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Speaker 1: We need to be a bit practical about this business

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Speaker 1: of important coal. I reckon yesterday Genesis, Mercury, Meridian Contacts.

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Speaker 1: They came together and announced they're going to stockpile up

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Speaker 1: to six hundred thousand tons of coal to keep the

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Speaker 1: lights on it Huntley. The coal gives us a backup

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Speaker 1: for when times. You know, when electricity is low, when

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Speaker 1: the late levels are low, when the wind isn't blowing.

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Speaker 1: Huntley is the largest electricity generation site in the country,

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Speaker 1: and it needs fuel to run on. Eventually, they would

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Speaker 1: like it to be all biomass and green and friendly, etc.

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Speaker 1: But in the meantime they need something reliable to keep

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Speaker 1: things chugging along so as we avoid another energy crunch

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Speaker 1: like we had last year when spot prices went berserk

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Speaker 1: because we realized how little gas we have in this

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Speaker 1: country and cue the predictable outcries of disbelief and feigned

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Speaker 1: shock from some quarters in reaction to this, including those

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Speaker 1: climate protesters. Have you seen them, who I can only

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Speaker 1: assume are still disrupting operations at the Stockton mine in

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Speaker 1: the South Island, hanging from an aerial bucket with their

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Speaker 1: banners unfurled. Last time I saw them there was a

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Speaker 1: woman up there in the bucket, you know, health and

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Speaker 1: safety be damned, zooming into a call with a journalist.

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Speaker 1: And she did this completely unironically, surrounded by a plethora

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Speaker 1: of plastic in things like the cables she was using,

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Speaker 1: her cell phone, the battery packs, the tools, even her

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Speaker 1: helmet plastic, plastic, plastic. She explained that coal was evil,

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Speaker 1: of course, and would eventually ruin and kill the planet,

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Speaker 1: never mind the fact that her presence in the bucket

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Speaker 1: meant that workers were now having to truck their coal

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Speaker 1: from one site to another using yes, you guessed it,

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Speaker 1: diesel engines rather than the aerial rope pulley system whose

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Speaker 1: bucket she and her plastic fantastic friends were now occupying.

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Speaker 1: No shame either, apparently about a helicopter flying in. This

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Speaker 1: was the local news reporting a helicopter flying in Yes

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Speaker 1: where avga Yes to check on the protest is after

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Speaker 1: a bit of rain. Paul thinks. The reality is this.

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Speaker 1: Nobody's saying coal is amazing and it's the only solution

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Speaker 1: to our problem, and let's burn it till we all burn.

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Speaker 1: I've not heard anyone say that. They're just saying we

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Speaker 1: need this reliable fuel to tide us over till we

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Speaker 1: don't need it anymore. If the choice is to either

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Speaker 1: burn coal or have a cold shower, I know what

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Speaker 1: I'm doing, and let's not forget that even if we

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Speaker 1: did stop digging up coal and using it to heat

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Speaker 1: our homes occasionally, some other country far away would be

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Speaker 1: doing exactly that anyway. For more from Earlily Edition with

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Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talk Set B from

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Speaker 1: five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.