Kate Newton, reporting for RNZ:
Plans for a fast-tracked mine expansion in Waikato have paused, because the mine's owners do not know if they can sell the coal.
Bathurst Resources said the entire Rotowaro mine - which employs about 200 people - could close after 2030 "if no further certainty is gained".
The mine's main customer, NZ Steel, is set to drastically cut coal usage at its Glenbrook Steel Mill when a new electric arc furnace replaces two of its four coal-fired kilns later this year.
Glenbrook Steel Mill is responsible for about 2.2% of New Zealand’s emissions. One steel mill alone produces nearly twice what Wellington does. The fact it’s such a concentrated polluter also makes it comparatively easy to decarbonise.
Which is what the previous Labour government did with its investment to electrify half the steel furnaces at Glenbrook with superior electric alternatives.
That decision is having consequences: firstly, our emissions will drop by 800,000 tonnes a year overnight. Hooray. Secondly, it’s killing the market for this coal mine.
Fantastic.
We need to make sure that the communities around this mine are supported. We should offer safer, well paying jobs using these workers engineering skills to electrify the economy.
The economy’s bedrock is built on fossil fuels, but not for long. The US war on Iran, the plummeting price of batteries and renewable electricity, and China’s commitment to become a superpower electrostate mean that fossil fuels are over.
It’s only a matter of time.
