Energy Minister Simeon Brown ‘incredibly concerned’ amid warnings of power cuts
Energy Minister Simeon Brown told Newshub the potential energy shortfall is a direct result of the last Government’s actions leaving “our electricity system less secure”.
“We have seen a significant increase in these types of warnings since 2018, when the last Government banned oil and gas exploration,” Brown said.
“Without that gas to back up when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing, we don’t have the energy we need as a country. This is incredibly concerning.”
The speed with which Simeon Brown lied about Labour’s responsibility for creating the electricity pinch we suffered this week is extraordinary.
Not only is it a lie, but Simeon cancelled the very solution to having these pinch points with dams as batteries…
Government scraps Lake Onslow hydro scheme
The new Government has announced it will scrap the $16 billion Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme.
The Lake Onslow project was designed to serve as a giant battery to help protect against hydroelectricity shortages and create more stability in the market.
But Energy Minister Simeon Brown announced on Sunday the scheme, which he said was “championed by the previous government”, will be scrapped and was identified as a priority of the Government’s 100-day plan.
Brown said the project is “hugely wasteful” and was “pouring money down the drain” at a time when “we need to be reining in spending and focusing on rebuilding the economy and improving the lives of New Zealanders”.
…so the Government scraps Labour’s solution and then blames Labour when the exact event occurs?
We are in so much fucking trouble here, we just don’t understand!
Look any this jump in CO2…
Record-breaking increase in CO2 levels in world’s atmosphere
The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world’s atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary gas that is heating the planet.
The global average concentration of carbon dioxide in March this year was4.7 parts per million (or ppm) higher than it it was in March last year, which is a record-breaking increase in CO2 levels over a 12-month period.
The increase has been spurred, scientists say, by the periodic El Niño climate event, which has now waned, as well as the ongoing and increasing amounts of greenhouse gases expelled into the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
“It’s really significant to see the pace of the increase over the first four months of this year, which is also a record,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 Program at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We aren’t just breaking records in CO2 concentrations, but also the record in how fast it is rising.”
The global CO2 readings have been taken from a station perched upon the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii since the measurements began in 1958 under Keeling’s father, Charles. The concentrations of CO2 have increased each year since, as the heat-trapping gas continues to progressively accumulate due to rampant emissions from power plants, cars, trucks and other sources, with last year hitting a new global record in annual emissions.
In June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announcedthat global concentration of CO2 had hit 421ppm, a 50% increase on pre-industrial times and the highest in millions of years. The latest reading from Mauna Loa shows the world at around 426ppm of CO2.
Before the point where humans starting expelling huge volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 levels were around 280ppm for almost 6,000 years of human civilization.
The rapid rise in the heat-trapping gas threatens the world with disastrous climate breakdown in the form of severe heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires. Recent research has suggested that CO2 levels were last this high around 14m years ago, causing a climate that would appear alien to people alive today.
…Jesus wept!
The last time we had this much C02 in the atmosphere was 14million years ago.
We. Are. So. Fucked!
To gain those levels of c02 naturally in the biosphere takes accumulation of CO2 over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years.
We’ve done it in less than 3 centuries.
We know when the accumulation is is the hundreds of years that the flipping moments can take decades to go Fromm extreme heat to ice age.
It is these intense fluctuations of temperature that cause the mass extinctions because few things can adapt within the space of decades.
Simeon was arguing that it was Labour’s ban on gas exploration that led to the pinch moment last week which is a total lie.
Claiming it was the gas ban isn’t true…
Un-banning oil and gas exploration may not fix energy supply gaps, minister told
Repealing the ban on oil and gas exploration may not succeed at extending the future of oil and gas in New Zealand, a briefing to Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.
“It is possible that enabling further exploration will extend our oil and gas future,” the briefing to the new minister says.
It continues, “however there are other impediments that we expect will still restrict investor interest”.
The briefing notes the ban has already changed the landscape for the fossil fuel industry, and urges the minister to come up with a clear plan to both secure energy supply and cut emissions.
It raises fears that if gas companies stop investing in their networks, supply could run short before people and companies have switched to cleaner options.
…he was told the ban wouldn’t change anything and was warned this very issue could arise AFTER he had dumped the dam that would have been the solution.
The solution here is making our market competitive because once again this Government’s lax regulation of capitalism curses everything, as Bernard Hickey devastatingly points out…
Why didn’t the gentailers build more capacity?
In my view, it’s because the industry is not competitive enough to allow innovative new entrants to come in with new ideas and technology, and because the big four gentailers were able to take advantage of their super profits to hand over big dividends to shareholders, especially the biggest one: the Government under both flavours of politicians. Here’s a summary of what went wrong with electricity industry deregulation and privatisation over the last 30 years, via Paul Fuge at ConsumerNZ.
Here’s what happened to generation capacity, dividends, capital returns and investment. The prioritisation of dividends and the stagnation of generating capacity was especially pronounced from 2013 to 2021.
…The solution here is renewables.
The solution here is better insulating our cold homes.
The solution here is solar panels on every roof and localised wind farms linking to the grid and powering that grid.
The solution here is to move beyond coal, petrol and gas because the enormous catastrophic weather events coming our way will require and demand a much more flexible adaptation capacity.
That solution is not the solution this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government wants…
Government hypes gas crisis ahead of restarting drilling
Solar power is the cheapest form of energy in the Pacific but the Government says New Zealand’s only choices for keeping the lights on are gas or coal
…this Government is paid for by those representing the polluter interests of the status quo and they will not allow NZ to start a trend they can’t stop…
Shane Jones slams ‘woke-riddled left’ amid energy debate, Chlöe Swarbrick fires back
Resources Minister Shane Jones has come out swinging at the “woke-riddled left” during an energy debate in Parliament.
The NZ First MP accused Opposition parties of a “faint green vision” to “keep the lights on with unicorn kisses”.
It comes after the Government said earlier on Wednesday low gas production is threatening New Zealand’s energy security.
Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show production reduced by 12.5 percent during 2023 and by 27.8 percent in the first three months of this year – beyond what was projected.
The figures are concerning for those who rely on gas – such as schools, hospitals, universities, food and chemical processors and electricity generators.
It’s causing companies such as Genesis Energy to resort to importing coal, which has higher emissions.
“Today, industry sees the long-term consequences of the shallow, emerald, mannikin thinking that’s driven energy policy for the last five or six years,” Jones said. “Today industry throughout New Zealand is confronted by the fact as a consequence of that juvenile, woke-riddled, foolish belief that we don’t need our natural resources, that we don’t need our natural gas, that we don’t need coal – has been laid bare.”
“You voted for it” and “Look in the mirror” were among several interjections Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick made while Jones spoke.
Jones was referring to the 2018 decision to ban all new oil and gas exploration in New Zealand, except for onshore Taranaki. The decision was reluctantly backed by NZ First, which was in a Coalition Government with Labour at the time.
The current Coalition Government said it would repeal the present oil and gas exploration ban.
Jones, gesturing to the other side of the House, said left-wing parties are scaring away overseas investors for a “faint green vision that somehow we can keep the lights on with unicorn kisses”.
“Hopefully, these emerald manikins will retire and let the serious politicians address the unresolved issues in our economy,” Jones continued.
This maniac will doom us all.
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It’s a classic case of a pre planned crisis.
It has been shown canceling the ferry deal was correct as it would never had paid for itself. Building dams has gone out of favor and many around the world are being decommissioned. We need to seriously looking at nuclear for a long term solution
As for nuclear you are god damn dreaming.
Considering the number of faultlines on the south island alone the plant would be at greater risk than Fukishima. So go go back to sleep on Nuclear it just wont happen.
LOL, I dont think any new oil and gas fields would have come online in time to resolve this issue that is currently happening.
Exactly right Millsy. Still plenty of existing permits out there and on shore was never stopped. Off shore permits that had been granted were not cancelled.
I assume that those that were issued permits prior to the ban on new permits coming into force decided that by the time they got to production there would be no demand for the product given that John Key signed up to the Paris agreement in 2016.
I wonder why the known reserves of gas have not been extracted, could it be for the same reason.
I also wonder why people believe Simeon Brown can even lie straight in bed.
The crisis would have happened regardless of the dam cancellation.
Let’s electrify everything before we have enough back up power to keep the lights on!
Luckily a million tons of dirty Indonesian coal will fix the problem we created by stopping using our own gas reserves. Otherwise we’d be having some cold miserable winters
Ardern always put ideology first.
What horseshit Anne. Everyone is actually forgetting it was planned maintenance that coincided with an unseasonable cold snap that didn’t actually cause a f’ing problem anyway. You sound like Shane Jones. Devoid of fact.
Of course there is no mention of the unrestrained immigration by both parties over the last two decades without the compensating infrastructure spend putting ever increasing demand on the system.
It took 30 years for the NZ population to go from 3 to 4m from 1973 to 2003.
The majority of NZ’s hydro dams were built in the 1950’s through to the early 1980’s. Clyde was the last large hydro dam finished in 1992.
It has only taken 17 years to go from 4 to 5m from 2003 to 2020, without the compensating infrastructure spend. Both parties have been incompetent and complicit in the infrastructure deficits the country is facing.
What’s the current priority? 15B in tax cuts while the lights are just barely being kept on, the pipes are bursting, increasing pressure on schools and hospitals, and the housing waiting list grows.
It is contradictory for climate activists to also be pro-mass immigration, because immigration increases total emissions in the destination country, as well as increasing the per capita emissions of individual immigrants when they emigrate from lower emission societies.
NZ grow up and get rid of the smelter which has taken cheap electricity and exported it for 50 years as aluminium ingots for super profits.
Expropriate it without compensation.
It has pumped our labour value out of the country for years imposing higher prices on workers living standards.
We want our stolen back pay back!
End coal and gas hastening our climate catastrophe and turn off the cheap hand out to Rio Tinto and Sumitomo.
The smelter will never pay the external costs of the ecological damage it has done to our country.
Worse we will never grow out of our peasant like servility until we can actually slay that big parasite on on our collective back.
At the same time take back the former sstate owned power companies privatised by Key and his international finance cabal without compensation!
I know there are issues getting Manapouri power into the National Grid but imagine the effect on business and the cost of living if we cut the cost of power by a third. I’m with you on this D+B
Simeon Brown, the thirteen year old trying to cut it with the big boys. The inability to see reason and his only rationale for any poor decision he makes is to blame it on Labour.
Immature.
An interesting korero Countryboy.
Your waxing lyrical reminds me of Piggy S Jones
Someone should start doing Shane Jones satire on national TV. He’s the idiot that just keeps on giving.
Solar + Batteries + V2G = greater resilience + cheaper electricity
There will be no need for Onslow.
Simion, pot hole, how, your holes, going, the brinderwin and the hills are continue, fall doun. Child, hout about, yer, pot hole filler mouth in the hoos, hoo many pot holes ye filled, some bags cheap and digestable, he! wain, sharp voice of shallow, pot hole puddle.
Thousand odd, marching, why who cares only a thousand, another marching to Parliament, treaty, no, Te-treaty. How our walk to this government, time is our request,we require, a election.
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