Mustn’t use coal

A coal industry lobby group, Straterra, admits that burning coal has ‘‘implications’’ for the climate but argues that we must ignore them because coal is ‘‘essential’’ for the economy (June 13). I doubt that when our grandchildren are facing severe storms, floods and droughts, food scarcity and rising sea levels, they will agree it was worth it because their grandparents had cheaper fuel.

It is not as though there are no alternatives. Ninety per cent of our electricity can be renewable for similar cost. The rest would be gas, with roughly half the greenhouse emissions of coal.

Coal boilers are successfully converting to climate-neutral wood pellets or chip. The largest, at the Waiouru army base, replaced 5300 tonnes of coal a year and achieved major savings in maintenance. The ash, rather than an expensive toxic waste to dispose of, became an asset to the gardens.

Steel-making is the biggest challenge but it is not insurmountable. Steel was originally made from wood-based charcoal and new technology is able to make pure carbon, suitable for steel-making, from sawdust.

Such alternatives will never receive the research, development and demonstration needed to commercialise them while coal remains abundant and priced below true cost.

A 20-year phase out, proposed by climate scientists, would allow time to develop those alternatives.

Our economy, present and future, depends on a safe climate. JEANETTE FITZSIMONS

RD2 Thames

Photo: FAIRFAX NZ DAVID PETERSON General manager Fletcher EQR Police Minister Anne Tolley atop a boy racer’s crushed car. But a reader says the best bits of the car had been removed, so the crushing was symbolic.