Lest we forget
Economy
energy
NRT: Some “strategy”
National’s Energy Strategy has been roundly criticised. The promises of more renewables and energy efficiency are more ‘aspirational’ fluff with no plan to actually get there. And, worse, the heart of the strategy works against sustainability and environmental responsibility – it’s all about drilling up and burning more oil. I/S at NoRightTurn explains.
Seeds of hope
This is the kind of innovation and intelligence that we are going to need in abundance to survive the medium to long term future…
Govt hits peak denial
Should we be more angry or scared? Just read the first official government presentation on peak oil. The IEA says conventional oil peaked in 2006 but our government offers only crude denialism and, paradoxically, blithe assurances that they’re ready. This is the kind of crap we used to see before we had 2 oil shocks in the past 4 years.
A real plan to save the world does exist
A feasible plan to power 100 percent of the planet with complete renewables exists. This plan excludes Nuclear and Biofuels, which the Scientific American authors of this plan also considered to be ultimately unsustainable technologies as well. Instead this plan revolves around Wind, Water and Solar – WWS
Frack off
Bravo France, the first country in the world to ban fracking. But for every step forward in this world, we seem to take two steps backwards…
Inflation credit and blame
Back in October last year the Nats, in a sea of bad news on the economy, latched on to the low inflation rate as something that they could claim “credit” for. No doubt they will now be just as ready to accept blame for the worst inflation rate in 20 years. Almost half of this figure is driven by the Nats’ GST increase…
Stop deep sea oil
Protest action by Greenpeace has disrupted prospecting activities in the Raukumara Basin by Brazilian petrochemical giant Petrobras. John Key has come out swinging for Big Business, and wants to send in the navy to sort out the protesters. But Greenpeace has it right. We shouldn’t be drilling for oil…
Oil spike takes off
Get ready for another petrol increase this week. Last week, the Dubai crude benchmark, which most of New Zealand’s imports are priced of, shot up over 4% in NZD terms. Unless that rise reverses right away, petrol will have to rise past $2.25 a litre. We’re now pay $160m a week for oil imports – $2b a year more than a year ago.
Even the IMF is starting to get peak oil
Peak oil. We’ve long had warnings from scientists and greens. Right wing governments never listen to those. But recently we’ve also had warnings from organisations that you might think that any government would pay attention to. The IMF is the latest to sound the alarm.
A goal is not a strategy
Last year, the New Zealand Institute lambasted the Nats’ ‘aspiration’ to catch Australia by 2025 with a report entitled ‘A goal is not a strategy‘. Did the Nats change? Of course not. Yesterday, their energy strategy was released. It offers some goals but is mute on how to get there. It’s not really a strategy at all, but it serves the Nats’ purpose nonetheless.
A dirty deal requires dirty lies
You know your opponent’s stand is dishonourable when they resort to spreading lies and promoting falsehoods about your position. The government’s Acting Energy and Resources Minister, Hekia Parata, has been caught out lying and spreading slurs that misrepresented her opponents’ position on deep sea oil drilling.
Fukushima radiation skyrockets
Normally, we get 3.65 millisieverts of radiation a year. Increased cancer risk is associated with 100 millisieverts per year. Nuclear workers are only meant to get 100 millisieverts even in an emergency with protective clothing. Today, water in No 2 reactor was detected emitting 1 sievert per hour – and they’re not sure of the source.
Germany abandons nuclear power
The world will gradually be forced to abandon fossil fuels. Fukushima (and Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island) show us that we can’t trust nuclear power. It has to be green, renewable energy sources. Can’t be done? Germany thinks it can.
$1.80 petrol = recession
The other day I was arguing $100 a barrel oil equals a global recession. I wanted be more precise: is there a certain price of petrol, above which the economy goes into recession? There is, and we’re way above it. The political upshot: the best way to promote growth is decreasing our oil dependence.
Meltdown
The Sendai Earthquake cut the power supply to the pumps at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. With no cooling water being pumped through the reactors, the nuclear fuel rods heated themselves until reactor 1 melted. But it should have been OK. The containment building should have kept the radiation from escaping. Then an explosion blew the containment building apart.
$100 oil spells recession
As we wait to see what Saudi Arabia’s ‘Day of Rage’ will bring and if it will send oil prices into the stratosphere, some economists, including our Reserve Bank Governor, are trying to pretend we’re not in the midst of an oil shock and there is no threat to the economy. They’re dead wrong.
Day of rage
You know things are bad when the AA is saying that high petrol prices are here to stay and there needs to be more investment in public transport. Global supply and demand is so tight that tiny disruptions are causing massive spikes. What if Saudi Arabia erupts?
Seismic events in Christchurch, food & fuel
Concurrently Christchurch’s second big quake, the effects of two other shocks are beginning to ripple through our country. Food prices are putting basics out of reach and this week will see another big petrol price hike. All three of these shocks will require us to pool our resources and redirect them to rebuilding resiliently.
The Domino recessions
I read a book a while back that was set in the near future after what it called the ‘Domino recessions’ – successive oil shocks had created a series of economic and political crises, each one before the world had recovered from the previous recession. As the second oil shock in three years hits, that scenario looks to be coming to true.
Welcome to the new normal
Look at the international media these days and what do we see? Oil prices rising due to peak oil. Extreme weather events due to climate change. Rising food prices due to peak oil increasing production costs, climate change destroying crops and resource depletion. And, in the most exposed countries, governments falling in revolution.
The big factor for election 2011 – petrol prices
I’ve been traveling around for Christmas/New Year’s. It hadn’t hit me until I drove about 1000kms around NZ just how much more expensive petrol has become. The extra cost is a shock when you fill up and it hurts the economy. I got wondering what the political impact is. The numbers suggest it matters a lot.
Discrete solar technology
Chinese manufacturing and state support is transforming the cost structure of solar technology. This in turn is helping to put in power support for the emerging use of wireless technologies in the developing world. This helps to ensure that less dirty carbon emitting technologies are not used in the developing world.It is hard to see a downside to this state initiative because it makes solar tech cheaper and more available earlier rather than later.
2011: year of the next mega-shock
Liam Dann had a very good piece in the Herald the other day about rising commodity prices. Despite insipid growth, prices of food and oil, the fuels of our civilisation are through the roof. The underlying meaning of those high prices is we’re having to devote more of our resources to feeding and fueling ourselves, leaving less for anything else.
Electricity privatisation begins
What to do if you’re a government with an ideological fixation on selling assets, which is hugely unpopular? The public will catch on if you put SOEs as full entities up for auction. So, you don’t sell off the companies. Instead, you sell off the things they own or, through bond issues, their profit streams. We’ve been warning this would happen. Now, it is.
Ideology causes power price spike
Brownlee ignored warnings that his reforms would increase power prices, not lower them as intended. Wholesale power prices have spiked from $50 to $300 per MWH. Exporters have cut production. Residential users are next. With power up and petrol breaking $2 a litre, energy is a handbrake on this supposed economic recovery.
Green China
I confess that I am used to thinking of China as a polluter, not much concerned with environmental standards or green technology. I am very pleased indeed to find that I am wrong. Green technology is yet another area where China is drawing ahead of America and much of the West.
Unconscionable
It seems I’m not alone in feeling outrage at attempts to bury any sensible debate on the shape and extent of New Zealand’s coal operations
Ramping up renewables
Bryan Walker at Hot Topic looks at the large scale renewable energy projects that are being developed in various countries around the world. The contrast with the dated approach to energy from Gerry Brownlee is quite striking. That has been described as “The Government’s energy strategy prioritises drilling and mining for more oil and coal, while providing virtually no stimulation for the development of renewable energy and clean technology. It … makes no attempt to set measurable emissions reduction targets.”
The new food crisis
Climate change, peak oil, resource exhaustion, and over-population are combing to cause a new food crisis. Grains supply half the calories we consume directly and feed much of our live-stock. The prices of those are skyrocketing because supply can’t match demand. Starting with Russia, major exporters are limiting the amount they send abroad to keep what they have for their own people.
A closer look: National’s Energy Strategy
No Right Turn had an interesting post on National’s Energy Strategy or more correctly a general lack of it yesterday.
Yesterday the government released its Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy [PDF] for consultation. So, how does it compare with Labour’s 2007 version? The difference is easy to spot. Labour’s energy strategy was about shifting to a sustainable, low-emissions energy infrastructure. National’s is about finding oil.
Unusual uncertainty heralds an uncertain new world
Despite a textbook response by the world’s major governments to the great recession, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the outlook remains ‘unusually uncertain’. The economic players can’t understand why the normal strong recovery hasn’t followed the recession. They don’t understand we have reached the limits to growth.
Brownlee’s power reforms hurt national interest
We’ve seen the last minute back down on mining after tens of thousands of Kiwis stood up, we’re seeing a growing tide of anger as Kiwis realise that all our work rights and wages are for the chop.. but one policy that has avoided public criticism on the level it is getting from within the industry is Gerry Brownlee’s mad electricity reforms.
The ETS is a price signal
The point of an ETS isn’t to just blindly pay more, it is to change our behaviour so that we don’t have to. National don’t get it, so they have brought us the worst of all possible ETS schemes. Badly designed and devoid of vision. An ETS with all of the costs and none of the benefits.
Let’s not rush things
President Obama has just come out and said the US and the world needs to get off its oil addiction. But, just as we’ve been talking about climate change for nearly two centuries, before it was even a problem, and done nothing about it, Presidents have been declaring its time to end the oil age for 40 years and nothing has changed. Why can’t we get serious about saving ourselves?
Dirty oil
I knew that disasters in rich white countries get much more media than disasters anywhere else. I knew that oil was a dirty business. None the less, this article on the real costs of cheap oil surprised me.