The release of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) promises to lower emission intensity to a point where someone should tell the National Treasury to abandon its plans to introduce a carbon tax, which is almost certain to result in the closure of metal smelters at a time of desperate need for job retention and export promotion. While the main purpose of the carbon tax is to generate funding for research and development into the lowering of carbon emission intensity, many ferrochrome and ferromanganese smelters have been reducing emissions successfully on their own. With the IRP now backing renewable energy, a carbon tax has become totally superfluous.