The Daily Blog Open Mic – Friday 31st May 2019

Liar! Liar! World’s on fire!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113086544/mining-is-part-of-a-lowcarbon-future

Apologist for Business As Usual, argues that we need coal and other fossil fuels to smelt the steel needed for a renewable future.

New Zealand Steel used to use renewable energy (electricity from our hydro dams) to recycle scrap steel. The private owners scrapped the electric arc furnaces for the price they got for the copper cables. And converted fully to smelting iron sand with coal, because buying coal was cheaper than buying electricity. All that steel they used to recycle now goes to landfills.

Coal is so much cheaper than paying for electricity that the management at Glenbrook even had built, an on site, a coal fired power station to generate the rest of the mill’s electricity.

Short term thinking and greed for maximum returns fueled their ambition to get rid of renewable energy.

There are alternatives. Alternatives that this apologist refuses to see. She is also a liar. There is no lithium being mined in New Zealand. She is trying to conflate this issue to justify the mining of coal and oil.

There are alternatives, they may be more expensive, but Coal is cheap and dirty as this hack reminds us…

“The New Zealand public should be told that cheap and plentiful coal still fills the electricity gap in this country, particularly when the wind doesn’t blow, and water levels drop behind hydroelectric dams.”

Kate MacNamara

MacNamara decries the government’s ban on mining on conservation land and arrogantly threatens, that the Prime Minister will live to regret this decision.

“In the throne speech in 2017 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised to prevent any new mines on New Zealand’s conservation land which covers a third of the country. That would be a significant expansion of protected land over the status quo and a serious curtailment of land available to mine. Ardern may well regret this promise”.

Kate MacNamara

In my opinion, the tone of MacNamara’s article is condescending and arrogant, exactly reflecting the extremist one eyed views of the mining industry.

MacNamara’s argument is specious and superficial, contains no facts except for a shopping list from the UN for minerals, appeals to emotion instead of reason. And deliberately (and dishonestly) conflates mining lithium with mining fossil fuels

MacNamara completely glosses over the terrible danger that climate change represents. Calling it a “distant problem”.

Mac Namara’s claim that we need coal, to produce steel is a lie. Steel is an infinitely recyclable material. A simple google search reveals that the majority of the steel in the U.S. the world’s third biggest producer after China and Japan, is made from recycled scrap, and not the smelting of ore with coal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_and_steel_industry_in_the_United_States

There are two main types of steel mills. The traditional large integrated steel mill, which reduces metallic iron from ore (iron oxide) and makes it into pig iron and steel, has been steadily declining in importance for decades in the US. The second type, the mini-mill, or specialty steel mill, which produces new steel products by melting steel scrap, now produces the majority of steel in the US….

….Two-thirds of the iron and steel produced in the US is made from recycled scrap, rather than from iron ore. In 2014, 81 million mt of iron and steel were produced from scrap.[9]Most steel from scrap is produced using electric arc furnaces.

Wikipedia

It is an unfortunate fact that in North America a lot of the electricity used in the arc furnaces is generated from coal, but that is not the case in New Zealand, (and may not even remain the case in the US as renewables replace coal in generating electricity even in America.)

1 COMMENT

Stand at the Bandard June 1, 2019 At 11:11 am

Liar! Liar! World’s on fire!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113086544/mining-is-part-of-a-lowcarbon-future

Apologist for Business As Usual, argues that we need coal and other fossil fuels to smelt the steel needed for a renewable future.

New Zealand Steel used to use renewable energy (electricity from our hydro dams) to recycle scrap steel. The private owners scrapped the electric arc furnaces for the price they got for the copper cables. And converted fully to smelting iron sand with coal, because buying coal was cheaper than buying electricity. All that steel they used to recycle now goes to landfills.

Coal is so much cheaper than paying for electricity that the management at Glenbrook even had built, an on site, a coal fired power station to generate the rest of the mill’s electricity.

Short term thinking and greed for maximum returns fueled their ambition to get rid of renewable energy.

There are alternatives. Alternatives that this apologist refuses to see. She is also a liar. There is no lithium being mined in New Zealand. She is trying to conflate this issue to justify the mining of coal and oil.

There are alternatives, they may be more expensive, but Coal is cheap and dirty as this hack reminds us…

“The New Zealand public should be told that cheap and plentiful coal still fills the electricity gap in this country, particularly when the wind doesn’t blow, and water levels drop behind hydroelectric dams.”

Kate MacNamara

MacNamara decries the government’s ban on mining on conservation land and arrogantly threatens, that the Prime Minister will live to regret this decision.

“In the throne speech in 2017 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised to prevent any new mines on New Zealand’s conservation land which covers a third of the country. That would be a significant expansion of protected land over the status quo and a serious curtailment of land available to mine. Ardern may well regret this promise”.

Kate MacNamara

In my opinion, the tone of MacNamara’s article is condescending and arrogant, exactly reflecting the extremist one eyed views of the mining industry.

MacNamara’s argument is specious and superficial, contains no facts except for a shopping list from the UN for minerals, appeals to emotion instead of reason. And deliberately (and dishonestly) conflates mining lithium with mining fossil fuels

MacNamara completely glosses over the terrible danger that climate change represents. Calling it a “distant problem”.

Mac Namara’s claim that we need coal, to produce steel is a lie. Steel is an infinitely recyclable material. A simple google search reveals that the majority of the steel in the U.S. the world’s third biggest producer after China and Japan, is made from recycled scrap, and not the smelting of ore with coal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_and_steel_industry_in_the_United_States

There are two main types of steel mills. The traditional large integrated steel mill, which reduces metallic iron from ore (iron oxide) and makes it into pig iron and steel, has been steadily declining in importance for decades in the US. The second type, the mini-mill, or specialty steel mill, which produces new steel products by melting steel scrap, now produces the majority of steel in the US….

….Two-thirds of the iron and steel produced in the US is made from recycled scrap, rather than from iron ore. In 2014, 81 million mt of iron and steel were produced from scrap.[9]Most steel from scrap is produced using electric arc furnaces.

Wikipedia

It is an unfortunate fact that in North America a lot of the electricity used in the arc furnaces is generated from coal, but that is not the case in New Zealand, (and may not even remain the case in the US as renewables replace coal in generating electricity even in America.)

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