Coal use driving New Zealand dairy industry

Coal burning in New Zealand's pillar dairy manufacturing industry rose in the last three years, while total energy use in all manufacturing dropped by 8 percent, the government statistics agency said Monday.

"The export volume of dairy products had risen 16 percent between 2012 and 2014, and all businesses involved in manufacturing milk products reported an increase in the use of coal," said a commentary from Statistics New Zealand.

However, the overall reported coal use by the food, beverage, and tobacco manufacturing industry had fallen since 2012.

The entire manufacturing sector, which accounts for about 11 percent of gross domestic product, used around 157,000 terajoules of energy in 2014, down 8 percent from 2012.

"The manufacturing industry derived one-third of its total energy from electricity in 2014," business performance senior manager Jason Attewell said in a statement.

"However, coal is an important energy source in the food, beverage, and tobacco manufacturing industry, particularly for dairy product manufacturing. Dairy products made up one-fifth of New Zealand's total export revenue in the year ended December 2014."

Dairy giant Fonterra has been a frequent target of environment campaigners for using huge amounts of coal to dry milk to make milk powder. Endit