Tag: wind

Weekend roundup #12 & #35

Thousands of diplomats are on the road to Bali to start the negotiations for a post-Kyoto emissions reductions deal. I’ll be posting more on that as the conference progresses, but in the meantime Brian Fallow provides some useful context in the Herald, and Liz Banas at Radio NZ National produces an excellent Focus On Politics on the conference (listen live at 5-10pm Saturday, podcast available). Meanwhile, the UN turned up the pressure by issuing its latest Human Development Report [PDF], which gives us only ten years to get down to serious action.

  • To get up to speed with cap and whatever, the US-based Tomales Bay Institute has issued a concise little report , Carbon Capping – A Citizen’s Guide, which gives a good overview of how carbon trading works [PDF]. Very US-centric, and not exactly highbrow, but very clear and with a great glossary (via desmogblog).
  • Oxfam issued a briefing paper, Climate Alarm: Disasters increase as climate change bites [PDF], which concludes that climate change is already increasing the number of disasters affecting communities around the world. “The total number of natural disasters worldwide now averages 400– 500 a year, up from an average of 125 in the early 1980s. The number of climate-related disasters, particularly floods and storms, is rising far faster than the number of geological disasters, such as earthquakes.” [BBC], Independent (UK)]
  • I’ve been getting quite a few hits after TV3 featured New Plymouth’s electric car builder Gavin Shoebridge, featured here a few months ago. Apparently his YouTube pages (First Run here) have had more than 100,000 hits. A bit more than HT. It seems we’re less sexy than his Tredia…
  • On the clean energy front, the Aotearoa Wave and Tidal Energy Association reckons that tidal and wave power could be producing electricity in NZ in five years, there are discussions in Europe about building a 8,000km DC power grid to link giant windfarms scattered around the continent (so that somewhere always has wind), and The Guardian reports on research into cheap solar photovoltaics using organic polymers.
  • The whinging by big emitters about the ETS continues: Fran O’Sullivan details complaints by Solid Energy and Air NZ chair John Palmer about the “lack of debate” and the rubbishing of the NZI’s Fast Follower report (who, me?), while John Pfahlert of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand is given space by the Herald to add to the noise. More sensibly, on the other side of the world, British business lobby group the CBI (not a notably left-wing organisation) has called for fundamental change in British business, and Prince Charles has whipped up a statement signed by many of the world’s largest corporates urging the Bali conference to take serious action. From the Herald: “Contrary to the argument that mandatory pollution cuts would harm the economy, the business leaders’ petition says ambitious emissions reductions would “create significant business opportunities“. [Update: Full communiqué available here.]
  • Fonterra has commissioned a report into its carbon footprint [Herald , Scoop], AgResearch is going to analyse the lifecycle carbon footprint for sheep meat, and MAF prepared a report [PDF] for the Primary Industries 2020 Summit, held in Christchurch this week, that warns: “The drivers [of change] are global warming, climate change, and extreme weather; energy cost and supply; geopolitical power shifts, and international trade and investment; ecosystem degradation, and water quality and availability; demographic shifts; and technological advances.”
  • Meridian hopes to convert Stewart Island to 100% renewable energy, starting the process in January.
  • Further south, the Andrill project has been making rapid progress on another core from the seabed in McMurdo Sound. By now they should have a 1,100m core to set alongside last year’s 1,285m core – 20 million years of climate information drilled from the seabed.

Lawson’s outrageous lie on national TV

On Thursday morning, TVNZ’s Breakfast Business programme included an interview with Baron Lawson of Blaby. It’s available here. Nigel’s opening statement is a shocker:

“There’s no global warming happening at the present time. That’s clear, accepted on all sides of the argument.”

I’ve got news for Nigel. The world continues to warm, and the only people who think it isn’t are a dwindling band of climate cranks and ageing curmudgeons. Greenpeace rather wittily demonstrated that last night outside the Auckland Museum, welcoming Lawson’s audience with a bunch of dummies with their heads in the sand.

I’m particularly disappointed with the TV interviewer, who gave him an incredibly soft ride. You’d think even TV NZ business journalists might be expected to know enough to spot blatant rubbish when it’s being spouted.

Meanwhile, the Herald (via NZPA) reports him as saying: “We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting.” I’m rendered speechless, which is something I might wish for the blue Baron.

The gentle sound of axes being ground

The big emitters’ carefully co-ordinated campaign against the proposed NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is having a big week. Following on from last week’s Castalia report, the Greenhouse Policy Coalition and the Major Electricity Users Group are now claiming that a survey shows the ETS will have big economic impacts [Herald , NBR]:

The relatively small survey of 32 firms, which includes some meat companies, pulp and paper mills, iron, steel, shipping, cement, dairy, mining and supermarkets shows that a carbon price of $30/tonne will cost those firms $241 million in increased direct energy costs, result in deferred investment of $1.5 billion, put at risk over 2000 existing jobs and 425 new jobs had planned investment gone ahead.

The survey cunningly ignores the government’s proposal to grandfather emissions in most sectors, presumably so that it could paint the worst possible picture of economic impacts.

Forgive me if I consider that a survey conducted by a lobby group, based on a tiny response and dubious methodology, that just happens to show exactly what the lobby group wants it show, is meaningless. But from the GPC’s perspective, any noise is presumably good noise. Which is about all that can be said for a column by Alasdair Thompson of the Employers and Manufacturers Association in the Herald. Fodder for the spin machine. Even Westpac got in the act, claiming that a carbon price would put inflationary pressure on the Reserve Bank, on equally flimsy grounds. And by some strange coincidence, the Business Roundtable just happens to have shipped notorious British sceptic Nigel Lawson over from the UK to sing for his supper on Thursday. No guesses about the tune Nigel will bellow… (I’ll be posting about Lawson later this week). Fortunately, Rod Oram’s around to demonstrate (in his Sunday Star Times column at the weekend) that there are plenty of businesses who don’t need a weatherman (or climate scientist) to know which way the wind is blowing.

All this PR activity is about framing the debate. If the big emitters can ignore the climate imperative and international consequences of our actions and spin this as about economics and prosperity and jobs, they presumably hope to be able to get the scheme watered down or delayed. Tactically, it may be about trying to separate National from its early acceptance of the ETS proposals. Can Key and Smith resist the siren call of corporates with deep pockets?

Friday on my mind

Meridian got the resource consent for its 176 turbine, $1.5bn Project Hayes wind farm on the Lammermoor Range, 70 km north west of Dunedin in Central Otago, but only on a split decision. Next stage: almost certainly the Environment Court. [Herald , The Press , Southland Times] Meanwhile:

  • Brian Fallow follows up on fast following in the Herald, and gets it right.
  • Desmogblog highlights an excellent NASA animation illustrating the sheer extent of this summer’s Arctic ice melt.
  • Technology Review covers MIT’s Smart Cities group design for a folding, stackable, electric city car (and scooter).
  • The Guardian [UK]reports on a list of the top 50 things to do to save the planet, drawn up by the Environment Agency [full list(PDF)]. Toppermost of the poppermost? Dramatically improve the energy efficiency of electrical goods. In the charts at number 2 (with a bullet)? Religious leaders to make the environment a priority for their followers.
  • The Guardian [UK] also has an interesting feature on plans to collect solar energy in space (thus avoiding the losses caused by passage through the atmosphere) and then beam it down to earth via microwave or laser beams.

Formerly the weekend roundup

Saturday’s promised omnibus extension never arrived, in part because of the arrival of a big cat on my computer, so here’s a Tuesday update.

Continue reading “Formerly the weekend roundup”