What’s the alternative?

The current proposal to install a new, modern plant to produce hydrogen and urea, with CO2 recovery, has produced the usual bleating from our local dinosaurs to extend offshore exploration for more gas.

Offshore search for gas is a high-risk process with a low success rate (about 10 per cent).

Furthermore, the cost of recovery and return-toshore of the gas would be very high.

It is statistically more likely that no more large gas fields would be discovered, so what is plan B?

Currently about 40 per cent of our gas is used by Methanex to produce methanol for export using outof-date and inefficient technology (the plant was designed in the 1970s).

A significant portion of the gas is used to fire the large, high-temperature furnaces with the waste CO2 discharged to atmosphere. However, Methanex provides a significant benefit to the community in terms of employment and tax income.

It seems to me that we need a national, long-term energy strategy to plan for the phased development of new, modern technologies and the concurrent phase-out of our old, out-of-date-processes.

The alternative is to proceed, like Mr Micawber, on the basis that ‘‘something will always turn up’’. Keith Allum

New Plymouth