Processor taking coal out of milk production

Milk processor Synlait is making progress on its pledge to reduce its carbon footprint by using less coal to fuel its boilers.

John Penno, Synlait’s former chief executive, promised last year that the company would never commission another coalfired boiler, and was also looking into co-firing boilers with biomass.

In the next few days, the company will boast about commissioning its first electrode boiler for its Dunsandel plant in Canterbury.

And the following month Synlait will take delivery of a natural gas-fired steam boiler at Pokeno in Waikato where it can tap into a piped natural gas supply.

The Pokeno 25MW natural gas project was a boon for Lyttelton Engineering.

General manager Richard York said it was the largest boiler the company had ever made and 16 of the 87 staff were apprentices who had the chance to work on it.

York said the completed 43-tonne boiler will be transported in April on the Interislander ferry and then by truck to Pokeno, where his staff would install it.

For the Dunsandel plant, Synlait harnessed the expertise of boiler maker Energy Plant Solutions of Palmerston North, and the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority.

A Synlait spokeswoman said the ultimate plan was to entirely remove coal from three other boilers in Canterbury, but it depended on the electricity supply capacity from the Orion lines network.

The carbon saving on the electrode boiler was 13,714 tonnes of CO2 a year.

The improved boilers were only part of Synlait’s efforts which included targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and nitrogen leaching on the farms that supply it with milk.

Farmers who do not use palm kernel, blamed for rainforest destruction overseas, are rewarded with a higher price.