Shane Jones will begin a mining resurgence.

[C_T_Russell]

I'm sure you are correct about the longer lifetime that EVs can experience, but pretty much every consumer product, including electric cars needs mined minerals. In fact, EVs probably contain alot more gold inside due to the amount of electronics they would hold.
As far as drilling for hydrogen, that seems  pipe dream, but I'm pretty pissed off about the mills closing and the blame 100% lies with labour and the greens shutting down oil exploration, while at the same time providing zero alternative solutions to supplement our energy sector to make up for the losses from gas.
Now we are running out and might be having to rely on LNG imports.
Way to go labour, you were supposed to be all about he working class.
What's more, as more mills close, our timber gets send overseas to be processed and shipped back, and guess what, more fuel producing co2 to ship it here.
Brainless, these people who were in charge are idiots.
We need to start oil and gas exploration ASAP so we can get our energy costs down for business to stay operational.

You misunderstand my comment on lifetime advantages of EVs. What I was referring to was the total lifetime emissions of EVs vs ICEVs. In NZ's case where >80% of our grid generation is from renewables the point where manufacturing emissions are balanced off by absence of fossil fuel combustion an EV typically reaches net zero at around 20,000km, and from then on the emissions are near zero, in contrast to ICEVs which continue to generate emissions for their entire lifetime and these increase as the vehicle's engine ages.

Your understanding of NZ's electricity generation infrastructure and the pricing mechanism for consumers is sadly lacking. If you want to lay blame at the foot of a government then it sits squarely on the National governments 'Bradford reforms' of 1998, futher complicated by the partial privatisation of the major gentailers by the Key government. This misguided cluster of policies created the present situation where wholesale electricity prices are set every 30 minutes at the cost of the most expensive generation method required to satisfy demand during that period. So, at times of peak demand when the generators need to bring on stream their thermal (gas or coal) facilities, which cost significantly more to run than releasing water from a dam does, the wholesale price for ALL electricity supplied at that point receives that price, which of course is a windfall for those running hydro facilities.

So what you're suggesting is that the system is currently charging their wholesale electricity customers huge prices because of a shortage of the fuel to support high priced thermal generation. Your solution is to promote the most expensive form of generation so that will somehow bring wholesale electricity prices down. Don't feel too stupid about not realising your mistake as Simeon Brown is promoting exactly that strategy to address the current crisis, but in his case it's to support his oil and gas industry lobbyists. In his case he's even suggesting importing even more expensive feedstock for thermal generation which not only exposes us to rising international prices for LNG but also literally burns NZ's overseas funds to do so. Fortunately the LNG scenario is very unlikely to eventuate as our government expect the cost of developing an LNG terminal to be paid for by the gentailers and from what I'm hearing from within the NZ gas industry the gentailers don't want a bar of this hair-brained scheme. It is also worth noting that we are hearing of all manner of futuristic solutions for our agricultural methane emissions from this government but in the next breath they're proposing we import shiploads of methane in the form of LNG. Coalition of clowns?

The previous Labour government had a renewable based strategy in planning to address a 'dry year' situation such as we are currently seeing in the form of a huge pumped hydro scheme with Lake Onslow. The economics of Onslow are questionable but the strategy of using increased hydro capacity is sound especially when used in conjunction with intermittent generation methods such as solar and wind. Hydro is in effect a huge storage medium or 'battery' which can be used in that capacity to carry that intermittent generation capacity forward to cover periods when solar and/or wind isn't producing. It is interesting to see the crisis now easing to due not only to recent rain inflows to the hydro lakes but also increased wind generation taking the consumption impact off of the grid, so in effect the grid is being used to good effect with hydro storage being utilised to its best effect. It is also worth noting that where most countries struggle to coordinate intermittent renewable generation with baseload demands NZ is uniquely positioned to do so by virtue of our huge existing capacity of hydro generation assets.

Simeon Brown continues to beat his fossil fuel shortage drum and in the meantime domestic solar installations are increasing by the week. Many consumers are now seeing the writing on the wall in terms of where electricity supply prices are headed (as high wholesale prices will impact retail prices) and are voting with their wallets as the economics of rooftop solar gets better and better as these electricity price increases loom, and solar panels reduce in price.

The biggest issue was stopping oil exploration while NZ is still heavily dependent on gas for industry.
Until renewable electricity generation is increased, we still need to rely on oil and gas.
And yes, selling off the shares in mighty river power was a mistake but technically the government still holds 51% so don't they still have most of the influence on prices?