All remaining coal boilers in New Zealand schools will be replaced with cleaner wood burners or electric heating by 2025, at a cost of $10 million, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.Good. Its appalling that we're still burning coal for heat in the 21st century, and removing it will help both lower domestic demand for this dirty fuel, and build experience on the best ways to replace old boilers with new, efficient heat sources. And the latter should help with wider decarbonisation and the eventual removal of industrial burners.The coal boiler removal is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 35,400 tonnes over 10 years, the equivalent of removing about 1400 cars from the roads.
It is part of the latest spend from the $220m State Sector Decarbonisation Fund, with a further $12.92m going to other projects.
And now obviously they need to move into removing gas, and replacing those boilers with heat pumps and solar panels.