Gerry Brownlee

Rebuilding on a rising tide

by Gareth June 15, 2011

It’s been a shaky week in Christchurch and Canterbury. Another M6.3 shock hit the city on Monday afternoon — renewing the misery for many in the city’s eastern and seaside suburbs, but thankfully not adding to the death toll. Attention has now turned — with some force — to the question of which suburbs should [...]

10 comments Read the full article →

Lignite: dirty brown forbidden fruit

by Bryan Walker February 20, 2011

Two items during this week highlighted the continuing progress of Solid Energy’s intentions to develop the Southland lignite fields. I therefore provide this depressing update to two Hot Topic posts on the issue late last year. Don Elder (left), CEO of state-owned enterprise Solid Energy, appeared before the Commerce select committee during the week and [...]

29 comments Read the full article →

Moving the earth for oil

by Bryan Walker January 11, 2011

Ethical oil. That’s what Canada is producing from its massive tar sands operation, according to the newly appointed Environment Minister Peter Kent. I admit to having missed that dimension in what I have read of the oil extraction from tar sands. I understood that when the CO2 emissions from its production is added to the [...]

27 comments Read the full article →

Greenpeace: speaking truth to power

by Bryan Walker January 2, 2011

I’d like to offer a post in praise of Greenpeace. I’m not an active member of the organisation, though I give modest financial support because I am often thankful for its clear voice and actions on climate change.  A look through Greenpeace NZ’s latest magazine reminded me of the range of its climate change concern [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

Can you dig it?

by Bryan Walker December 15, 2010

On the same day that I wrote a post about the proposed lignite development in Southland I emailed the Minister for Economic Development, Gerry Brownlee, to express my dismay at the news. I have received a letter in reply which explains all too clearly how such a development could, and presumably will, proceed under current [...]

28 comments Read the full article →

Licking lignite

by Bryan Walker November 6, 2010

Jeanette Fitzsimons raised the alarm in a recent Herald op-ed over Solid Energy’s plans for Southland lignite. A very justified alarm. She wrote of well-advanced plans to use more than 3 billion tonnes of economically recoverable lignite from three fields in Southland. Big plans, of which New Zealanders are hardly aware. First off is the transformation of lignite, [...]

34 comments Read the full article →

The politics of failure/the failure of politics

by Bryan Walker September 22, 2010

As an example of contradictory thinking it would be hard to better Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee this week. He was announcing that oil and gas exploration in New Zealand is to get a substantial boost in government resources, including funding to further the possible exploitation of deep-sea methane hydrates. He made a plea [...]

25 comments Read the full article →

No energy for change

by Gareth July 28, 2010

Gerry Brownlee’s draft energy strategy for New Zealand is an interesting read, but not perhaps in the way the government intended. As Bryan discussed in his comment on the strategy, Brownlee puts mining and drilling up front and centre, and relegates environmental and carbon issues to a definite second place in government priorities. You might [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Brownlee’s energy strategy: dig and burn

by Bryan Walker July 26, 2010

The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (PDF, web) is a winding back of the clock from the substantial statement released under the previous government only three years ago. When announcing early in his term as Minister that a new strategy was required Gerry Brownlee complained of the old one: “You need only read the [...]

5 comments Read the full article →

Technology advances, politicians hold back

by Bryan Walker July 23, 2010

In the face of the utterly depressing final confirmation that the proposed energy bill has been abandoned in the US Senate in the face of Republican opposition, and the realisation that Obama has let the opportunity die without a fight, as Joe Romm puts it, I cast around for something cheering this morning.  I found [...]

12 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries