Coal diesel going down the wrong road - Greens

Plans by Solid Energy for a “multi-billion” dollar lignite-based liquid fuel plant in Southland will make a joke of New Zealand’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Green Party says.

Solid Energy has announced that it is considering developing a plant which will produce up to 50,000 barrels of diesel a day over the next 40 years using 18 million tonnes per year of low-grade brown coal known as lignite.

“The process of converting lignite to diesel and then burning the diesel produces between a third more and double the Greenhouse emissions than diesel produced from oil,” Green’s Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says.

Solid Energy is known to be relying on carbon capture and storage to reduce greenhouse emissions from the project.

However, this technology is not proven and will be very expensive. It can’t capture all the emissions created during the production process nor can it deal with the greenhouse gases that will belch from the exhaust pipes of the vehicles that burn the fuel, she says.


Solid Energy also plans to generate electricity onsite for possible export to the grid.

“This should not be seen as a positive for the project. There is absolutely no need when we have so many other options for cleaner, renewable electricity production,” Ms Fitzsimons says.

“These plans make a joke of the Prime Minister’s aspirational goal of carbon neutrality, as well as any Government plans for greenhouse gas reduction.

“If this Government is serious about tackling climate change it must put a stop to this hair-brained scheme by one of its own State Owned Enterprises and put is money where its aspirations are.

“The millions of dollars that would be invested in this project would be better spent on developing new sustainable energy sources rather than locking us into a carbon intensive fossil fuel transport future for decades,” Ms Fitzsimons says.