Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Rob Mallinson: Head of Solid Bioenergy Group on its potential in aiding the energy crisis

Transcript

Rob Mallinson: Head of Solid Bioenergy Group on its potential in aiding the energy crisis · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The energy crisis. We've been talking about it all week.
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  Speaker 1: We've got gaps to fill when the sun don't shine,
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  Speaker 1: when the wind don't blow, when the rain don't fall.
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  Speaker 1: And a lot of people are saying, you know, gas LNG.
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  Speaker 1: What about bio energy? Could slash the stuff that comes
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  Speaker 1: from the forestry. One of our guests mentioned this yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: We wanted to take a closer look at it. Solid
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  Speaker 1: biofuels are burned to create heat and electricity generation as
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  Speaker 1: a cheaper alternative to gas. Companies like Fonterra are actually
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  Speaker 1: already using this technology. So how could we do it
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  Speaker 1: here and what would it cost? Rob Mallinson is the
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  Speaker 1: head of Solid bio Energy Group, is with me this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Hey Rob, good thank you. Tell me. The one thing
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  Speaker 1: I hear about SLASH in particular is by the time
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  Speaker 1: you go up into the what wops and find the
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  Speaker 1: slash and then manually get it out and then put
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  Speaker 1: it in a truck and take it to some facility
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  Speaker 1: to have it, it's very time consuming. What do you think?
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  Speaker 1: What do you say to that?
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  Speaker 2: Certainly correct? Particularly I get in the Disbone region because
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  Speaker 2: it's so remote, but there's plenty of areas already recovering
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  Speaker 2: it around, certainly, for instance in the Nelson region Ndrebris.
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  Speaker 2: So it's of course, it's of course, that's right, You're right,
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  Speaker 2: it's hard to get it out of some places. I
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  Speaker 2: want to draw the attention to the twenty million tons
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  Speaker 2: of logs that we export annually, twenty million tons a year,
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  Speaker 2: the forestings to producer and ships. Eighty to ninety percent
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  Speaker 2: of that goes to China, pretty low value. And we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about an energy shortage, a shortage of fuel, and
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  Speaker 2: we've got one hundred and fifty petter duels of logs
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  Speaker 2: that were exporting every year. That's equivalent to Maui at
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  Speaker 2: its peak, and it's a renewable and it's half the
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  Speaker 2: coast of Lerg. So we need it's to be a
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  Speaker 2: part of the solution. I'm not saying it's the silver bullet,
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  Speaker 2: but there's a huge potential part of the solution, particularly
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  Speaker 2: for North Island industry who's taking a massive hit at
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  Speaker 2: the moment and now they're sitting around waiting for an
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  Speaker 2: LERG terminal that may or may not happen. You know what,
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  Speaker 2: prime it'll be over thirty dollars.
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  Speaker 1: A GIGGATRP, so just burn the lungs, don't sell them
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  Speaker 1: to China.
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  Speaker 2: Potentially that's an option. Yeah, we could use the residue first,
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  Speaker 2: of course, but then we've got one hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 2: peda duels of logs. So for one hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 2: million giga jewels, the North Island industry uses twenty five
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  Speaker 2: million giga jels to put into contact. So we just
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  Speaker 2: need twenty percent of the export logs be low. It's
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  Speaker 2: value export logs which are probably going to drop off
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  Speaker 2: if anyone in terms of job the demand from China
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  Speaker 2: with their declining population and construction industry. So we need
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  Speaker 2: to be finding a home for this and we need
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  Speaker 2: a policy that encourages that home.
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  Speaker 1: We are we then, you know again kneecapping one industry
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  Speaker 1: to try and prop up our energy sector, aren't we?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, which is what is happening right now with
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  Speaker 1: mythnics etc. But are we not just doing more of
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  Speaker 1: the same as opposed to actually, you know, adding to
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  Speaker 1: the productive capacity of the country.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, if we put in an LNG terminal, if those
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  Speaker 2: twenty five million giga duels of North Filand industry demand
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  Speaker 2: is met through LNG eight hundred million dollars a year
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  Speaker 2: roughly we'll go offshore versus paying four hundred million dollars
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  Speaker 2: to the log industry, to the forest industry keep it
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  Speaker 2: on shore. It makes no sense to be putting an
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  Speaker 2: l It makes no sense to be locking in a
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  Speaker 2: fossil fuel when we've got one hundred and fifty petted
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  Speaker 2: duals of renewal energy available locally every year. It's not
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  Speaker 2: a declining resource. It's a sustainable resource. And all our
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  Speaker 2: North onlond industry is under pressure from their cluster clients
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  Speaker 2: will be decarbonized. But this can take all those boxes.
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  Speaker 1: Rob you're the head of the Solid bio Energy Group.
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  Speaker 1: What is that.
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  Speaker 2: It's a subset of the bio Energy Association of New Zealands.
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  Speaker 2: So I just represent a bunch of people who who
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  Speaker 2: want to see this this progress. People and industry. We're
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  Speaker 2: a well established industry. All their sawmills and poultenoff they
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  Speaker 2: all use this technology. It's just good or combustion of
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  Speaker 2: biomass in wood boilers to make heat or steam. So
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  Speaker 2: it's perfectly suited to meeting those heat requirements of North
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  Speaker 2: Island industry and South Island industry and we've already adopted
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  Speaker 2: about five PETTA duals in the last few years according
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  Speaker 2: to ECO, the government authority. So it's happening. We just
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  Speaker 2: need to hamp faster. The industry is very capable. There's
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  Speaker 2: twenty different boiler suppliers available in New Zealand or boiler
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  Speaker 2: tech types. A mature industry that's spential to grow even further.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I would love to hear from people
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  Speaker 1: out there who are in this industry whether it's a
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  Speaker 1: viable alternative that we should be looking at more. Rob,
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much for your time. That's Rob Mallinson,
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  Speaker 1: here's the head of these solid bio energy groups. Says
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  Speaker 1: we're exporting a whole bunch of logs to China and
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  Speaker 1: we would only need to use twenty five percent of
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  Speaker 1: our export logs to try and fill the energy gaps
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  Speaker 1: that we've got. New Zone for more from News Talks
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