Prosser Richard: Sustainable Biofuel Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prosser Richard: Sustainable Biofuel Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 04 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1683. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Sustainable Biofuel Bill on behalf of New Zealand First. New Zealand First opposes this bill not because we are anti the environment and not in fact because we disagree with the stated intention of the bill but simply because we wish to illustrate the fact that the concept behind the bill is a simple nullity. New Zealand First does believe and we do agree that if we are going to use biofuels at all in New Zealand then of course they should be sustainable. We do not however accept that this can be a possibility especially if these biofuels are going to be imported. 
The reasons that we hold the concept of biofuels being unsustainable are multifold. Essentially it comes down to the fact that any biofuels that we use which we burn in place of fossil fuels contain carbon and there are no free lunches in carbon-oxygen chemistry. Whether the source of carbon is a fossil fuel or whether it is a biofuel in order to obtain an equivalent amount of energy in terms of say miles per gallon or kilowatts achieved through a generator we need to break a certain number of carbon-oxygen bonds and remake new ones. If we are going to use a fuel that contains long-chain hydrocarbons such as coal or heavy oil then we will use proportionately a smaller amount of this particular material as opposed to a biofuel that is generally lighter weight say ethanol or methanol but we will use more of it. In environmental terms whether one accepts the concept of a carbon footprint and greenhouse gases or not we cannot get away from the reality that in order to obtain a certain amount of energy we need to burn a certain amount of carbon and the source of that carbon is largely irrelevant.  
If we are going to import biofuels of any sort be it palm oil or ethanol that somebody else has made obviously we have to put that fuel on a ship and that ship has to be made out of steel and the steel has to be made out of iron ore which has to be mined somewhere and then refined. Well the energy that goes into producing the steel to make that ship has to be taken into the equation. Also we have to take into account the fact that that ship is going to run on marine diesel and these things all have to be included. So even if you look at a source that you can say comes from overseas and the fuel itself is being manufactured in a sustainable manner we need to look at the entire big picture and that big picture tells us that there is no way that we can take what should be ostensibly a low environmental impact fuel from overseas and import it to New Zealand without taking the extra energy that is required and the transportation into the equation. As I say there are no free lunches in carbon-oxygen chemistry.  
We agree with a lot of what the National Party says but probably not for the same reasons. We do not oppose the concept of sustainable energy. We support the idea of a lower pollution footprint certainly for humanity. How this is best achieved I think can be determined by where we direct our energies. New Zealand First believes that biofuels are a nice idea as some members on the Government side have said but are probably not achievable. What I think we need to do is to look towards something that has a greater future in terms of being an alternative to oil as a feedstock for energy for the Western World. There is a reality that change comes about in terms of human activity and industry quite often for reasons other than economic ones that are given at certain times. The Stone Age for example did not come to an end because we ran out of stone and the steam age did not come to an end because we ran out of steam. The oil age will not come to an end because we have run out of oil. There is plenty of oil. It exists in different forms. There are economic arguments as to whether certain types of oil are economically extractable or not; as the world price of oil moves upwards we tend to find that alternative sources of that oil become more economic to recover. As I say if we are going to use biofuels at all yes certainly we agree they should be sustainable but this bill will focus on the use of biofuels as an alternative to putting energies into finding an alternative to oil itself which biofuels do not do. There is one source of energy that is capable of replacing oil as a feedstock for humanity’s energy requirements and that is hydrogen. Hydrogen at the moment is a long way off still because we have to have the extraction technologies perfected and we have to have storage and transportation perfected. But once those technologies are perfected hydrogen will stand out as a possible replacement for oil.  
The member on the Labour side mentioned that there are some industrial wastes that we currently produce in New Zealand that can be used to produce biofuels—and that is true. But these wastes are already being used for other purposes. Tallow for example is a valuable product that already has a market. Ethanol that is produced from whey by Fonterra is already being used. It is the source for vodka and for ready-to-drinks. It is being sold already; it is a useful product. When we look at the proportion of energy that can be extracted from say a source like ethanol Fonterra just for example produces about a million litres of ethanol a month whereas New Zealand car drivers and truck drivers use diesel and petrol at a rate of 10 million litres a day. The simple mathematical comparison between what we can produce in ethanol terms from whey and what we need to consume in terms of petrol and diesel means that using a source such as whey to produce ethanol is at best an exercise in tokenism. We feel that concentrating efforts on producing biofuels in this manner removes our focus and our energies away from what should be the long-term alternative source which in our view is hydrogen. For those reasons we are opposed to the passage of this bill. We support the concept behind it but it is distracting from what needs to be the real agenda. Thank you.