A-Infos (en) Aotearoa (New Zealand), Auckland Anarchist #2 - Genesis to decommission Huntly power plant...

Genesis Energy says it has cut carbon dioxide emissions at Huntly Power Station 
by a third after firing up a gas turbine capable of powering Auckland. Sounds 
great doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? --- It is important to note that moving to gas 
fired electricity generation is a step in the right direction, but NOT a step 
away from fossil fuel generated electricity and could well be a sign of things 
to come. --- Furthermore, when the time period is 10-15 years (and more than 
likely its closer to 15) this indicates a move towards so-called ‘clean coal’ 
and carbon capture and storage technology, or if you want: A move towards a new 
public relations strategy with a view to buying time for the fossil fuel 
Industry. 10-15 years is an interesting time frame. Firstly, this is how long it 
looks like it will take for ‘clean coal’ technology to get up and running if it 
ever works at all, and it could well take longer than this.

‘Clean Coal’ is the coal industry’s version of ‘Safe nuclear waste’, its a time 
wasting tactic similar to claims by the Nuclear Industry that they are ‘on the 
verge of a breakthrough which would eliminate any dangers resulting from Nuclear 
waste’. The climate change debate follows similar lines in different regions of 
the world. Some countries are a few stages ahead of others and I propose that 
New Zealand’s Coal industry is a few months behind Australia’s and is now 
following the route that the climate change debate has taken in Oz by moving on 
to the next stage of excuses: clean coal is going to fix everything and lets 
start exporting HEAPS more coal. The good news is that this move has largely 
been spurred on by consumer concern about climate change, and increased consumer 
knowledge of which electricity providers are still investing in fossil fuel 
based electricity generation, for example: GP’s clean energy guide.

Last year Australia woke up to the fact that 85% of its electricity was 
generated from coal thanks to the efforts of the Australian environmental 
movement, Inconvenient truth came out, the Save Anvil Hill campaign became the 
“Iconic battle against the Australian coal industry” and the Australian 
anti-coal movement was thrust into the mainstream media on a daily basis. The 
coal Industry and government could no longer plead ignorance and responded by 
changing their rhetoric from ‘Its not Happening and/or its not our fault’ to the 
Howard government acknowledging the need for action on climate change, speaking 
about market based solutions which won’t work and blaming China (but not 
actually doing anything in Australia). And with this, the coal industry 
announced the Technological Fix, ‘Clean Coal’. Now the fight is on to debunk the 
myth of clean coal, to show the people of Australia that you CAN stop a coal 
mine and to break the Australian people’s blind faith in their leader’s rhetoric.

And its not just Australia, you can see these responses in practically every 
country in the world at one stage or another of the debate.

Heres how it goes…

1. Climate change isn’t happening

2. The Three Fixes:
- The knowledge/propaganda Fix: Its happening but not because of human activity etc.
- The Technological Fix: Its our fault after all, but its ok coz we can fix it 
with technology
- The Market fixes: Industry self regulates / carbon trading is introduced (with 
lots of convenient loopholes for Industry to play with).

3. Lets export the coal instead to them savages in asia who we can blame for 
causing climate change coz they’re trying to develop their economies in the same 
way we did in an attempt to react to the effects of globalisation.
So, to sum up…
- We can’t let Genesis away with pretending they’re doing enough to combat 
climate change
- We have to be ready for this next ‘clean coal’ stage in the debate and be 
ready to blow this myth out of the water as soon as it arrives on the scene.
- Watch out for the shift to massively increased coal exports in NZ, this will 
tie in with clean coal insofar as the coal companies will be saying

1. Its not our fault if they burn it overseas (as if they’re gonna eat it or do 
anything els with it) and

2. Clean coal is on the way anyway.

So, another 15 years or so of burning coal at Huntly. In the meantime Genesis 
are investing in so called ‘Clean Coal’ technology which will cost a RIDICULOUS 
amount of money to operate if it even works and will take at least 15 years of 
research and development to get off the ground, which is as scientists tell us 
is WAY too late to act. Remember that the nuclear industry has been telling us 
for over a half a century that they’re on the verge of figuring out how to deal 
with the waste.

“The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, the coal age won’t end 
because we run out of coal”, time to move on, think for ourselves and stop 
swallowing Industry propaganda. Leave the coal in the ground!

Carbon Trading: a critical conversation on climate change, privitisation and power
www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/carbonDDlow.pdf

-Clean Coal: Clean Coal, whats the story?
www.risingtide.org.au/cleancoal
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The Auckland Anarchist (called "A Space Inside" for the first issue) is an 
irregular zine of the Auckland Anarchist Collective.
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