Govt stops short of major energy shakeup

[Lilith7]

Well - of course it does.

Love that phrase 'Shortages "pushed up" wholesale power prices.'

Nah; greed 'pushed' them up.


https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/574...asset-sale


And Unions have called for the return of electricity generators to public ownership. Zero chance this govt will do that.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/574...-ownership

[harm_less]

Well - of course it does.

Love that phrase 'Shortages "pushed up" wholesale power prices.'

Nah; greed 'pushed' them up.


https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/574...asset-sale


And Unions have called for the return of electricity generators to public ownership. Zero chance this govt will do that.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/574...-ownership

Once again our government dithers while the damage just keeps on happening. 

Today's lack of effective management of the electricity crisis NZ is facing is just more fuel to drive the uptake of domestic solar. Every electricity price increase makes the return on investing in 'rooftop' solar all the better and the sellers of solar are certainly run off their feet to an increasing degree presently. 

The problem though with effectively incentivising solar by making the alternative the ever more expensive option is that this method of avoiding skyrocketing electricity prices is only available to those that can afford the ingoing capital expenditure to do so. Those less financially able are left to shoulder those electricity bills so solar becomes a 'rich people's' option.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Another missed opportunity by this lot.

[Praktica]

Of course they dither - they aren't going to offend the people who own them.

[heisenberg]

if only ardern hadnt fucked up the oil/gas exploration

[king1]

if only ardern hadnt fucked up the oil/gas exploration

lol, still beating that old drum...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

No one fucked up exploration heisenberg. We just don't have new resources to explore. That is the secret this government has been trying to hide while touting the potential in existing mature fields. Ask Shane Jones. Exploration licenses aren't the issue. Investing in new ways to generate energy is, hence tossing the ball to the electricity generators.

https://www.nzpam.govt.nz/about/news/gas...to-act-now

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/5294...xploration

[Praktica]

if only ardern hadnt fucked up the oil/gas exploration

There were exploration licenses which don't expire for another 20 to 30 years issued before the ban, and not affected by it. [Removed: Rule 2A]

[harm_less]

if only ardern hadnt fucked up the oil/gas exploration

NZ has explored its land and offshore territories up the wazoo. The only known gas reserve of any significance is the Karewa field 45km off of Raglan. Todd have no plans to develop this field even with the promised input of $200 million from the government. Considering it is expected to contain only enough gas to fill NZ's consumption in a single year that's probably not surprising on Todd's part.

That decision may be revisited when Maui shuts down next year but the undeniable fact is that NZ is close to running out of natural gas, and it has little to do with the Labour government's exploration ban; it's because we've pretty much found and used all there is here. That's why the government is planning to import LNG, which will provide a short sugar hit but expect gas and electricity prices to rise significantly as a result.

I have a background of working both on and offshore oil and gas projects and I can assure you that anyone claiming that the previous government's offshore oil and gas ban is the cause of our looming energy crisis is blowing smoke out of their arse. NZ is running on empty and the current government is in a flat panic to deflect blame and try to formulate solutions but the problem has been decades in the making and they've now got a 'perfect storm' on their plate and they will be crucified at the ballot box if they don't manage to pull a rabbit of the hat on this one.

[king1]

as I was reading somewhere, we've already explored and extracted all the easy and quality 'stuff". What's left now is the harder to get and/or lower quality 'stuff"

[harm_less]

as I was reading somewhere, we've already explored and extracted all the easy and quality 'stuff".  What's left now is the harder to get and/or lower quality 'stuff"

Maps showing the seismic data lines of Taranaki both on and offshore look like a spider's web. Other areas of promise off of Hawkes Bay and the eastern South Island are similar. If there was a sizeable reservoir of significance we would know it. 

And to further complicate things NZ is an earthquake prone region so many oil and gas reservoirs are fractured so they've either lost their contents long ago or what is there is in small separated pockets which are harder to extract from and expensive to develop with a habit of depleting very quickly if not handled with extreme skill and care. Historically such reserved have been plundered at haste so we are now seeing our older fields (e.g. Maui, Kapuni, McKee, Mangahewa, Pohokura, ...) on their last dregs with no new sources in sight.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

The thing that gets me is this information has been freely available to anyone interested for ages. And yet we still get this 'blame the other lot' stuff on repeat...

Heavens, the government even has Green loans available to swap domestic energy over to sustainables. Boosting that would be a good idea, with solar getting cheaper and more efficient every day, as would requiring new builds of any kind to put in solar tech. That would reduce the draw on the grid and cover dry years.

You know what else might help? Forgetting new data centre set ups....

[harm_less]

The thing that gets me is this information has been freely available to anyone interested for ages. And yet we still get this 'blame the other lot' stuff on repeat...

........

A political journo I heard recently maintains that Labour construct policies whereas National dismantles them. There's a reason Labour are keeping quiet about their tax and other strategies. Expect real info on these immediately pre-election in order to give National (and NZ 1st and ACT) minimum traction by just pulling inflammatory sound bites based on information out of them.

[king1]

The thing that gets me is this information has been freely available to anyone interested for ages. And yet we still get this 'blame the other lot' stuff on repeat...

........

A political journo I heard recently maintains that Labour construct policies whereas National dismantles them. There's a reason Labour are keeping quiet about their tax and other strategies. Expect real info on these immediately pre-election in order to give National (and NZ 1st and ACT) minimum traction by just pulling inflammatory sound bites based on information out of them.

The longer they can keep Luxon blaming everything on the previous government, the longer this govt look like incompetent morons?

[Lilith7]

A political journo I heard recently maintains that Labour construct policies whereas National dismantles them. There's a reason Labour are keeping quiet about their tax and other strategies. Expect real info on these immediately pre-election in order to give National (and NZ 1st and ACT) minimum traction by just pulling inflammatory sound bites based on information out of them.

The longer they can keep Luxon blaming everything on the previous government, the longer this govt look like incompetent morons?

What, only 'look like?'....

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Well, it aint the horse in striped pyjamas that Nicola Willis keeps insisting it is...

The more they treat the electorate as complete idiots the closer they get to being the Opposition next time around.

[heisenberg]

The longer they can keep Luxon blaming everything on the previous government, the longer this govt look like incompetent morons?

What, only 'look like?'....

have you forgotten how inept the previous government was?

lets hope you get your wish and labour/green/tpm become government 

i bet they will be fantastic

there was a reason ardern ran off and labour got the arse last elections

[Praktica]

What, only 'look like?'....

have you forgotten how inept the previous government was?

lets hope you get your wish and labour/green/tpm become government 

i bet they will be fantastic

there was a reason ardern ran off and labour got the arse last elections

Still banging the same old drum, heisenberg...why do you come here? You know that none of us take any notice of your specious talking points.

[king1]

What, only 'look like?'....

have you forgotten how inept the previous government was?

lets hope you get your wish and labour/green/tpm become government 

i bet they will be fantastic

there was a reason ardern ran off and labour got the arse last elections

not sure they were inept H, yes they made some mistakes but on the whole they did what was necessary at the time to protect society in very troubling times, saving many thousands of lives in the process... 

What I see happened then was NZ had collective tantrum as immature idiots are wont to do and sought the greener grass on the other side - and very promptly came to regret the decision as the current polling might suggest.

[alpha111]

Max Bradford should be executed as punishment for treason. Previously most people had no problem paying their TWO MONTHLY power bill.