Coal, always a boom/bust industry, took a dive. Solid Energy never recovered from the price slump nor from Don Elder's over-exuberant lignite ambitions. Voluntary administrators came on the scene in 2015 and after hundreds of job losses the company finally went bust in 2017.
You would have thought that was the end of coal in New Zealand. We'd signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
At around 85 per cent renewable electricity and with plenty of low emission options New Zealand not only had a relatively straight forward path to carbon neutrality but also a moral responsibility to quit coal.
Instead, Australian company Bathurst Resources, shielded from coal's low prices by their long term deals with Fonterra, kept on mining coal. Fonterra kept burning it. All their South Island and three of their North Island factories burn coal to dry milk for export.
After the Glenfield steel mill Fonterra is the country's second biggest user of coal, burning upwards of 534,000 tonnes a year (2015 figures).
Between farm chores Mike sees direct action as a way to highlight important issues like retaining a liveable world.
"I prefer action to words. We farmers are facing the brunt of the changing weather patterns. The new normal is unpredictable weather set against the backdrop of the climate crisis, brought on by the burning of fossil fuels. Coal is last century's fuel. Given the chance to directly stop climate criminals like Bathurst Resources and Solid Energy before them I won't hesitate."
In 2017 he chained himself to the coal gate at Fonterra's Clandeboye milk factory near Temuka beside the late Jeanette Fitzsimons. Since then Fonterra have made promises to get off coal.
"It's still just words," says Mike. "Still no action."
An example is Bathurst's application to retrospectively expand their Canterbury Coal Mine to nine times its size to feed Fonterra's Darfield milk factory.
Christchurch climate group Extinction Rebellion Otautahi blockaded the mine last week and are calling for Bathurst to withdraw their application to expand, stop mining coal and provide alternative work for their employees.
Mike was one of 33 locked on to the equipment in the mine.
Back at the farm Michael drives past the unused briquette plant near his gate.
"This briquette plant never worked. It's a shiny, $29 million folly, a reminder of bad choices. Solid Energy's Don Elder made some costly bad choices. National's Bill English backed him up by turning the first sod of the mine that never was. We have to stop Bathurst and Fonterra from making more bad choices. Our future depends on it."
