Cheap peat process may end up buried

Press, 5 February 1986, Page 22

Cheap peat process may end up buried

PA Auckland A peat-processing technique being developed by two Auckland engineers could cut Obinewai coal project costs by millions of dollars and be a valuable export earner. But, while State Coal Mines officials are aware of the scheme, it may miss the Ohinewai deci-sion-making process. The two engineers, Messrs Robert de Colonne and Robert Bryant, believe their proposal could provide biomass fuel during a shortage of wood chips over the next decade. They say the peat dried by their method should be good enough to be turned into gas for the Huntly Power Station. Laboratory tests indicate their scheme would cost far less than most other proposals considered in a D.S.I.R. report. Mr de Colonne said a

plant to process peat from Ohinewai should cost between $lO million and $l6 million. Operating cost would be about $25 a tonne. Other schemes could cost up to $4O million for the plant and $6O a tonne for operating costs, he said. But they have not yet got the money needed to research their scheme past the laboratory stage. Mr de Colonne said he had worked for about five years on a similar scheme to process peat sitting above oil sands in Alberta, Canada, and was awaiting patents for the method to be used at Ohinewai. Some 30 million tonnes of peat sits above the 20 million tonnes of coal wanted to supply the expanded New Zealand Steel mill at Glenbrook. The peat is 90 per cent water, and the de Co-

lonne-Bryant tests have, shown they can reduce it to a cake containing only 1 45 per cent water. The D.S.I.R. has prepared a report on various options, ranging from some highly capital-inten-; sive schemes to a solar drying method that would’ need a large amount of land. ; The Ohinewai project engineer for State Coal, Mines, Mr Noel Cortright, said he knew of the Auck- 1 land engineers' idea buthad no details. To beat other proposals,* the engineers must have, 1 their*scheme evaluated by the time the Ohinewai, feasibility study is produced, in March, 1987. ; Otherwise, not, only is' their Ohinewai proposal, likely to disappear but the*chance to export the tech- : nique and expertise would' have no home base and' also disappear.