A voice of sanity amongst the madness

This week I was reading the news from NZ only to be greeted with the truly shocking news that the government has just placed a ten year moratorium on the development of new fossil fueled thermal generation in NZ. Here are some sobering facts on just what this will mean for NZ in the coming ten years:

1. Most of the good hydro resources in the country have already been developed and the few remaining good ones are unlikely to be developed because of opposition by environmental groups (no doubt the same groups that have lobbied the government for a ban on thermal generation).
2. This means that most new generation built in NZ over the next 10 years will be wind with some geothermal and biomass to make up the balance.
   
3. Wind despite all its promise is still much more expensive than thermal or hydro generation. (Actually this is the main cynical reason behind the governments policy - they even admit that thermal generation is too cheap and acts as a disincentive to building wind farms.)
   

A recent study by a leading academic (from Germany, so not exactly an anti wind country if you get my drift), concluded that the potential for wind generation to offset base thermal plant is about 6% of its installed capacity. Actually what is surprising is that this number is actually greater than zero. Even if we say that the wind resource in NZ is twice as good as that in Germany (which is probably a stretch) this means that for every 100 MW of wind built, only 12 MW is useful. Or put another way, if NZ electricity peak demand grows 500 MW in the next 10 years, then to supply this electricity will require 6000 MW of wind turbines, or about 3000 wind turbines. That's right, 6000 MW, bearing in mind that NZ has 300 MW installed currently and there are already protests about it's visual impact and despoliation of the environment and so on.

So what will all this mean? Some people such as Brian Leyland have jumped on the scare tactic bandwagon asserting that blackouts could result from this policy. While I am less convinced of this, what is certain is that the price of electricity will rise in the next ten years.

Anyone who doubts that one of the foundations of western wealth and prosperity is cheap energy should go try run a business in the next ten years in NZ. Yes NZ is still based around primary industry and what does primary industry need to compete in a world market? Yes that's right, cheap electricity. Cheap electricity was one of the things that has enabled NZ in the past to offset its comparative distance from world markets. The government has just destroyed this advantage and NZs global competitiveness will soon follow. Irrigators, paper mills and milk drying plants don't run because we say they should, they run on cheap power.

So here are my predictions for NZ in the next ten years:

1. A shortage in base load electricity in the medium term will result in a 50% increase in the price of electricity;
2. Big industrial users such as the smelter in Invercargill will leave the country and go somewhere where cheap power is available;
3. Unemployment will rise, meaning that fewer people will be able to afford the sudden increase in the price of electricity.
4. Poverty will increase.
5. After some years electricity prices may start to fall again as demand growth might start to go negative for the first time in history (due to the industrial exodus).
6. Thousands more NZers will leave the country for Australia where they can get 30% more (and the gap is growing) money for the same work.
7. NZ will become exactly what Jeanette Fitzsimons and her mob at the green party want - a beautiful natural backwater where the people live a backward lifestyle, lighting their homes with candles, shivering through cold winters without electric heat or hot showers and toiling away for hours each day to grow their own food. But hey it's really great because the natural environment will be untouched!
   

Okay well I may have got a bit carried away with some of the speculations but this is where its heading sooner or later.

I am actually optimistic that someone in government in NZ will see sense soon enough before calamity. However citizens have to make them see the madness - make your viewpoint heard , get out in the street and protest, demand that the government keep its nose out of the electricity business and let businesses do what they do best. Demand freedom of thought and freedom of enterprise and most of all, demand a future for my home, the most beautiful country in the world.

Take the poll - Darwin day or not?

Recently I made the decision to reject religious sentiment from my life entirely. Naturally of course this means that I have to reconsider the significance of all the religious public holidays that are celebrated in the West. Now don't get me wrong, I love xmas and Easter but not for their religious meaning. The reason I love them and the reason I think most other people do is because it is often the one time in a year that families take time out to sit down have a meal and enjoy each other's company.

This got me thinking that I would rather have the xmas holiday period named after something which I think is more significant to humanity than the birth of Christ. Charles Darwin was the first person to understand just how we came to be on this earth. No he never understood how life was created in the first place (science is working on this one though) but he discovered how modern life has evolved from the first primitive 'proto' bacteria to the mind boggling array of diversity and complexity that exists today. The Theory of Evolution is an example of the triumph of science over mysticism, an embodiment of the realisation that we can live enriching and joyful lives based on the principle of free and rational thought. That in my mind deserves a celebration worthy of a public holiday.

So take part in my poll - would you like to see Christmas day renamed to something more significant to the modern world. I have given a couple of suggestions.

Where is religion taking you?

This article was bought to my attention this morning. This is the extremely sad story of a teacher in Sudan who may now possibly be put to death (although it appears she may just be sent home to the UK - here's hoping) for calling a teddybear Mohammed. The shocking thing is that she didn't even name it herself. She asked the boys in the class to come up with a name for the teddybear that one of the children had bought to school as part of a classroom project on animals. They of course chose the most common name for boys in Sudan - Mohammed. The rest is history, you can't call a teddybear Mohammed because this insults, yes that's right, it insults the 'prophet' Mohammed.

So here is a story of a woman who has taken considerable risk leaving the UK to teach the children of Sudan (probably at personal cost to her) and this is the kind of thanks they give her. If you think this is just a problem with Islam, then ask yourself how you would react if a child you know named a teddybear Jesus or Buddha?