11. GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) Link to this
to the Minister of Energy
Does he stand by his statement made to the New Zealand Petroleum Conference on 11 March 2008 that “There is a degree of wishful thinking and exaggeration around how close clean-coal technology really is.”; if so, why?
Hon DAVID PARKERI raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister may not have heard me, but I did say: “if so, why?”
Has the Minister seen the comments of his Associate Minister of Energy, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, who spoke at the same petroleum conference, a day before the Minister spoke, and said that carbon was now being captured and stored around the world, that the Americans, the Germans, and the Austrians were doing it, and that he thought clean coal “is here”; and do those totally conflicting statements made by two energy Ministers in the space of 24 hours indicate the reasons for industry concern about this Government’s energy policy?
Mr Duynhoven is quite correct that carbon is being stored underground. The trials in respect of carbon capture and storage are small, except to the extent that it is being used as an oil recovery technique where carbon dioxide is being pumped into oilfields to increase the recovery of oil. In terms of carbon capture and storage in respect of coal-fired generation, which that member seems to find sexy, Mr Duynhoven and I both agree that that technology is not yet here, and that it is expensive.
When the Minister said, in respect of clean coal, “A dose of reality is required”, did he mean his version of reality, which is to rely on New Scientist magazine editorials, or was it a criticism of Harry Duynhoven, or of any one of the Government’s own agencies—Solid Energy, Genesis Energy, the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, Crown Minerals—and the many other organisations mentioned by Mr Anderton in his answer to question No. 4 today?
There are more complexities to this issue than that member obviously understands. We are supporting Solid Energy, Genesis Energy, and other companies to do their bit to advance the work that needs to be done before carbon capture and storage can even be considered in New Zealand. One of the things we have to do is actually work out whether we have the necessary underground reservoirs to store it, even if it were economic to capture it from a coal-fired power station’s exhaust flume. There are many barriers to be overcome before carbon capture and storage is economic in New Zealand.
Peter BrownIs the Minister aware of the statement that “If we are serious about climate change, we have got to be serious about clean coal, and if we are serious about clean coal, we have got to put in half a billion dollars to make it serious, to make it worthwhile, and that is what this proposal is all about.”, which was made by Kevin Rudd just before he became Prime Minister of Australia, and in which he went on to say that “Coal, and coal-fired electricity, is critical for our economy.”—he said that more than once in his statement—and does the Minister believe that Kevin Rudd, who is now the Prime Minister of Australia, is guilty of wishful thinking and exaggeration?
No, I do not. The two statements—his statement and my statement—are perfectly reconcilable. Australia generates about 90 percent of its electricity from coal. Finding a solution through carbon capture and storage is fundamentally crucial to Australia’s economy, not just for its electricity production but also for the value of its coal exports. It is far less important for New Zealand. Australia needs to spend half a billion dollars, as the member said. The Americans have just pulled back from projects because the costs are escalating past them. It is for those countries to develop that technology, and we will adopt it. We will do related research so that we can adopt it, but we will not lead it. We will spend money on getting to the level of 90 percent renewable electricity—that will be far cheaper and far quicker.
Why does the Minister continue to have such a Dickensian view about clean-coal technology, when the Government’s own State-owned enterprise, Solid Energy, is investigating coal-seam gas, coal gasification, coal to liquid, and carbon capture and storage—all with a focus to lower carbon dioxide emissions that are likely to come from the Minister’s own mandated biofuels obligation?
The Government does not oppose carbon capture and storage as a technology, but it makes the point that it is not here yet and that New Zealand will not be at the forefront of its development, which will cost many billions of dollars.
Is it because of the Minister’s “slightly unusual thinking” that he insists New Zealand should not benefit from a fuel resource that could, with full mitigation against excess greenhouse gas, provide us with an energy source for 800-plus years?
It is obvious that someone read my speech to the New Zealand Power Conference and the New Zealand Petroleum Conference for Mr Brownlee and that he did not read it himself. If he had read it, he would have seen that I actually acknowledge that the coal resources New Zealand has are enormous and a very important future source of energy that could be an economic source. But I made the point that there are environmental hurdles to be overcome, and that is true.