Coal Action Murihiku Takes On Briquettes and Bathurst In Its April Newsletter

It’s been a really good few months for our Southland regional group, Coal Action Murihiku. Solid Energy’s arrogance and mismanagement came home to roost with a vengeance, meaning that the threat to Southland’s and New Zealand’s environment posed by Solid’s plans to mine massive quantities of lignite and release billions of tonnes of additional greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere has receded.

But it hasn’t gone entirely. Other companies are sniffing around Southland’s lignite report, and as a recent Southland Times report indicates, Solid Energy and their technology partner GTL Energy are continuing their efforts to get the small lignite briquetting plant off the ground.

In addition, sharemarket deadbeats Bathurst Resources, whom you’ll be hearing plenty more about this year – best known for their plans to despoil the beautiful and biodiverse Denniston Plateau in the pursuit of coal – are also seeking to expand their operations in Southland.

Every month, Coal Action Murihiku puts out a superb newsletter, edited by Jane Young who is also one of our CoalSwarm editors. You can read all the CAM newsletter on the Regions section of our website.

CAM’s April newsletter tackles both Bathurst and the briquetting plant. It’s a great read, and you can download the newsletter here.

Getting used to the ‘new normal’

Cow in dry weather, Wairarapa. Photo Dave Allen, NIWA

As I flew up the country from Wellington to Auckland this week, on yet another beautiful day, I was struck by the colour of our country.

Brown. Burned to a crisp.  The occasional smattering of green forest, but an island suffering from its  worst drought in 70 years, as I’d heard climate scientist Jim Salinger saying on the radio that morning.

Next I’m listening to Bill English saying farmers can’t expect get the same level of support in future droughts, if they continue to happen with more frequency, as NIWA tells us they will.

Meanwhile John Key is in Brazil pleading with oil giant Petrobras to come back, and an industry-written report tells us we should drill all over the East Coast.

Coal vs climate at Supreme Court

Press release from the West Coast Environment Network 
11 March 2013

Headline of Businessweek after Sandy hit New York – will the Supreme Court understand the important link between coal extraction and climate change?

A small West Coast environment group will face off against two large coal companies – Australian Bathurst Resources and state-owned Solid Energy – at the Supreme Court this week, arguing that climate change is relevant for coal mining consents.

“Even the companies admit that their coal will contribute to climate change,” says West Coast Environment Network spokesperson Lynley Hargreaves. “So we should be able to call evidence on it.”

Newsletter Feb/March 2013

Coal Action Network Aotearoa Newsletter  Feb/Mar 2013

Kia Ora Koutou

Welcome to the Coal Action Network Aotearoa’s first newsletter for 2013!

As you are all very much aware, Solid Energy has gone into freefall.  Not only has CEO Don Elder resigned, but the company is now reporting a $389m debt.
But there’s a lot more going on with coal around the country, not least a new proposal by Fonterra to open a mine in the upper North Island at Mangatawhiri.

What’s in this newsletter? 

1.  Upcoming events
2.  Solid Energy’s lost CEO – and its massive debt
3.  Fonterra’s new coal mine
4.  Denniston ruling imminent
5. The Wise Response Appeal on climate change
6.  Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival
7.  What about our drought? Has it got anything to do with climate change?
8 The world hasn’t warmed?
9  International
- Australia’s “Angry Summer”
- Renewable Energy setting records everywhere
- China’s carbon tax

Solid Energy and coal’s future? What future?

I had one of those “where were you?” moments last week. “Where were you when you heard Solid Energy had dropped their Southland lignite projects?”

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.

Solid Energy and the National Government: So Happy Together

“The Government was worried about Solid Energy’s ambitious investment plans and rosy view of coal prices as far back as 2009 but was unable to order the company to steer a safer course, Prime Minister John Key says.” (26 February 2013, New Zealand Herald.)

Gee, that’s a surprise, Mr Prime Minister! Because here’s what you said on 3 June 2011:

“Speaking in Invercargill yesterday, Mr Key said he supported Solid Energy’s plan to dig up lignite and turn it into briquettes, saying the Government wanted companies such as Solid Energy, which is Government-owned, to expand.” (PM backs mining south’s lignite, Southland Times)

And here is a picture from the National Party’s own photo stream of John Key’s deputy, Bill English, turning the first sod for Solid Energy’s pilot lignite briquetting plant – a plant which now lies useless in the middle of the Mataura Valley:

Don Elder and Bill English: So happy together

Isn’t it nice the way Don lets Bill take the lead? Isn’t it nice the way they both smile for the camera? Isn’t it a pity how rats fight to be first to leave the sinking ship?

Coal Action Network cheering at news that Southland coal will be left in the hole

Our goal of coal staying in the hole: achieved!

Press release

22 February 2013—The Coal Action Network Aotearoa is celebrating the end of the nonsensical lignite project plans in Southland, after Solid Energy Chairman Mark Ford confirmed on national radio this morning that the company will drop the project.

When asked on radio about the lignite projects, Mr Ford said: “I think that is part of the non-core assets that we will be exiting from.”

“This was a ridiculous project from the outset: dirty, low-grade coal being turned into a product nobody wanted, digging up prime Southland farmland for coal that would simply end up in the sky, adding to the looming climate crisis,” said Kristin Gillies, CANA spokesperson.

“The people of Southland, just as the people of the West Coast and Huntly, have been sold broken promises by an industry that will do nothing for our economic future. Coal is a sunset industry and we need to wake up to this reality.”

Co-spokesperson for Coal Action Murihiku, Dave Kennedy, said there would be a huge sigh of relief from the growing local opposition to the project, which had so far only produced six local jobs, and would be taking the region in the wrong direction.

“Southland has so much to offer a green future for New Zealand, and we’re very happy that the coal here will be left where it belongs – in the hole, and the fertile soil can continue to be productive for generations to come.”

It is also highly doubtful that the briquetting plant in Mataura will be able to be sold: it has suffered a number of problems, has yet to be commissioned, and there is no market for the briquettes.

CANA also pointed out today that it was wrong for people to put Solid Energy’s financial woes down to its investments in renewable projects.

Renewable investments were tiny compared to the other things that lost Solid money. P45 of the 2012 annual report discusses “impairments” (the reduction in capital value of parts of the business – similar to a write down?)

- Biodiesel resulted in an impairment of $9m;
- Natures Flame $24.5m, Switch $1.6m.
- total renewable impairment $36m.

Meanwhile:
- Spring Creek resulted in an impairment of $64.3m,
- Huntly coal seam gas $18.5m,
- Huntly East $33.5m,
- they wasted $29m on the Southland lignite briquetting plant that may never work and may never have markets, though this is not marked as impaired in the accounts.

Even without the lignite projects (and the Annual Report notes impairment and loss from the whole Iignite project) total coal impairment is ~$116m, 3.5 x that of the renewable losses.
“To blame renewable energy for Solid’s woes simply doesn’t stand up,” said Gillies.
Solid bought 49% of the shares in Spring Creek as recently as Feb 2012, closed it temporarily to upgrade the mine, then closed it permanently later in the year. They spent a capital outlay of $64m – and they never got any coal out of it.

The failure of the renewable energy plants can be laid at the door of the govt. The investments were made under the Labour govt when there was a biofuel obligation coming on all motor fuel sales; this was then replaced by National’s subsidy, then that was cancelled.

Coal and gas would have been more expensive under the 2008 ETS and there would have been a better market for pellets. The company also made the mistake of going for the export market for pellets when they could have developed a good market in NZ.

Summerfest 2013: The View From Southland

The 2013 Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival was organised by Coal Action Murihiku (CAM), the Southland regional group affiliated with the Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

So it seems appropriate to highlight a couple of reports of the Festival from Southland sources:

Dave Kennedy of CAM reports on the Friday and Sunday of the Festival in his report on the Festival, Shaping Southland’s Future Without Lignite.

Coal Action Murihiku’s February newsletter is entirely given over to reports, thoughts and photos on the Festival. As Bell Murphy says in her Festival report:

The fact that this year’s event was primarily organised by Coal Action Murihiku (CAM) was really exciting. It’s a tribute to the staunch, creative, loving and ingenious folk in Southland.

You can find all the CAM newsletters on the CANA website.

The Summerfest packdown crew still had time to remember the purpose of the Festival!

Keep Southland’s coal in the hole, Coal Action Network urges Solid

Press release – immediate release

4 February 2013–  The Coal Action Network Aotearoa today welcomed Solid Energy CEO Don Elder’s resignation and called on the company to shut down its lignite proposals in Southland.

Ahead of the recent Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival” in Southland, CANA called for Mark Ford to sack Elder, but his resignation has taken care of that.

“Don Elder has pushed forward with his uneconomic and environmentally ridiculous plans for exploiting the dirty lignite proposals in Southland, which have been hampered by delays and the departure of key partners,” said Tim Jones of CANA.

“Now Solid Energy has a chance to cut its losses, walk away from this failed project and leave Southland’s coal in the hole,” said Jones.

 

Southland lignite proposals “100% stupidity” Aussie farmer tells meeting

Press release

Rob McCreath from Friends of Felton at the Coal Action Summerfest gathering on Saturday.

The idea of digging up fertile farmland for lignite coal was “100% stupidity,” an Australian farmer told a Southland meeting today.

Rob McCreath was addressing the “Keep the Coal in the Hole” summer festival in Gore. The Queenslander told the 150-strong gathering how his community group, Friends of Felton, stopped a large coalmine and petrochemical plant from going ahead on prime agricultural farmland on the Darling Downs.

He has been in Dunedin and Southland for the last few days and was struck by the beauty of the farmland in the area.

“It’s hard to imagine a more productive farming area as I’ve seen in Southland. In Australia we are peppered with New Zealand’s 100% Pure adverts. It’s disgraceful that you have a government-owned company and they’re allowing it to dig up this beautiful farmland. That’s 100% stupidity,” said McCreath.