Energy

The head of the Electricity Authority has attacked the Green/Labour power policy, saying it will lead to ”black outs, less investment in renewable power projects and shrink the New Zealand economy”.

In a speech in Auckland this morning, Electricity Authority chairman Brent Layton (pictured) attacked the plans, saying they will lead to blackouts, less investment in renewable power projects and shrink the New Zealand economy.

He says the cost of a regulator transferring wealth under such a centralised power-buyer proposal would have a “chilling effect” on investment, which is likely to be “large, widespread and long-lived”.

“Either the government will be forced to build future plants, and many other assets, or shortages of electricity and other services will be likely.”  Read more »

Looks like the message is getting through, Phil the Greek and his grand-so Harry have got with the program.

Prince Harry has voiced concerns about the visual impact of wind farms during his tour of America.

His comments came as he attended a reception in Denver on Friday night and his views are apparently shared by his father the Prince of Wales.   Read more »

The tide has turned on the desire for touchy feely green energy.

The climate bed-wetters are being discredited, as are their darling windfarms.

Is this really the future?

Wind farm companies operating in Scotland were paid more than £1 million to shut down their turbines for a single day last month, it has emerged.

A total of £1,146,614 was handed out to the operators of 13 Scottish wind farms, including almost £300,000 for a development built on land owned by the Duke of Roxburghe.  Read more »

The George W. Bush Presidential Library is bound to make the Greens happy…except they hated him so much it hurt. It is LEED-certified

TODAY’s Matt Lauer gives an overview of the brand-new LEED-certified George W. Bush Presidential Library, which has 80 terabytes of digital information including 4 million photographs, 200 million emails and 43,000 artifacts.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read more »

In Monday’s DomPost (not online) was this article by Lewis Evans about the Greens/Labour power scam. Basically it concludes that the only way that they can deliver lower power prices to consumers is to increase taxes on those same consumers.

In other words there is no possibility that power prices will be cheaper, and that they are basically running an electoral scam.

THE Greens/Labour proposal for an electricity single-buyer model with steep household electricity price discounts is economically flawed.

It requires a taxation increase that is similar to the reduction in electricity bills.

Electricity will be no cheaper to produce. It pre-empts the wise use of water within the electricity market as well as between electricity and other uses. It reduces the effectiveness of the ETS scheme in limiting emissions.

The proposal forces generators with existing hydro and geothermal plant to supply blocks of electricity at prices far below the cost of additional electricity production with new plant. Although the electricity market is reasonably competitive, long established firms are profitable. They have low capital costs, and are paid a price set by aggregate New Zealand demand equalling supply.

This is the real cost of electricity to the economy. When demand for electricity is increasing this price is equal to the cost of the next new generator. The electricity market is no different from any market where expansion requires increased establishment costs. In the case of forestry, there is no market power and established firms close to ports may be very profitable compared to plantations established later in the hinterland.

Some 78 per cent of electricity generated by hydro and geothermal plant is owned by the Crown. Adjusting this figure for taxation on private sector activity, a one dollar electricity discount to a household reduces government income by at least 85 cents.

For each household’s power bill reduced by $330 government revenue will fall by at least $280. Either household taxes need to rise by $280 or government expenditure be curtailed. Across all households this has substantial implications for taxation and government funded programmes.  Read more »

The global warming troughers are set to see a sharp decrease in the funding of their troughs. As global warming fails to materialise their funding is likely to be slashed. The reality is though that we should be asking for a refund since all the billions pumped into modelling has shown to be about as useful as tits on a bull.

The past 17 years of flat global temperatures are creating a big chill for lots of global warming doom-premised industries. Those experiencing cold sweats must certainly include legions of climate scientists who have come to depend upon the many tens of billions of taxpayer bucks for studies that would have little demand without a big crisis for the public to worry about. And that amount pales in comparison with the hundreds of $ billions we spend on generous subsidies, lost tax revenues and inflated consumer costs for otherwise non-competitive “green energy” industries which depend upon those scary climate reports, or the insane economic penalties imposed  upon all segments through EPA’s climate-premised regulatory rampage.

Axe the subsidies immediately, stop the bleeding.  Read more »

Labour and The Greens are telling us that the solution in California is the one to look at. Except earlier I blogged about how fragile it is with planning for rolling blackouts.

Now we can look at why their power is cheap…simple economics.

Changes in California’s market have attracted lots of new generation; the state expects to have 44% more generating capacity than it needs next year. Grid officials say they expect the surplus to fall to 20% by 2022, though it will remain high for about a decade.

However, the surplus generating capacity doesn’t guarantee steady power flow. Even though California has a lot of plants, it doesn’t have the right mix: Many of the solar and wind sources added in recent years have actually made the system more fragile, because they provide power intermittently.

So once again the Labour and Green parties have lied about the solution. They have simply looked at California, seen they have a state control of the market and assumed that is the underlying reason for cheap power. Wrong. Simple economics is the underlying reason, and 10 years of enforcing building of extra capacity so much so that they now have 44% more capacity than is needed.  Read more »

Labour and the Greens first held up South Korea as the model of their electricity reforms, that didn’t work out so well, so now they are talking about California as the nirvana. Quite apart from the fact that the Socialist Republic of California is flat broke and slashing jobs their electricity sector isn’t much chop either.

This from the California Consumer Energy Centre:

To understand the situation facing California, there are three terms that need to be defined- blackouts, brownouts, and rotational outages or “rolling blackouts.” A rotational outage or “rolling blackout” is when the utility company shuts off the power to an area, turns it back on, and then shuts the power off in a different area. The power outage typically lasts 60 to 90 minutes.

A brownout is when the electrical current flowing to your home or office is temporarily reduced (an average household can barely notice the difference). You may notice that the lights may slightly dim temporarily. These power reductions can be uncontrolled and controlled.

They also have a grading system for their “rolling blackouts”:  Read more »

David Parker was front and centre yesterday launching the Labour/Green economic assault on power generation.

“National is hurling all sorts of inaccurate insults at the NZ Power policy and muddying the waters. Their scaremongering shows they’re worried that hard-working New Zealanders who are sick of paying through the nose for electricity will embrace our new policy.

“Labour’s policy is quite clear. It will reduce power prices through two means.

“First, the single buyer NZ Power will buy electricity from generators on behalf of all New Zealanders at a fair price, based on their actual production costs and return on capital. It will not allow the companies the super profits from older hydro generation they get currently.

“Second, NZ Power will sell that wholesale power to retailers. As generators will be structurally separated from their retail business there will a level playing field and barriers to entry will be lowered. This will increase retail competition and lead to lower prices.

He was the go to man for comments yesterday, but I wonder of it is the same David Parker who, in a report to cabinet in 2006  said this:

“a single buyer would likely result in higher capital and operating costs”. He went on to say that: “The risks involved in changing arrangements could be significant. The resulting uncertainty could lead to investment proposals being put on hold. Direct implementation costs could be large.” And, he admitted that “The single buyer would be relatively poor at sustaining pressure on operational costs.”  Read more »

A reader emails about the economic destruction Labour and the Greens have visited upon our businesses.

This isn’t just about the power sector – here’s my screen shot of current market falls today – look at the top 6 – Contact, Trustpower, Infratil, Auckland Airport, NZX, Telecom, even Port of Tauranga in at number 8 – all sectors that investors are now shitting bricks about being in the gun from labour 1970’s type regulation.

They are throwing bombs at our economy to promote their own cause and don’t care about the collateral damage – that’s called terrorism in my book.

Read more »