by frog
The problem with outsourcing conservation funding to business has been highlighted. The Tiwai Point Aluminim smelter has pulled the plug on funding for the Kakapo Recovery Programme. Even if it is tied to their contract negotiations for cheap electricity from Meridian it still shows that relying on corporate funding for core conservation programmes is not the solution. We need to fund conservation adequately.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Fri, August 31st, 2012
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Time to pull the plug on the smelter. The power they’re getting at mates’ rates has a huge opportunity cost to New Zealanders and to the planet.
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The smelter down here manages its land, assets and people much better than any government organisation I have ever seen, and much more cost effectively.
Give the land to them.
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Rio Tinto Alcan NZ to DOC.
“Nice endangered species conservation program you got here for the kakapo. Be a real shame, a mighty shame if sumthin’ bad, and I mean real bad, happened to it. Know what I mean?”
These people really are the Sopranos of trans-national corporates.
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Sorry
I cannot let anyone get away with irresponsibly calling for the shutdown of the smelter.
The only reason the smelter has trouble making a profit, the ONLY reason, is that there is NO COST FOR CO2 EMISSIONS.
The Aluminium production it is competing against is mostly powered by coal. Shutting Tiwai down would be a massive error environmentally.
BJ
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Sorry.
As I said, there’s an opportunity cost.
The power that we’re using for aluminium is obviously not available for other purposes. That shortfall is made up by Huntly and other non-renewable power sources.
The loss of that power from the wider market also drives up power cost significantly.
We supply less than 1% of world production, it’s barely economically sustainable and the Gulf countries can produce it cheaper using natural gas.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aluminum-makers-turn-to-middle-east-to-cut-costs-2012-07-06-114851044
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BJ,
You mean the coal fired smelters should pay CO2 emissions, yes?
Chances of that happening in the real world, zero.
Chances if Tiwai point remaining competitive in the real world, slim
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Many of the smelters are located in oil-rich countries and use off-peak power from their oil-fired power stations. This has lower CO2 emissions than from coal, but is equally bad long-term (or worse) as countries will start to look at coal to liquids conversions as the cheap oil runs out.
What I do expect is that the price of aluminium will climb with the price of oil and gas, so having a smelter in New Zealand that does not require either would be very good. What I can’t predict is when the oil and gas prices will rise. That depends to some extent on how quickly gas can be used to replace oil in transport applications, helping to hold the price rise of oil but lifting gas prices.
Trevor.
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There should be no importation of products containing aluminium from those smelters without a compensatory tariff applied Gerrit. That we CAN do, and we should. We should work at getting the folks in the West Island to do it too. It isn’t THAT hard to push this back into shape.
The problem is that the current system of not putting costs where they belong distorts everything. I cannot countenance shutting down a CLEAN manufacturing resource in favor of dirty ones BECAUSE SOME JACKASS IS DISTORTING THE PRICES!!!
It has to be forced to change and that means someone has to start pushing back. So that they can’t land poison based goods on our shores without paying for the CO2.
The cost is more than $12 per tonne.
This is going to be obvious to everone by 2025 and should be obvious to most people much much sooner. I’ve already seen a couple of denialists “drop off the radar” as the news about the Arctic sinks in.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/arctic-sea-ice-turning-points/
Mother Nature has a very big stick and she has whacked them ( USians they were ) lightly with it so far. Another couple of years and the popular mood will go from confused to ugly.
We are talking about treason here Gerrit. What has been done here in NZ around the ETS is arguably treason against the people of NZ, and in the USA it is even more clearly treason against the USA. I don’t have any sympathy to waste on the perps. Personally I am not Green enough to forgive them for it.
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BJ
Problem is NZL does not have an aluminium remelt or rolling mill to convert billets to pencils for extrusion or plate stock for futher manufacturing.
What you are proposing is not practical.
The manufacturing base of 4 million people in NZL is not a pimple on the rump of the total world production of aluminium.
We could substitute alluminium with locally grown wood I suppose
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So we need to have a remelt/rolling mill? Vertical integration? I don’t see why if there’s one in Oz, but why not? WE have the power, and it is provided by the fact that we are in the roaring 40′s and it’s there to harvest. The Aussies have the bauxite. What’s the problem? We can make this stuff cheap enough.
When (and I mean that, because it IS going to happen) there is a price that reflects reality put on the CO2 damage being done, the only Aluminium smelters still operable on this planet will be powered by nukes, or like Tiwai point… by hydro.
Natural gas makes CO2 mate… a lot of electricity to make Aluminium and we could fire Huntly with biomass or natural gas ourselves if natural gas is “the fuel of the future”. It isn’t but we don’t need to have that argument. Huntly could use gas if gas is what you like. Moreover, it is a hell of a long way from Tiwai point to Huntly. That electricity way down South isn’t going to displace anything Huntly produces without building a lot more efficient transmission grid.
But for some it comes down to “opportunity costs” and “we could have cheaper electricity” – which would encourage us to greater efficiency exactly how?
People who use the phrase “opportunity costs” invariably let short term profits, not sustainability, dominate their perception.
As for our effect Gerrit, that isn’t ever going to be big if we’re the only ones who do it, but we CAN do it, and I have come to realize that the blockheads blocking this all point at each other and say “We won’t lead, someone else should”…. and nothing happens.
Fnck them with a fork sideways. All of them AND their horses.
Someone has to start somewhere. We’re here.
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