Seeing as Rio Tinto has done the dirty on NZ – shouldn’t we repay the favour by nationalising the smelter and running it ourselves?
NZ will still needs aluminium made as environmentally sustainable as possible – we could market it as ‘Green Aluminium’.
We could save the 2600 jobs at risk and see it is a strategic asset.
Under normal free market conditions purists would scream ‘No’, but with the pandemic raging and likely to erode the foundations of neoliberalism, the free market is dead.
If Rio Tinto are going to abuse us with such spite, all possible responses should be considered.
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I only have the facts as presented in the news and press releases from the company but it would seem that they lost $71 million in 2019 and the site has been for sale since 2011 .For years it gave the area well paid work but the company is not a welfare agency so if it is not making money it is obvious it has to close.
Exactly my thoughts NATIONALISE it for a $1.00 .
Needs to be converted to a ultra high temp plastic/waste burner( as in Sweden which burns the bulk of Europe’s waste) combined with a carbon capture plant. NZ has never needed this electricity sucking white elephant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/climate/sweden-garbage-used-for-fuel.html
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energy-production/sweden-is-great-at-turning-trash-to-energy.htm
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/carbon-capture-gains-momentum
https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/fort-nelson-carbon-capture-storage-project-british-columbia/
Projects for the 21st century that will up skill our workforce and keep young kiws in NZ.
A wind farm in that part of Southland ( southerly gales) wouldn’t go astray either.
Aww, c’mon. We live in a neoliberal society, not in an intelligent one.
If it doesn’t pay off within 3 to 5 years our captains of industry won’t go near it.
” Aww, c’mon. We live in a neoliberal society, not in an intelligent one ”
Agree 100%
What Captains of Industry????????Anyone with any brains, vision or get up and go have got up and gone long ago!
Look at the poor sod trying to build a wave power generating plant in Taranaki. $1.4 million dollars wasted so far by the steering committee for future energy in that province(put in place by dear Jacinda and various MBA’s and policy wonks with economic degrees)and no one can assist him with financing or practical support.Because no one in Wellington or NZ generally has ANY relevant technical heavy engineering expertise. It isn’t just science that needs shitloads of R&D funding it’s Engineering . And NO we don’t want ANY assistance from fucking China because they will steal anything we come up with and or fuck the manufacture or design so we are dependent on them!. Wake up smell the stench of totalitarianism.
Your idea is GENIUS. We absolutely require – without a doubt – a high temperature burner. This type of thing can burn anything. Literally anything. Mad cow disease infected corpes – dust. Dioxin riddled milk cartons? Puff!! This is the future for the plant.
They put out CO2 and other GHG plus may toxic products depending on what is being burned.
High temperature incineration of waste produces toxic waste in emissions and ash as well as massive CO2 and other GHGs.
CCS is not used at the Swedish plants because is not viable economically, would be too risky and very environmentally expensive indeed.
Sweden is heating towns and hot water, avoiding their landfill problems but not forever
Yes we remember when Winston announced the NZ First policy to make rules around wether any overseas company can pull out of NZ ‘without penalties’.
This was exactly why Winston put that policy in place.
So it will be interesting if labour just goes easy on Tio Tinto by offering public funding to keep these corporate ratbags here or not.
I believe we need to Re -Nationalise these industries now if they leave.
No
It would cause too much uncertainty among other multi national companies operating in New Zealand.
Perhaps we should offer to buy it as a going concern for a walk away price. I hope that there is a stringent decommissioning clause in Rio Tinto’s operating contract and they might welcome the chance to walk from that.
We would need to ensure we had long term contracts in place for the supply of bauxite. But this government couldnt buy some magazines so I am not hopeful
Absolutely and pay the workers a wage subsidy to provide needed security while the plant changes owners to make sure they don’t relocate all the trained staff during the interim.
I would be tempted to run the plant at a loss and steal as much market share from Rio Tinto as possible, two can play this game and it is about those at the top felt some of the pain they like dishing out.
Hear hear. It’ll cost a lot just to pay for the unemployment, so may as well buy the going concern for a $1 NETT (!!!!) and sell ALL environmental economic production at below market rate, to sell it all.
We should buy the site back, then tear most of it down, and then repurpose it to recycle plastic. Keeping it running as a smelter would be a waste of money.
StandAlone – Yes! That would not only “work”, it would solve one of NZ’s all-time worst problems – the one that successive govts keep avoiding, sending it off shore, pretending it doesn’t exist.
We have mountains, literally, of toxic waste of all kinds that our govts wash their hands of – Time for them to take responsibility for this and deal with it!
And here, waiting for them, is the solution. If they don’t take this opportunity now, they’ll have to build something similar to do so in the future.
there is NOWHERE for the plastic to be recycled to due to the immense stockpiles of the stuff in the third world countries who have been taking it from us for over 40 years! It has to be burnt. Yes we long ago reached that point. This is not the 1970’s!!!
Shona it really can’t be burnt for many reasons. Bury it and stop importing plastic.
Our mistake with plastic was when we started using it.
Carbon capture and storage is basically a hope giving myth.
Even catalytic pyrolysis with is flexibility just produces more oil from the plastic so we can burn that .
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0957582016301082
We need to put fossil fuels back in the ground. Bury the plastic.
Yes it can dumbass. Have you checked out high temp incineration lately? It’s fucking 1000 centigrade!!!!!! That is fucking hot.
“dumbass.”
Not a word I am familiar with.
“Have i checked out high Temperature burning lately”
Not just lately but over the last 60 years since
I first started using reasonably high temperatures for several processes with furnaces above 2000 deg C.
The problems you will find is that most of the sites discussion CCS are theoretical and promoted by commercial and political interest which don’t tell the full story.
CCS is not viable as the energy and resource needed to approach a medium term but risky geological sequestration. far exceeds the energy gained from burning the fuel in the first place, There is no long tern risk free sequestration of CO2 into geological storage as a liquid under high pressure of say 5,000 – 10,000 psi even being seriously planned.
Burning of plastics in high temperature incineration is not an answer to disposing of plastics.
Greenpeace – “We should reduce, reuse, and recycle, in that order. when we get to the stage of deciding whether to burn or bury waste, we have already failed, failed some more and then failed again.
However, it is safer to contain that failure than to spread it through the atmosphere in the form of toxic gases and the gasses are toxic and CO2 is freely emitted from the oil based plastics incinerated.”
The Swedish furnaces are used for generating electricity and hot water, produce massive CO2 emissions, toxic ash and waste that has to be buried.
So look a bit deeper than the headlines, if you can manage that. Good luck
Burying has many problems also.
The western work is fast running out of landfill space
Well there’s a “Kiwi Town Making Roads out of Plastic” apparently: NewsHub June 2019
Plastic that used to be put on a boat to get recycled 10,000km away is now hitting the road – literally.
Liardet St in New Plymouth has been resurfaced with asphalt partly made of used plastic.
“It looks just like an ordinary road surface, but there’s actually the equivalent of more than 83,300 yoghurt pots inside,” said David Langford, infrastructure manager for New Plymouth District Council.
Instead of shipping it to China, the plastic now only has to travel about 10 to 15km to find a second life. Rest at the link
Already we have pollution of micro plastics from tyres, clothing and now more from roads where plastic is embeded.
Why do that.
Even if nationalised, NZ would still need to buy the raw materials from overseas and then re-export and who would it have to buy from? Rio Tinto and similar multi-nationals. The net benefit of the smelter is a lot lower than the gross figures on exports suggest. Its very tough on Southland, but I read analysis that showed NZ as a whole would be better off without it – I am trying to find that analysis
Hey, the NZ public have just been gifted a major hydro elec system to add to the grid. Never mind that it was technically already ours. Its product can now be put to much better use for all NZers than it has been.
Southland have had five decades to prepare for this inevitability, so, sorry if they’re surprised.
@ RC…?
” … so, sorry if they’re surprised.”
Fuck off! There were many things that you should apologise for with regard to Southland. The least of which is for you being fucking smarmy about Southland.
Like ” Sorry for fucking your communities by depopulating Southland with our neoliberal greed while stuffing ourselves with the produce you grow for fuck all.” And sorry for under-funding your cities while fucking auckland gets the cake to have, and to eat. Yeah, sorry.
( If it were not for Tim Shadbolt and his free SIT in Invercargill, a fabulous little city would have been fucked in all permutations of the word bar the literal meaning.
And nationalising the smelter is not only a great idea but is a brilliant idea.
‘And hey?’ If you like cheap electricity why not pop up a reactor on Rangitoto Island? Give the riche fucks in Remuera something to oik at. They, and their three eyed babies can sit back and watch the sparks fly?
Come on you soon to be unemployed Southlanders? Fuck tinto now go back to work. Auckland owes you that much.
Don’t get so upset Countryboy, The aluminum smelter is long past its best days & selling the electricity that used to supply it at a sensible price (less than we pay now & higher than Rio Tinto paid) would provide enough profit to supply jobs for the ex smelter workers in Southland. We need to nationalize the electricity companies to get the best from that deal which is a project worth pursuing.
@CB
I’ll say it again, I’m sorry if they’re surprised, they shouldn’t be.
Did you think it would/should last forever?
Tim has contributed well to the area.
He will stick up for workers in this case but there is nothing wrong with that.
Cook Strait cable IS NOT capable of transferring the 12 % of NZ”s power to the North. It doesn’t have the capacity. So yeah nah …. once again Richard Christie.
rio tinto? meridean energy?
Hang on a minute????????? But wait? There’s more… ?????????????????????????
Wasn’t meridean just busted for rorting ( Stealing) $80 million out of it’s customers?
Was rio tinto one of them? Was rio tinto complicit in some way? Did rio tinto say to meridean many dire and dirty things? It’s a rat, I do smell.
Does anyone read these links anyway??
Fuck it. Here goes…
Meridean got caught.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121998504/flaw-in-the-electricity-market-laid-bare-by-preliminary-ruling-against-meridian
I’m going to tell you a story…
I was driving back from Queenstown to Christchurch one night more than a few years ago at about 1.00 am.
I’d been working on a Japanese TVC in QT and had been away from home for quite some time and I missed my sweetie so I just got in my car and drove once we were wrapped and they were drunk.
I got to the Pukaki dam on SH8 and decided to stop for a cigarette. Mainly because it was a stunning, moon lit night and Aoraki/Mt Cook looked resplendent and that cigarettes are awesome. They’ll kill you, but they’re lovely.
It was also in the middle of a dry period and many people were freaking out about low dam water levels.
I remember that time clearly because I inadvertently parked over a spillway which was, being true to it’s name, spilling water from an already low Lake Pukaki and I remember thinking ” Someone’s going to get an arse kicking for this fuck up.”
Little did I know…
Boys and Girls? Take over the smelter. Go on. You can do it.
Channel ol’ Burt Munro. Go on! ? Fuck them! Now’s your chance. This, is a gift to you.
( We watched the Fastest Indian again just the other night. It was fabulous. I met Burt once when I was a kid. My dad had just bought a Mk 10 Jaguar from Crosbies Garage. We were walking out the alleyway in Invercargill when Dad said ” Oh!? Gidday Burt?” and introduced me to a smaller fellow with a lovely smile. Many years later, when I was driving Roger Donaldson the director of The Fastest Indian, and awesome Ian Mune, the documentary maker for the film, to Timaru, me as the scout. I was able to retell that story to them. It felt rather fucking awesome if I must be honest. And lets face it? Honesty IS the best policy, aye boys?)
Tio Tinto are trying to get rid of other locations of their dirty operation the press now said, one in Iceland or some other far away site so be shouldn’t be surprised.
‘NZ will still needs aluminium made as environmentally sustainable as possible – we could market it as ‘Green Aluminium’.’
There is no such thing ‘Green Aluminium’.
Firstly, the bauxite ore is dug up and transported to refining facilities using diesel-powered machinery.
Secondly, extremely nasty caustic soda and extremely nasty sulphuric acid are using in humungous quantities in the refining.
Thirdly, the refined bauxite is shipped from Australia to NZ using oil-powered ships -noted for their filthy emissions because low-quality, high-sulphur ‘dregs’ are used as fuel, on the basis no one will notice when ships are at sea. Strange that the seas and oceans of the world notice (not).
Fourthly, without the drain on the electricity system the aluminium smelter amounts to, much less natural gas (a carbon dioxide emitting fuel when burned) would be used in NZ to generate electricity…around 13%, I believe.
Fifthly, the smelting process uses yet more nasty chemical, particularly fluorides which escape into the atmosphere. Other wastes, in the solid form, are disposed of via ‘recycling’.
Sixthly, during the smelting the carbon electrodes burn away rapidly, resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions.
And seventhly, the aluminium ingots produced at Ti Wai Point are transported by diesel-powered machinery to places of extrusions (primarily McKecknie, Bell Block, near New Plymouth) where further energy is used to soften the aluminium for extrusion. After which, diesel-powered machinery is used to transport the extrusions to window manufacturers and other users.
Or the ingots are sold on the world market and transported (via filthy international shipping) overseas, some of the aluminium ending up close to where the ore was mined in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting
The reason the smelter was built in NZ was because Australia lacked (and still lacks, of course) the hydro systems that supposedly generate cheap electricity…if you don’t count the emissions commensurate with construction, the loss of land and the slow filling up behind the dam, which increases methane emissions and eventually renders the dam unless the sediment is dredged out.
So many false assumptions.
But let’s face it, this is about industrialism, and humans living apart from nature and destroying nature, rather than being a part of nature and living sustainably within the constraints of natural systems.
If should be needless to say, but I have to keep repeating it: industrialism is unsustainable and is in the process of collapsing.
The big question is, how much MORE damage to the natural systems that make life-as-we-know-it possible are industrial humans prepared to do before the system collapses (due to energy depletion, resource depletion, and the accumulation of waste?
It seems that industrial humans will “keep doing it till they can’t”, as I have said so many time before.
Just as politicians will keep promoting destruction of the environment until they can’t, it seems.
Daily CO2
Jul. 8, 2020: 415.47 ppm
Jul. 8, 2019: 410.76 ppm
Apologies.
I wish I could spot the errors before posting!
‘Secondly, extremely nasty caustic soda and extremely nasty sulphuric acid are USED in humungous quantities in the refining.’
‘The reason the smelter was built in NZ was because Australia lacked (and still lacks, of course) the hydro systems that supposedly generate cheap electricity…if you don’t count the emissions commensurate with construction, the loss of land and the slow filling up behind the dam, which increases methane emissions and eventually renders the dam USELESS unless the sediment is dredged out.’
Ah yes dredging. @afewknowthe truth Never on any accountant or MBA’s list of priorities as they can never intellectually cross the huge disconnect they have where naturally occurring processes affect structures. i.e they can count numbers but cannot visualize the big picture because they have zero hands on experience unlike ENGINEERS!
The big question is, how much MORE damage to the natural systems that make life-as-we-know-it possible are industrial humans prepared to do before the system collapses (due to energy depletion, resource depletion, and the accumulation of waste?
We’re teetering on the edge right now..
(or maybe we’ve already crashed and just haven’t woken sufficiently from the coma to realise it)
100% right with you.
But most of the public can be confused by a few glib but untrue statements.
How about nationalising the housing market?
Good idea Castro and land as well.
A better deal can be worked out for Kiwis and the environment.
How many billionaire do we or the world need. No one can honestly earn that much.
Buy for $1.00 – take charge of the problem without further delay – threaten the aluminium company NZ Aluminium Smelters with legal difficulties unless they co-operate. Then we can deal properly with the mass of by-product ‘dross’ and the ouvea pre-mix that when mixed with water produces toxic ammonia gas!
Some history, facts:
2017 – https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99823372/solution-found-for-hazardous-substance-stored-in-southern-buildings-liquidator – The ouvea premix, which can produce the highly corrosive ammonia gas if it gets wet, remains sitting in sheds at Mataura, Invercargill and Awarua, with public angst over the issue simmering….
Ouvea premix, an oxide residue, which is a waste by-product of the aluminium making process at the Tiwai smelter, was owned by Taha Asia Pacific which had planned to turn the product into fertiliser.
But Taha Asia Pacific went into liquidation 15 months ago after its contract with NZAS to process the ouvea premix expired and was not renewed.
With the premix sitting in the buildings, liquidator Rhys Cain said a fortnight ago a plan was being worked on to remove it offshore…
Environment Southland chairman Nicol Horrell asked Chapman [Cherie Chapman, Invercargill Dross Action Group], to inform Environment Southland staff if she knew of other locations it was stored.
2019.July.12 – https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/southland-top-stories/114187575/deal-signed-to-move-ouvea-premix-from-southland-warehouses – … The removal of ouvea premix is scheduled to begin under a contract secured by the Gore District Council.
The premix, a class 6 hazardous substance, releases poisonous ammonia gas when wet. It was left in warehouses in Southland after Taha Asia Pacific, which was storing the substance without resource consent at Mataura and Awarua, went into liquidation in 2016.
The contract with Australian-based company Inalco Processing Ltd will see the removal of 22,000 tonnes of the substance from sites in Mataura and Invercargill during the next six years.
2019.July 25 – https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/114493454/deal-for-1500-tonnes-of-hazardous-substance-to-be-removed-from-mataura – …Earlier this month, the Gore District Council announced an agreement had been signed for with Australian-based company Inalco Processing Ltd, which “will see the removal of 22,000 tonnes of the substance from sites in Mataura and Invercargill over the next six years”…
Only 1500 tonnes of the 10,000 tonnes of ouvea premix being stored in the former paper mill building at Mataura will be moved in the next 12 months…
[A report from Gisborne District Council chief executive Stephen Parry said], “This lower rate of removal is due to the need for the purchaser to experiment with the processing at 13 Tiwai Point to ensure that it irons out any teething problems in its quest for converting the ouvea premix into a recognisable product in the marketplace.
“Thereafter, the agreement envisages 4500 tonnes per annum being removed which if achieved will see the Mataura premises fully cleared of the ouvea premix within a three-year period.”
2020.Feb – https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/119289272/concerns-about-toxic-substance-being-stored-at-mataura – The Southland District Mayor Gary Tong categorically denies there had been any ammonia leaks at the paper mill in Mataura today.
And, EMS civil defence controller Angus McKay said claims that were was ammonia gas inside the building on Wednesday were “speculation and rumour”.
A volunteer, who was sand bagging inside the Mataura papermill on Wednesday morning and contacted Stuff, stands by their comment they were driven out by ammonia gas after floodwaters entered the building.
2020.July.6 – https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/122029470/environment-court-proceedings-on-ouvea-premix-begins
A decision on the proceedings was expected before the end of the year, he said.
New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Limited’s (NZAS) aluminium processing produces a by-product called dross, which can be subjected to an aluminium recovery and recycling process. One of the outputs of that process is ouvea premix, which has potential use in fertiliser manufacturing and steel production.
The smelter has already contributed $1.75 million to a six-year, $4m deal which will see all the premix moved to Tiwai Point, where it will be further processed by Inalco Processing Ltd. The premix at Mataura is being moved first because of the significant risks posed to both the environment and people by having the premix stored next to the Mataura River.
2020.July.9 – https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/122086491/departing-nzas-told-it-must-live-up-to-environmental-responsibilities
[Environmental Defence Society chief executive Gary Taylor] said: The society believes its upcoming court action seeking New Zealand Aluminium Smelters to be held accountable for the safe disposal of smelter dross is all the more important in light of the company’s signalled demise.
The society is also concerned about the standard of remediation – a requirement to leave the land on the Tiwai site itself in a condition as close as practicable to how it had been before the smelter was built.
NZAS has estimated it will take $250 million to meet these obligations. Taylor said the testing work and negotiations would need to be robust and well-scrutinised given the potential differences between the original “theoretical’ consent conditions and ‘’another look at it in the cold light of day in 2021’’.
Fucking contracts and slipping out of responsibility, not worth the dross that they are written in!
NZAS denies ownership of the premix, having entered into a contract with a processing company, Taha Asia Pacific that later went belly-up, its liquidators disowning the remaining material.
Feet are obviously being dragged with Court cases and judgments being delaying tactics rather than delivering proper responsible action. The problem is immense and these mining companies are totally unable to deal with the toxic results of their activities apart from covering them with concrete or such and sailing off to other money-making ventures. If it can’t be covered or surrounded by a bund wall, then what? Does anyone with half a brain think that NZ Aluminium Smelters which last year in their accounts, showed a loss of $50million or such is going to pay out $250 million to remediate the site. Cheaper to plant a few native trees and flaxes for the look of the thing, and fight the reality in Court until we are exhausted.
As Geoff says buy it for $1 and make sure it is done, and maybe keep one line of pots or whatever going, even if we can just make a tiny profit. It would be part of our basic resources.
This on google about aluminium and its uses and advantages/disadvantages. And remember we already have a disadvantage, the dross. Here are some links about that:
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_dross_recycling
# 2014-http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/10466803/Safety-of-fertiliser-premix-queried
# 2014-http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/10400912/Contaminant-handling-advice-misinterpreted
# 2016-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405653716300306 – Investigation of concrete produced using recycled aluminium dross for hot weather concreting conditions
# https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279586565_Review_of_aluminum_dross_processing
# https://worldwidescience.org/topicpages/a/aluminium+dross+waste.html
# https://www.science.gov/topicpages/a/aluminium+dross+waste
1 …because aluminium itself is not particularly strong. Alloys with copper, manganese, magnesium and silicon are lightweight but strong. https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/13/aluminium
2 http://www.aalco.co.uk/datasheets/Aluminium-Alloy_Introduction-to-Aluminium-and-its-alloys_9.ashx
3 https://www.mckechnie.co.nz/capabilities/technical-specifications/technical-information/aluminium-in-architecture.html
4 https://www.austenknapman.co.uk/blog/commercial-metal-use/5-most-common-applications-of-aluminium/
5 https://www.thyssenkrupp-materials.co.uk/uses-of-aluminium.html
6 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25020651
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