Gas problem

Fonterra says it may not be able to switch away from coal use as early as the Climate Change Commission’s timeline proposes “due to current and forecast gas scarcity” ( NZ Herald, April 1). This suggests it is thinking of switching to gas on a large scale to replace the massive quantities of coal burned to dry milk to powder.

Fonterra needs to understand: gas is still a fossil fuel, harming our environment. Moreover, its use is almost as damaging to the world’s climate as coal, because significant quantities of methane usually leak into the atmosphere during gas drilling. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, despite persisting in the atmosphere for “only” a decade or so, rather than for centuries or millennia, like CO2.

If Fonterra, or any of the many NZ manufacturers using coal-fired boilers for process heat, really want to clean up their act, they should look to electricity, rather than gas. They should be telling their electricity provider/s that they will need large supplies of renewably-generated electric power very soon.

Jill Whitmore, Panmure.