• Parker: “Get real” over carbon capture
• Industry prone to “wishful thinking”
• Elder: Technology advancing rapidly

Simmering tensions between Energy Minister David Parker and coal-mining SOE Solid Energy have surfaced after he told the company’s boss, Don Elder, to “get real” over the prospects for carbon capture and storage. At the national energy conference in Auckland last week, both men had to curb their tempers as they traded verbal blows. Elder delivered a bullish speech in which he talked up the prospects for converting Southland lignite to liquid fuels, with carbon emissions offset by capturing them and burying them underground. But this didn’t sit well with Parker, who targeted Elder during his own speech, suggesting the coal industry is “prone to wishful thinking” about the prospects for carbon capture and storage.
Parker also accused Elder of a tendency to “exaggerate,” noting the SOE boss predicted two years ago NZ would be self-sufficient in fuel from lignite within five years. Parker stresses he is not against the concept of turning lignite into liquid fuel and sequestering the carbon. But he believes the technology is still a long way off. He notes the US Govt recently cancelled its funding for a clean coal power station project because it recognised carbon capture and storage is still not far enough advanced. Parker says while turning coal into liquid fuels is a proven technology, the challenge is to do it while at the same time capturing and burying CO2, otherwise it would not be economic under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Parker believes Solid Energy should wait for other countries to develop coal-to-liquid fuel technology and carbon geo-sequestration, rather than trying to pioneer it in NZ, because coal is not central to the NZ economy. He adds, “there is a degree of wishful thinking and exaggeration around how close clean-coal technology really is. If the Govt was to apply the same brave assumptions to new technology renewables as are relied upon by some coal proponents, we would be pilloried. A dose of reality is required.” Elder hit back by arguing carbon sequestration is “more advanced than the Minister thinks,” adding Parker appears to be taking his advice from a recent article in New Scientist magazine. If he listened to energy experts he might come to a different conclusion.

Elder notes next month one of the world’s most-advanced carbon capture and storage projects, the Otway project in Aust, will pass a major milestone. This will involve injecting 100,000 tonnes of CO2 underground to a depth of 2000m. Solid Energy is a founding shareholder in the company which owns and operates the Otway project and is also funding the Aust-based Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies, which is overseeing the trial. Elder stresses Solid Energy intends to be “as carbon neutral as anyone else,” whether by paying for carbon credits, sequestering carbon underground or planting trees.

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