While the govt funds those who switch to renewables
We were rewarded – on visiting Kiwiblog today – by finding this chart from The Facts, which shows how coal imports into this country have almost quadrupled under Labour.
Click to view
David Farrar muses:
Maybe banning new natural gas exploration was a bad idea?
One reader, in comments below the Kiwiblog post, wants the PM to explain how it is better for the environment and our balance of payments (in deficit) to import nearly 2m tonnes of coal.
Another reader ventures that most of this import will be for Huntly (and other similar furnaces).
As I understand it, Huntly was built to run on gas and/or powdered coal. NZ coal doesn’t powder in that way – it can’t go into a furnace designed for gas. Hence the Indonesian coal.
The correct answer is to burn gas in it. It’s NZ gas, and it’s better for the environment than coal. Win-win. But that takes us directly back to the question of why we have less NZ gas than we used to, and why we now run Huntly on coal.
But hey – the government is doing its best to shake coal out of our energy-producing systems.
The PM said so when she spoke to business leaders yesterday and acknowledged the steps many of them had taken to reduce emissions.
Here’s what she said (and we confess to being a tad puzzled by her reference to “recycled funding” :
And we’re working hard to support those efforts where we can.
Our Government Industry Decarbonisation Investment Fund, GIDI, has proven one of the best tools for that job, with the initial $69 million investment unlocking $117 million of private investment – and once those 53 industrial decarbonisation projects are complete, will save more than 7 million tonnes of C02, the equivalent of taking 134,800 cars off the road.
We want this to continue which is why we committed another $650 million in the last budget, which is recycled funding through the newly established Climate Emergency Response Fund – the fund that backs up our first Emissions Reduction Plan to get us to net zero in 2050.
Then she referenced McCain Foods, which is about to convert its coal boiler to biomass fuel to reduce an estimated 845,000 tonnes of carbon about the project’s lifetime.
Some might say that would have happened eventually anyway, but why simply wait and hope when the climate emergency is here now, and the opportunities for green production abound.
Point of Order harked back to the early days of the Ardern Government and (on November 2017) a speech when Climate Change Minister James Shaw delivered the New Zealand National Statement to a major United Nations climate change conference.
He said New Zealand had joined an international “Powering Past Coal” alliance committed to phasing out the use of coal for electricity generation, led by Canada and the UK.
“We know that the future of our electricity system is in renewables, not coal, so I was delighted we could recognise that formally at this important international meeting.
Five months later, on April 12 2018, he triumphantly made another announcement:
Today ends all new oil and gas exploration in the waters around Aotearoa New Zealand.
What a win.
It’s a win for the Green Party and a win for all of us who care about the environment and the impacts of climate change.
Today will go down in history as the moment New Zealand said fossil fuels are not our future.
Today we have drawn that line in the sand.
The expertise built up in that industry could be turned to more environmentally sustainable and economically sustainable enterprise, Shaw said.
The Prime Minister talked about applying skills from the oil industry to mining silica to use in solar panels.
He had another idea: this country needs major infrastructure upgrades to ensure safe drinking water systems and storm water systems and sewerage systems.
That’s work that needs expertise in drilling, pipe construction and reticulation, and that’s expertise that exists in the oil industry.
The Government’s job was to provide the leadership and the plan to help ensure New Zealand is part of the world’s green, sustainable economy, Shaw said.
Establishing a Zero Carbon Act and an independent Climate Change Commission demonstrated that leadership.
The Government’s commitment – he declared – was to 100 per cent renewable electricity generation by 2035.
How’s progress?
On the electricity generation front, in April this year Statista posted a graph that tells much the same story as the one posted on Kiwiblog
Beneath it was an article by L Granwal headed Electricity generation from coal New Zealand 2012-2021.
He writes:
New Zealand uses coal as a primary energy source, and in 2021, around 3.02 thousand gigawatt hours of electricity were produced from coal power plants in the country. While some coal is imported, most of the coal needed by the nation is mined from the many coalfields located throughout the country.
As of 2019, Granwal said, New Zealand had 18 producing coal mines, the major coalfields located in the West Coast, Waikato, Southland, and Otago.
The country requires coal for fueling industrial processes, particularly in the South Island where there is no piped gas system. Domestically extracted coal is converted to energy and used to produce cement, steel, and wool.
New Zealand produces millions of metric tons of coal annually. A portion of this coal is exported, although that volume had been declining.
Coal accounted for just over 7 per cent of the energy supply in the country.
Then we turned to The Facts graph and Key import insights
One reader, in comments below the Kiwiblog post, wants the PM to explain how it is better for the environment and our balance of payments (in deficit) to import nearly 2m tonnes of coal.
Another reader ventures that most of this import will be for Huntly (and other similar furnaces).
As I understand it, Huntly was built to run on gas and/or powdered coal. NZ coal doesn’t powder in that way – it can’t go into a furnace designed for gas. Hence the Indonesian coal.
The correct answer is to burn gas in it. It’s NZ gas, and it’s better for the environment than coal. Win-win. But that takes us directly back to the question of why we have less NZ gas than we used to, and why we now run Huntly on coal.
But hey – the government is doing its best to shake coal out of our energy-producing systems.
The PM said so when she spoke to business leaders yesterday and acknowledged the steps many of them had taken to reduce emissions.
Here’s what she said (and we confess to being a tad puzzled by her reference to “recycled funding” :
And we’re working hard to support those efforts where we can.
Our Government Industry Decarbonisation Investment Fund, GIDI, has proven one of the best tools for that job, with the initial $69 million investment unlocking $117 million of private investment – and once those 53 industrial decarbonisation projects are complete, will save more than 7 million tonnes of C02, the equivalent of taking 134,800 cars off the road.
We want this to continue which is why we committed another $650 million in the last budget, which is recycled funding through the newly established Climate Emergency Response Fund – the fund that backs up our first Emissions Reduction Plan to get us to net zero in 2050.
Then she referenced McCain Foods, which is about to convert its coal boiler to biomass fuel to reduce an estimated 845,000 tonnes of carbon about the project’s lifetime.
Some might say that would have happened eventually anyway, but why simply wait and hope when the climate emergency is here now, and the opportunities for green production abound.
Point of Order harked back to the early days of the Ardern Government and (on November 2017) a speech when Climate Change Minister James Shaw delivered the New Zealand National Statement to a major United Nations climate change conference.
He said New Zealand had joined an international “Powering Past Coal” alliance committed to phasing out the use of coal for electricity generation, led by Canada and the UK.
“We know that the future of our electricity system is in renewables, not coal, so I was delighted we could recognise that formally at this important international meeting.
Five months later, on April 12 2018, he triumphantly made another announcement:
Today ends all new oil and gas exploration in the waters around Aotearoa New Zealand.
What a win.
It’s a win for the Green Party and a win for all of us who care about the environment and the impacts of climate change.
Today will go down in history as the moment New Zealand said fossil fuels are not our future.
Today we have drawn that line in the sand.
The expertise built up in that industry could be turned to more environmentally sustainable and economically sustainable enterprise, Shaw said.
The Prime Minister talked about applying skills from the oil industry to mining silica to use in solar panels.
He had another idea: this country needs major infrastructure upgrades to ensure safe drinking water systems and storm water systems and sewerage systems.
That’s work that needs expertise in drilling, pipe construction and reticulation, and that’s expertise that exists in the oil industry.
The Government’s job was to provide the leadership and the plan to help ensure New Zealand is part of the world’s green, sustainable economy, Shaw said.
Establishing a Zero Carbon Act and an independent Climate Change Commission demonstrated that leadership.
The Government’s commitment – he declared – was to 100 per cent renewable electricity generation by 2035.
How’s progress?
On the electricity generation front, in April this year Statista posted a graph that tells much the same story as the one posted on Kiwiblog
Beneath it was an article by L Granwal headed Electricity generation from coal New Zealand 2012-2021.
He writes:
New Zealand uses coal as a primary energy source, and in 2021, around 3.02 thousand gigawatt hours of electricity were produced from coal power plants in the country. While some coal is imported, most of the coal needed by the nation is mined from the many coalfields located throughout the country.
As of 2019, Granwal said, New Zealand had 18 producing coal mines, the major coalfields located in the West Coast, Waikato, Southland, and Otago.
The country requires coal for fueling industrial processes, particularly in the South Island where there is no piped gas system. Domestically extracted coal is converted to energy and used to produce cement, steel, and wool.
New Zealand produces millions of metric tons of coal annually. A portion of this coal is exported, although that volume had been declining.
Coal accounted for just over 7 per cent of the energy supply in the country.
Then we turned to The Facts graph and Key import insights
* 1989 – 1999: almost no coal was imported into New Zealand
* 2000 – 2006: coal imports rapidly increased, especially from 2002 to 2006
* 2007 – 2012: coal imports rapidly decreased, hitting almost zero again in 2012
* 2013 – 2018: coal imports remained stable
* 2019 – 2021: coal imports rapidly increased to new highs, overtaking coal exports in 2021 (more on why next week)
* 2022: only half-year data is currently available, so has not been shown:
* March 2022: Imports of 126,080 were ~half of Exports of 245,793 tonnes
* June 2022: Imports of 404,811 exceeded Exports of 324,999 tonnes
Notes at the bottom of the report explain that all publicly available data has been included and the editors decided to show coal data in tonnes rather than PJ (Petajoules) because it is an easier concept for most people to understand.
Readers are steered to a good summary of the types of coal on https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/
Point of Order made one final check, before wrapping up this article.
What’s the state of our balance of payments, that we can afford to import coal rather than use our own fossil fuels?
The answer: not very healthy.
StatsNZ figures show New Zealand’s seasonally adjusted current account deficit was $7.1 billion in the June quarter.
The current account deficit for the year ended 30 June 2022 “widened” to $27.8 billion (7.7 percent of GDP) from the $11.5 billion deficit for the June 2021 year (3.4 percent of GDP).
Widened?
Burgeoned would be a better word.
And at 30 June 2022 New Zealand’s net international liability position widened to $179.3 billion, from $161.6 billion at 31 March 2022.
Can we expect before long to learn that lamb, beef and dairy-product imports similarly are damaging our balance of payments, as the Ardern Government does its thing for climate change by imposing charges to reduce farm emissions?
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
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