residue might be harvested for making charcoal.

Other advantages of wood over coal

A wood-based process is much cleaner, with no sulphur or mercury emissions, low oxides of nitrogen, no toxic coal mine tailings, less ash which is not a toxic waste, less slag to dispose of, and less lime needed because charcoal is basic rather than acidic. It is claimed there are fewer industrial accidents than with underground coal mining.

Because of these side benefits, the Norwegian ferro-silicon industry is willing to pay twice as much for wood charcoal as for coal (per unit fixed carbon) for smelting.

What are the big obstacles?

Leaving aside the biggest issue, which is total lack of political will or interest in climate change as a problem, there are two issues which need to be addressed.

The first is scale, as it is for all sustainability questions. The capacity of the atmosphere to absorb carbon is not the only limited resource. Constantly growing steel production within an infinitely expanding economy will very soon run up against limits of land and water to produce biomass. These limits are not an argument to continue using coal – itself a limited resource – as to do so will change the climate and destroy many other resources. Steel making can continue in a sustainable society without coal, but on a limited scale.

The second is price. As long as coal pays nothing for its contribution to climate change, sustainable alternatives will be more expensive. (Under NZ’s ETS, coal mining for export pays nothing for its carbon emissions, either here or in China, India, or Japan, our main markets.)

A serious price on carbon without loopholes, preferably internationally co-ordinated, is necessary and urgent if steel making is to move away from coal. Necessary – but not sufficient. If a price on carbon is all that occurs the world’s forests will be raped to supply the steel industry. So controls on forestry are needed too. A requirement that all steel fuel come from FSC certified forests or sustainable agriculture would do it.

How much steel do we really need?

In a sustainable society steel use, like everything else, will be moderated. The first and easiest step is to cut out waste. When the rate of building new infrastructure stabilises and we are not constantly building more bridges and high rise short-lived buildings, demand for steel will drop. Design for durability and repair will play a part. There are also materials that can substitute.

Steel framework in up to 6 storied buildings can be replaced with pre-stressed laminated timber, a process developed at Canterbury University. They then become a store of carbon rather than a source of emissions. (However, a small amount of steel is used in a strengthening rod and end caps).

What do we need, to create a sustainable steel future?

First, a substantial price on carbon. That will help drive the wood based technologies and recycling. A recent Otago University thesis estimates that even $50/tonne would be enough to drive all technically feasible boiler fuel substitutions of wood for coal. (4)

Second, we need good resource studies and mapping of the wood residue resource, along with improved harvesting techniques and equipment. Scion is doing some of the former.

Third, we need to expand the FSC and make certified residues mandatory in this country. There are moves towards that overseas.

Once these are done we need a national strategy on the priority use of wood residues. Transport fuels, boiler fuel and smelting fuel are all likely to compete for the available wood and allowing the market to sort out what we use here and for what, and what we export, risks very perverse outcomes. (For example exporting charcoal might be more profitable but if it leaves us without transport fuel at home could cripple our economy.) It is inexcusable that no government has embarked on this work, or even plans to.

Most of all though, we need a change of mindset, where climate change is recognised as serious enough to change our way of doing things, and to learn to prosper within the limits of the biosphere.

Conclusion

This brief survey has not attempted to quantify the amount of steel needed to run a stable society, nor the quantity that could be made sustainably without coal, nor the quantity of wood residues that are available, easily harvestable and close enough to steel production sites, though some ballpark indications have been given. Work on refining this is urgent.

However we can conclude that it is quite feasible to make steel without coal and in some places it is already being done.

If wood or other biomass residues are used instead of coal, the main limiting factor is the quantity of residue from sustainably managed forests or cropping. Ultimately the limiting factor is land and land use competition. The FSC certification process could be used to ensure that wood residues are sustainable. Although the quantity is limited, it is large.

The current world production of steel, let alone its constant expansion, is not sustainable, but in a stable state economy a mix of substitution, much greater recycling and the use of biomass residues instead of coal can enable steel production to continue.

A sufficient price on carbon is essential, along with further quantification of the availability of wood residues and the development of more efficient technologies to enable this.

Most of all we need a change of political will to prioritise action on climate change and end the mad rush for growth at all costs so that these options are pursued.

What is clear however, is that there is no case for soft-pedalling our demand that no new coal mines be opened.

References

1. Croezen, H and Korteland, M, A long term view of CO2 efficient manufacturing in the European region CE Delft 2010

2. http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2006/07/crop-residues-how-much-biomass-energy.html

3. http://www.joensuu.fi/metsatdk/viefor/data/material/071129113157Global_biomass_fuel_resources.pdf

4. Deller, Nic, Replacing NZ’s Coal Consumption with Energy from Wood Residues: a feasibility study B App Sci dissertation, EMAN 490 Otago University 2012

5. World Coal Association Coal and Steel Statistics 2012

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