The answer to tackling climate change is staring us in the face Jim Childerstone writes.
Recent reports through the mainstream media indeed paint a grim picture for our future survival.
Tipping points towards heating up Planet Earth are coming at us thick and fast.
Time is running out, according to leading climatologists, partly though lagging technologies, population explosion and economics based on consumerism and growth.
The ODT’s regular commentator Gwynn Dyer observes (4.6.24) "It was technology that got us into this global climate crises (in the first place), and it will be technology that gets us out of it."
"Specifically, technology that let us go on living in a high energy civilisation without burning fossil fuels and technology that keeps the heat from overwhelming us while we work towards that goal."
The oft-mentioned alternative energy producers — wind, solar, nuclear etc — currently produce a fraction of the energy required and still take time to develop, with considerable impacts on the environment and carbon footprint.
And let’s face it: every electronic device, mechanised tool and EV transport requires lithium/cobalt and rare metals to make them work.
Yet all pundits, experts and many commentators seem to be asking ‘what is the most immediate system to hold greenhouse gas emissions at low levels while alternative fuels and technology catch up?’
Technology nerds need time, plant set up and production of materials to make it work.
Practical, common sense solutions sit right under the noses of the public and their leaders — namely in the waste streams, landfills, community recycling yards, wood-based products and forestry residues.
It is this country’s basic resource: trees.
And while we are at it, let’s not forget trees sequester carbon. Timber products retain carbon. That energy from wood biomass emits under a 20th of greenhouse gasses compared to coal.
Converted coal burning boilers throughout the Otago-Southland area, including Fonterra plants, now burn wood chip and pellet fuels.
Yet a drive around cut-over harvested forests finds they sport heaps of rotting slash on landings and skid sites.
Researchers have estimated only about 25% of wood residues have been processed into chip fuels for heat energy.
There has so far been nil response from firms involved with biomass production, such as Pioneer Energy, who had been trialling use of wilding pine in the Pukaki area. It is now involved with a major South Otago windfarm.
Specific answers are hard to come by.
Leaders in the Forestry Industries Association and Forest Owners Association have attempted to point out the benefits of timber as a major national industry and mitigation for climate change, but with little political impact. It is the one immediate available resource to cut carbon emissions, according to past NZFOA president Grant Dodson, of Dunedin City Forests.
It also believes multi-story buildings would benefit by substituting engineered timber beams for construction purposes.
Plants in both islands are producing laminated products suitable for local projects. Little need to import steel products from overseas.
Yet designers and engineers insist on imported steel beams and other mined metals in their plans.
And we now learn schemes are afoot to erect mega wind farms in the southern provinces using traditional steel towers, yet some 88 countries are seriously looking at wood-based towers following a Swedish design.
It is plainly obvious we have the expertise to halt our own emissions using our natural and exotic forestry resources.
Perhaps Shane Jones could latch on to the proposed Fast-track Bill to pave the way for the Australian Foresta Group to set up its Bay of Plenty plant to produce torrefied wood pellets, chemicals and rosins to boost our on-shore forestry industries. Two plants are being investigated in the South Island.
Huntly Power Station has stated that it much preferred to burn wood pellets instead of coal for electricity generation.
It is all rather basic, isn’t it?
- Jim Childerstone is a forestry consultant.
