Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The New Zealand government has banned offshore oil and gas exploration as part of its 30 year quest for 100% climate purity.
New Zealand bans all new offshore oil exploration as part of ‘carbon-neutral future’
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern says move ‘will essentially take effect in 30 or more years’ time’
The New Zealand government will grant no new offshore oil exploration permits in a move that is being hailed by conservation and environmental groups as a historic victory in the battle against climate change.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said her government “has a plan to transition towards a carbon-neutral future, one that looks 30 years in advance”.
“Transitions have to start somewhere and unless we make decisions today that will essentially take effect in 30 or more years’ time, we run the risk of acting too late and causing abrupt shocks to communities and our country.”
…
The opposition party slammed the government’s ban as “economic vandalism” and said it made no environmental sense.
“This decision will ensure the demise of an industry that provides over 8000 high-paying jobs and $2.5bn for the economy,” National’s energy and resources spokesman, Jonathan Young, said.
“This decision is devoid of any rationale. It certainly has nothing to do with climate change. These changes will simply shift production elsewhere in the world, not reduce emissions.”
…
I wonder if New Zealand has figured out exactly how they will switch to 100% renewables?
New Zealand is cold and mountainous, so solar power is a bit of a non-starter. The old Maori name for New Zealand Aotearoa means “Land of the Long White Cloud”. New Zealand frequently lives up to that name.
The mountains provide hydroelectric opportunities – New Zealand gets over 50% of their electricity from hydropower, though this percentage has been dropping as their economy races ahead of political will to build new hydro capacity.
Nuclear is not going to happen for the foreseeable future. New Zealand is rabidly anti-nuclear, they don’t even allow nuclear warships into their waters.
As one of the most volcanic regions in the world New Zealand has more geothermal capacity they could probably tap, though even in New Zealand suitable sites aren’t that common. When I visited Lake Taupo a few years ago, the locals I spoke to were not keen on the idea of drilling into the cap of their grumbling super volcano to tap more of its geothermal potential.
Wind power in New Zealand is an intriguing challenge. New Zealand has lots of high mountain peaks which might make good sites for wind power, but a lot of New Zealand’s geography is almost completely inaccessible, due to those same high mountain peaks and steep valleys. In winter New Zealanders really, really need energy to stay warm – much of New Zealand experiences substantial snowfall and deep frosts. Wind turbines do not work well when they are covered in ice.
Perhaps the New Zealand government has a secret power unicorn breeding farm they will shortly announce to the world.
New Zealand is full of sheep.
And they’re getting fleeced.
Once their fleeces are gone they will get pretty cold.
In 30 years time the present administration will be long gone, but the consequences will be around a lot longer.
Perhaps Wind could work if they built the turbine blades out of uranium so they stay toasty warm during winter
Now you’re thinking! The only problem is that the blades would weigh 1000 tons each instead of 12 tons, which might pose a problem for the nacelle bearings 🙂
How much energy is required to explore for oil and gas versus all the energy that New Zealand uses currently to power their cars and trucks and tractors and homes and buildings? Would not shutting down the latter not have a greater impact to their island climate instead of doing NOTHING (ie NOT looking for oil) – bizarre, bizarre thinking…
We Aussies like to take the mickey out of the Kiwis about them and their sheep, as in conjugal relations and all during those long, cold winter nights in those cold hills etc.
Thanks to NZ PM Trixie Twinkle Tooth it now seems we were right on target. Not only have they been breeding lots of sheep but they seem to have been successful in breeding with the sheep and getting one of the fock elected as PM. Not quite ‘hybrid vigour’ but its certainly producing something new. A first?
Hey Komrade , are you aware of the Mods policy on here ? You said a “fock” is the head ewe in NZ tut tut tut.
Komrade
Hows your cricket team. Has your previous Captain stopped crying yet.
They are a disgrace to the sporting world.
You Aussies haven’t got anything to skite about mate. Your energy situation is a shambles, starting with South Australia. Your current PM has his head stuck in the same sand pit that our PM just planted hers!
Never forget, it was Aussies who proudly claimed they “rode the sheep’s back to wealth”.
K-
Doesn’t sound like NZ ever reads an Australian newspaper or visits StopTheseThings. Many are following Australia as it struggles with the pristine benefits of government-mandated wind energy; all brought to you by those wonderful financially-sponsored moles hand-picked and placed within your government to deliberately bankrupt and destroy the cheapest known energy source in the world — coal — along with the economies built with it. Of which Australia and the U.S. and many other developed nations have a virtual limitless supply. Identical models to those in Australia, and that’s about to unfold in NZ, are being rolled out in just about every other developed nation. Meanwhile, the wind farm and solar carnival barkers, town criers, shills, shysters, and propagandists continue their cons/schemes/scams unchecked. Which includes the energy fraud/lies/theft as well as green house gases/CO2/global warming/climate change; manufactured pandemics that weren’t and terrorists that aren’t, attempts to spray humanity with aerosol aircraft in the stratosphere behind the façade of helping humanity by “cooling the earth”–who gave these sonsofsatan permission to do this?– has become a global embarrassment. Stopping it is now the question.
We will be glad to sell them their liquid fuels.
This article notes that PM Ardern hasn’t actually put forward a convincing, facts-based case explaining where New Zealand will get its energy from in 10 years’ time when our current gas reserves are depleted.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/13-04-2018/wheres-the-evidence-that-the-government-has-thought-through-the-exploration-ban/
There has been no consultation and there will be none. The ban is absolute and applies to all NZ waters – the world’s fourth-largest exclusive economic zone. It is effective immediately and the Prime Minister leaves immediately for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in London. Her Green Party Climate Minister says “this is her nuclear-free moment” (a reference to a 1985 predecessor’s decision to ban US nuclear ships from all NZ waters).
There has been no Regulatory Impact Statement. The costs of the ban are obvious, but no benefits have been identified, let alone quantified. This is Green Politics at its most destructive.
“The ban is absolute and applies to all NZ waters – the world’s fourth-largest exclusive economic zone.”
Do they have a navy to match the Chinese one? This ‘zone’ is defended by what, pixie dust?
Liberals don’t believe they need to be defended from the Chinese.
No enemy on the left and all that.
“No enemy on the left and all that.”
The left are always surprised when the new The Great Leader lines them up in front of a ditch and has them shot.
With US military power waning, New Zealand will be New Jiangsu in a couple of decades.
The real stupid thing is that they won’t be saving any ‘carbon’ at all! It will merely result in the gas and oil exploration using more ‘carbon’ as it’s lost to another country. Most countries would appreciate the resulting economic development but probably won’t have the environmental protection that would have been in place in New Zealand.
‘Purity’. As in Puritan?
Didn’t Einstein also say tha he was not so shure about the universe 🙂
That and sure!
He did.
Such a beautiful nation. Such a moronic government.
It’s a typical mistake by small countries. Just look at Scotland, Belgium, Catalonia, Eire, Iceland. There are exceptions of course but the odds always seem to be on the small entities who frequently have too few of the necessary calibre for ministerial positions.
Patrick
One could also say that about the USA, Europe, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, etc, etc etc.
I am looking at the world news, and my conclusions are that perhaps New Zealand isn’t as far down the S bend as some.
Regards.
Getting into a contest of who has the silliest politicians is the sort of thing that could go on forever.
Sorry Tom I live in Canada with Trudeau as prime minister Canada wins.
What’s the point when China, India and the US continue and expand their use of fossil fuels?
Typical environmental virtue signalling with zero effect on CAGW!
I think that it can be commonly agreed that all countries with a claim to the silliest leadership have a common political DNA.
@Matt;
Sadly for you, I must agree.
All Western ‘governments’ are moronic. All of them are massively ignorant halfwits interested only in power and virtue-signalling.
All governments are moronic. The difference is that in the Western governments, they aren’t allowed to kill anyone who criticizes the government.
Yet.
Not directly kill but they are sure taking the steps to wreck civilisation and will surely engineer many deaths in the process.
Bingo!
The polonium210 in the national teabag.
Those blokes are full of the “new zeal” for sure, Aptly named little theme park.
New Zealand could easily become 100% powered by renewables. Already over 80% of their
electricity is renewable and if their one aluminium smelter shut down that percentage would rise
to 130%. If they propose that all vehicles become electric in 20 years time in line with other countries
that would give enough time to build further renewable capacity. There is also plentiful solar power in
the north island.
It should also be noted that NZ is perhaps the only country that could easily make the switch with Iceland
being the other contender. It has a small population, lots of area and resources for hydropower and geothermal resources.
Easily, no. Some 40% of total energy production is from “renewables”, mainly hydropower. Further expansion of so-called renewables would be difficult. Yet powering vehicles with electricity would require a huge expansion of renewable sources.
FWIW NZ isn’t particularly short of low cost renewable wind and geothermal electricity generation, with known geothermal (base load) and consented wind (intermittency managed by hydro) sufficient to power our low duty cycle fleet.
Fossil fuels (mainly NG) are used in the electricity system to service inter-seasonal and intra-day peaks. The latter predominantly domestic winter loads. There are cost effective options particularly to the latter with intelligent charging EVs coming on stream.
Getting close to 100% renewable electricity at low cost isn’t the problem. The big problem is NZ’s physical isolation and its reliance on fossil fuel transport to service big export earners (eg tourism, food) and the energy intensity required to process/preserve the food, for example, for the journey.
Low cost wind power is a contradiction in terms.
NZ is stretched out NS in the roaring 40s and get 120% of the global average utilisation. It works at the levels of penetration likely to occur, particularly when you have multiple turbines adn hydro to manage the intermittency.
Never assume that what happens in your back yard happens everywhere else in the world.
Germonio
Split of the electricity source
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/NZElectricityByType.svg
Regards
Germonio should observe that wind and solar, in the “Other” portion of the graph, isn’t worth piss-all.
According to that chart hydro has increased by a third while total demand has doubled. Not the right trajectory.
I often wonder what people mean by “easily”. Is it the same thing as herding angry grizzly bears up a mountain?
Of course! If it were really hard, it would be like herding housecats to a spot 2 feet away.
Meanwhile in 2017 New Zealand oil imports hit an all time high:
“Oil imports reached their highest level on record,
up 5.4% or 3.2 million barrels, driven by a 41% increase in
diesel imports.”
The other issue is that the majority of cars in New Zealand are used cars imported from Japan.
Reg
We do produce some oil but it is of a higher quality than needed for transport so that is exported.
The flip side is NZ Steel is still using local coking coal, Frontera still burn tons of local thermal coal for dairy processing and the South Island exports premium coking coal mainly to Japan.
I love the way the troll proposes getting to 100% renewable. Just shed any industry that actually uses power.
Bye bye economy.
Then he proposes increasing the demand for electricity by a factor of 10 by electrifying cars.
Germonio April 12, 2018 at 12:12 pm
“New Zealand could easily become 100% powered by renewables. Already over 80% of their
electricity is renewable and if their one aluminium smelter shut down that percentage would rise
to 130%. If they propose that all vehicles become electric in 20 years time in line with other countries
that would give enough time to build further renewable capacity. There is also plentiful solar power in
the north island. ”
Perfect. All greenies can climb aboard the New Zealand or Bust love boat. Although if too many people go there it just might cause the island to capsize.
If by capsizing it takes all those greenies with it, what’s the problem?
If by capsizing it takes all those greenies with it, what’s the problem?
MarkW the problem is I live here.
It’s bad enough having to live with the unthinking fools already here.
On a positive note there is quite a number of people pushing back at this nonsense and going by comments on news articles (is it too much to hope for) the silent majority may be starting to find their voice.
John, I have a life ring I’d be willing to sell you, cheap.
Well if NZ wishes to be a bystander in the world they can choose whatever deprivation they so desire. However, like the fox in Aesop’s fable you’ll never convince the rest of the world that losing your tail is better.
Sorry, I am not familiar with New Zealand’s typical weather – but if it gets strong hurricanes, err, cyclones (I guess this is what you call them) then couldn’t it be risky to depend on wind farms? And unless your northern island is sunny all the time, you don’t have a reliable solar energy source (without a lot of batteries). Renewable sources like wind and solar generally work in concert WITH reliant base load power plants.
So in order to meet future demand, you have geothermal and hydro (if reliability is a goal!). Geothermal drill holes get cold after a while, so you have to keep drilling new ones. Hydro is great as long as it keeps raining, but the water reserves play hell on the local environment – and since you are in an earthquake region – one should be cautious with large damns.
Like designing financial portfolio, the best strategy is to spread risk over many investments, or in this case energy sources.
Yes, it could be done, provided the environmentalists allow it. I doubt it would be easy, or cost effective.
Robert,
I know this was unintended, but a large DAM in an earthquake zone will tend to make one say the word you used…double meaning???
Robert of Texas
Weather – On a hot summers day (25 to 30C) on the East coast of the South Island, with your shirt off, one side of the body can be blue with cold from the easterly winds blowing across the cold ocean sweeping up from Antarctica, and the other side will be pink from sunburn due to low ozone overhead. We can have four seasons in one day, the temperature can drop 15C in a few hours, so you must always be prepared.
Geothermal, we have more of than you can poke a stick at, it fair bubbles out of the ground, just like Jed Clampett in the Beverly hill billies. Our hydro does not have adequate depth of reserve water, as we let most of the water run to the ocean to give the fish a fair go. This can be fixed. We also have plenty of coal.
I believe we have the most cars per head of population, but a good crusher can fix that.
But check out our share of Antarctica, when Algorbalwarming kicks in were gonna be rich, filthy rich, when all that nasty ice gets out of the way. We are going to send all of our three frigates down there to protect our patch. So don’t be messing with us.
I can drive from the East coast (Christchurch) to the west coast in three hours, and that includes stopping for coffee. Hope that helps.
Kind regards
OweninGA
And the township is below the dam.
“Robert of Texas April 12, 2018 at 3:27 pm
…and since you are in an earthquake region – one should be cautious with large damns.”
I used to live with someone when I migrated to NZ in 1995 who worked for a state owned power company, forget what it was called then, and he told me a dam he was responsible for was designed to move up to 6 metres in either direction in a severe quake which he considered to be 7 and above.
Patrick MJD
That sounds about right. We are a pretty flexible lot.
We have another inside the a mountain that feeds from higher lakes. Its primary purpose of being is to provide power to the aluminum smelter at the bottom of the South Island. I have been down inside on various assignment. You drive down the tunnel into the mountain, and the rule is to turn the vehicle around in case there is a need to vacate the premises fast. Manapouri Power Station, there is a link below.
Regards
http://manapouri.flexedesign.com/station-info
Think a little bit warmer Washington State. You would think wind farms would be great but they wouldn’t last that long (the windiest spots are all by the coast so the turbines would last about ten minutes due to the salt spray.
To say renewables would go from 80% to 130% by closing the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is garbage.
To replace the petrol powered vehicle fleet (ie. not counting diesel and av gas ) with electric vehicles would 70% EXTRA electricity to be produced based on current figures. Cannot see your dream of solar power producing that quantity.
Greens never even take the trouble to hide what they really want: Complete de-industrialisation.
I am personally quite happy to see them return to the Middle Ages, I just don’t want to go with them.
Politicians like to make moves that future politicians will have to pay for or remove – “You got 30 years to fix this”…..
I picked up on this too. Isn’t it strange – and certainly NOT a coincidence – that the stated time for the decision to take effect (in other words, for anyone to really notice) just HAPPENS to be 30 yrs! The decision makers will be long dead by then. Now if we could just figure a way for their offspring and heirs to get blamed…
I recall there was a time when Germany thought it’s government was going to stay in control of things for 1,000 years.
Those picturesque mountain ranges we’ve seen in all those fantasy movies and TV shows will look *so* much better lined with staggered ranks of half-frozen windmills.
Think of the extra bling when solar panels cover every roof. Like jewelled piercings on mother Gaia.
The Chinese will drill horizontally from just outside the Zealander coastal water boundaries and suck their resources dry.
Who cares? They are in the middle of nowhere so irrelevant to the global economy, or anything much, could be a special case re hydro but lack the brains and rational government to repeat the Norwegian pattern, and their economy is too small to notice if it tanks under the renewable nonsense. We should simply ignore them as pointlessly irrelevant on a global scale. So I will not write another word about them. Waste of keystrokes and neurons.IMO
*I* care. I live here! It’s worth noting that (a) the Labour party depend on the support of the Greens and (b) the previous government (run by the opposition “right” party) had a Minister for Climate Change, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Climate_Change_(New_Zealand) . ALL the politicians that count are infected by the CAGW mem.
I propose the formation of some new political parties. We need on in each country to stand up and show the silliness of these policies and to explain that there is no such thing as CAGW. This is very easily done in the UK as we have had a monster raving loony party for decades. A “There’s No Global Warming” will get off to a cracking start and there will be HUGE media interest.
Oh well. When you all freeze to death from cold, or starve to death without an economy, it opens up great opportunities for the rest of the world to exploit all those great resources./SARC. Your own people will vote themselves into an early grave, it seems. Look how long it took a bunch of South Australians to finally wake up. Now it is probably too late to fix anything except smart people in South Australia are buying diesel generators to keep farms and small businesses running.
In truth I’m betting that the Agenda 2030 goal that has been set will, in reality, go the way it did in Germany, Britain, Poland and other EU countries. When grandmas and grandpas die from the cold due to political policy people quickly come to their senses.
New Zealand is vying with Australia to become the foremost crash test dummy for renewable energy. Lots of Rockefeller money going to New Zealand to be a showcase for the New World Order. Ask the locals how they think the transformation is coming along. Fortunately they have a long history of hydropower and an ideal geography to add more but those facilities take time to build.
markl
Please provide links to your Rockefeller claim
http://oceania.iclei.org/ … from
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/grants/international-council-for-local-environmental-initiatives-australianew-zealand-limited/
I especially like the part about their grant process. They are currently “restructuring” how the grant process is done and are currently only giving grants to solicited projects. In other words, the foundation has given up on reading scientific study proposals and decided to create “science” themselves by telling researchers “you will receive X funds if you research project Y.”
Reminds me of the $100,000 award that Feely received after publishing their ocean acidification paper that kicked off that whole area of pseudoscience.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/239760/disaster-resilience-planning
The Rockefeller ‘resilience’ program is cover for numerous green lobby cells strategically located in target economies.
The Rockefeller Foundation infiltrate by feigning philanthropy (always gleefully welcomed by left-wing media and politicians).
The green industrial complex is primarily controlled by Larry Fink & Co working closely with the The Rockefeller Foundation and numerous other vested interests.
It may come as a shock to you that the Rockefeller Foundation does not provide links to admissions of complicity with respect to oil, resource and green energy corruption.
Ozonebust you just keep believing the Rockefellers do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts.
Warren Blair
“It may come as a shock to you that the Rockefeller Foundation does not provide links to admissions of complicity with respect to oil, resource and green energy corruption.
Ozonebust you just keep believing the Rockefellers do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts”.
In no way did I convey that sentiment. I simply asked for links out of interest. No I am not a fan of the Rockefellers, in no shape or form. I am am aware of their practices, and have been been for some time. They are not the only ones.
Regards
Ozonebust, apologies from Warren, .
No, that goes to the 1000 year Green Reich of Energiewende.
Well if Teresa MayBe doesn’t bottle it, at least Britain won’t be paying for it.
What’s the German for ‘Schadenfreude’ ?
🙂
Mann. Or Mensch. 🙂
Time and a lot of fossil fuels!
Wouldn’t that be Brave New World Order?
Their global cooling secret is wool exports and fossil fuel imports. not so secret after all
this would be a reason for me to leave that country if I lived there. this is a planned economic collapse.
The bigger risk is not acting too late.
Sure Kitty. What’s the plan?
K. Kilty may be being sarcastic. Or he’s changed…..
too late for what? hey, heres the reality. If south Australia, new Zealand, Germany, California and a few other liberal nutzo governments want to run on wind and solar and crater their economies, who cares. All in the name of saving the world, great, have at it. earth warms, it cools, our orbit changes, sun gets warmer then quieter, ocean currents change, el ninos happen, ice ages and a new something-cene occurs, and a bunch of other co-factors happen. guess what….we don’t turn into an ice ball like pluto and we don’t burn up. happened lots of times before. gonna happen a lot more times. co2 been much higher…don’t want it to go too low, plants die and things like corn and wheat don’t grow.
how about this….if you care so much, stop using plastics, fertilizer, cars, tires, and any and all derivatives of fossil fuels and go back to the cave. this includes cell phones, medicines, even glass (cant make glass without energy). hard to run a hospital without glass, plastics, energy, medicines, air conditioning and heating.
see how long you survive.
Hillary would have done the same thing in US were she elected.
Kamala Harris would also if she were to become US President.
“Hillary would have done the same thing in US were she elected.”
Trump comes out looking like a genius!
MAGA
Of course they’ll import their virtue from some poorer part of the world. They’re a gated community at its worst.
If threatened they’ll be back in the U.S. looking for salvation.
I like the pic of the helicopter in the post header showing the windmill blades being de-iced. Priceless. You would have thought they would have cast some heating filaments into the blades, and just flick a switch to defrost them. Ok, sorry for giving them any ideas.
CRACK!
That just was the sound of the most expensive composite delamination you ever heard.
The helicopter is priceless. I understand that was a feasibility test for deicing. I wonder what the overall cost of the attempt was and whether they decided it was feasible or not.
TonyL, does that happen to a Boeing Dreamliner when it gets de-iced? https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.ZC87kFfrtMfNhGKuuCzl4gHaFu&pid=15.1 If I’m not mistaken, it’s made of a lot of expensive composites.
@ Keith Sketchley
Boeing Aerospace engineers know what they are doing. Boeing aircraft are designed, engineered, and built with a *huge* amount reserve structural strength and durability. Boeing aircraft have a well earned reputation for safety and reliability.
On the other hand:
Windmill blades have an ongoing problem with delamination, catastrophic failure, and leading edge wear. Obviously, they do not have anything like the reserve strength of a passenger aircraft wing. Too expensive, too heavy.
If any Boeing aircraft had the wing problems that some blade makers have, the planes would have been permanently grounded.
Laugh not. Back in the day that’s exactly what happened to a friend of mine – a very junior employee of a prestigious company manufacturing radar dishes,
It was the smell of burning that alerted the visiting customer to the lobe shaped smoke pattern emerging from the dish as the de-icers he had been asked to switch on, on a warm spring morning…
Not the most expensive mistake at that company. A better one was the 5 day milling from solid of a very complicated phased array antenna some 8 feet long. By the new fangled CNC machine fed with paper tape.
Switching the power off at the end of the shift on day three, no on noticed the machine then recalibrated itself quarter if an inch differently from where it had been working..
Perhaps my interest in power intermittency goes back that far 😉
Dont think its the same process. The stuff used on airports isnt really what the greenies would want to spray in the open fields of wind power plants (they arent farms )
The plastic Boeing “Dreamliner” has not been w/o it’s long list of problems. Try a web search for “Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is having wing cracking problems”.
The on-board Li-ion batteries smoking and catching fire has been a problem as well. Maybe Elon has a solution?
And with major subassemblies developed and built at several countries around the world (political and PR “win”, but engineering and process lose), you might expect problems with major components not really fitting together too well. And you’d be right. I’ve talked to more than one Boeing engineer who say they would never fly on “one of those things”.
https://www.windpowerengineering.com/maintenance/vestas-de-icing-system-makes-case-operating-wind-turbines-cold-climates/
..
Article is 5 years old.
So they don’t really do this?
Wouldn’t testing such a dumb idea be a dumb idea all by itself?
Dumb idea? Well, GE doesn’t think so: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2017/0218926.html
Where do the deicing chemicals, presumably modified glycols, end up if the wind-farms have been set up in what were previously wilderness or agricultural areas?
If that was any other industrial or agricultural business the whole area would have, by law, to be bunded. Why are Green enterprises always allowed to be so free of normal environmental constraints ?
Keith: Patents are issued for anything. Flying saucers designs can be patented. They don’t have to work. You just have to be able to illustrate your idea/invention. Just because GE applied for a patent only means IF the idea worked, they’d have the patent.
Sheri, be serious. I provided a link to the Vestas work, a patent for GE’s method. If that is not enough for you take a look at Siemen’s way: https://www.siemens.com/content/dam/internet/siemens-com/global/market-specific-solutions/wind/brochures/infographic-de-icing-system.pdf
..
That’s the “big three” of wind turbine manufacturers .
Indeed, mikewaite.
Things “green” are often held to a lower environmental standard than traditional technologies. I have observed the same in other areas, such as reagents used by molecular biologists, some of which can be quite toxic (albeit usually in low concentrations or small amounts) but are used in a more casual fashion than industrial chemists would.
Many wine growers in New Zealand hire helicopters in winter to stir up cold still air to prevent the fruit from being damaged by frost. It’s OK though and it is wind powered.
This is actually a meaningless action because it doesn’t curtail existing exploration and drilling, but says they can’t start any new ones, which means it’ll simply be overturned by the next government — elections every 3 years. Labour’s policy is predicated on 30 years of uninterrupted Labour rule — a leftist unicorn or chimera, and that’s all this is.
Exploration for oil and development of new leases boosts the economy.
Without new leases, the amount of revenue from oil will start to gradually decrease.
NZWilly
Agreed. With the Green leader as Minister for the environment, and taking advice from NIWA, what could go wrong. The New Prime Minister has fallen under the spell of Al Gore who stroked her ego accordingly, a new recruit.
The recent report in December last year by NIWA to the Auckland City Council in relation to sea level rise and climate impacts is straight copy from the IPCC forecasts and doctrine.
http://www.knowledgeauckland.org.nz/assets/publications/TR2017-030-Auckland-region-climate-change-projections-and-impacts.pdf
Regards
One wonders what is to become of the country. The article notes that the oil industry will lose 8,000 jobs. Above, Geronimo also notes that they could shutter their aluminum operations. This would necessarily include ore mining and refining to produce metal product. That would cost perhaps another few thousand jobs. (We note for the record that Australia has closed down Al processing due to green energy initiatives.)
Worse, these jobs are primary producer industries which produce the wealth which drives much of the secondary economy. Without primary producers, you lose the whole thing. more jobs lost.
Worst, there will be perhaps 12,000 people thrown out of work at good paying jobs with no hope of new employment, just in the first consequence. Then more jobs lost as the secondary economy fails.
What will all this all look like in such a small country, with such a small working population.
So what do you get when you combine hard left politics and a government which wages ideological warfare on it’s own economy?
You get Venezuela. When you wreck enough market sectors, eventually the remaining parts of the economy cannot sustain themselves independently. The whole thing collapses.
“New Zealand is not Venezuela. It can’t happen here.”
Oh yes it can.
It is not so long ago that Venezuela was the most prosperous country in South America. Now, famine.
Aluminium and steel are strategic materials. If you have to import them you are in for real problems.
In 10 years time NZ will be a colony of China.
NZ signed up to the Belt and Road extravaganza and now they are getting cold feet.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/nz-may-exit-china-s-belt-road-scheme
Well said +10!
New Zealand is the one nation that actually might do 100% renewable. They have enough hydro such that with bolt on wind power, and a bit of geothermal, there might just be enough expensive electricity to go round…
Of course nuclear plus hydro would be far less environmentally damaging…
Costa Rica is close to 100% renewable. They also utilize a lot of domestic solar hot water, to alleviate using electricity to heat the same amount of water, which is really big when you add that all up. They are blessed with a lot of large Hydro and have a lot of geothermal installed and potential for lot more, so can easily implement a fair amount of solar PV and wind without a base load FF back up. And their solar panels are a bit more efficient with the Sun near overhead year round. Costa Rica really is a first world country, although they too just voted in a centre left Government. I hope they don’t blow it now.
Costa Rica is in a warm area where heat is not needed. One of their major industries is tourism—fossil fuel heavy, but they brag about not using fossil fuels because it’s not direct. Another industry is getting farmers to sell out to Home Depot and Superior Nut Company and the like, plow under the farm, plant trees and provide carbon offsets for richer nations.
To be fair Sheri, Costa Rica uses air conditioning most of the year, which would be similar BTU’s for heating 4-5 months of the year in cooler climes. CR’s tourism industry relies heavily on solar thermal for domestic hot water, which offset compensates for much of the annual A/C load. If you refer to planes coming and going, well, that applies to us all. If you also refer to FF for local transportation, ditto. So does everybody else. Although they do use a lot of diesel mini bus/van, which is far more energy efficient then gasoline. And a lot of that is biodiesel where less arable land grows a cash crop that Shell and others refine locally into biodiesel. And the farmland that is converted back to forest or jungle, is marginal agriculture land to begin with. Nobody takes Class 1 farm land and returns it to forest. Not their fault that the rest of the world has gone into the carbon offset business. The highest and best use of land sorts itself out in the long run, and being returned to forest or jungle is not the end of the world. Although CR does have one of the highest ratio’s in the world of protected biodiverse parks and landscapes already on the planet. I only observe that CR has been blessed with abundant renewable electricity with hydro and and a lesser extant, geothermal, which NZ also has, and it is the political will that makes a difference in getting things right. Clearly NZ is marching over the leftist cliff, and I only hope that CR doesn’t follow suit.
New Zealand despite its claim to be “nuclear free” is, like all other countries, 100% nuclear powered. When this is explained to loony lefties they alost turn blue trying to get their heads around the idea.
You could also tell them they are 100% fusion powered while you are at it.
Wrong Robert of Texas. New Zealand’s geothermal energy does not come from fusion. The source of heat deep in the Earth is either from leftover accretion energy, or radioactive decay.
Wrong Keith Sketchley. How else were the elements that decay formed? or the mass that is accreted, form in the first place?
There is only one primary energy source, and that is the big bang and resultant fusion.
Wrong Leo Smith , its Turtles, all the way down
Wrong yarpos…it is tittles up.
Keith that geothermal is indeed nuclear.
The problem is that every proposal for hydro construction is met with virulent opposition from the same people who want to ban the oil industry.
Greens hate hydro (the ultimate renewable) more than Oil.
Why would that be?
Warren: Because it works?
you can’t have hydro. That would annoy the taniwha.
Jacinta Ardern is a communist. Millennials elected her. Why?
Housing affordability (Auckland is more expensive than Sydney); her policy:
1. No foreigners buying existing properties.
2. Tax property speculators who ‘buy and sell’ within 5 years.
3. Level the playing field; First Time Buyers/Property Investors ( no tax losses on investment properties).
4. Massive house building program; NZ Labour will/may build 100,000 affordable homes.
5. Create an Affordable Housing Authority.
6. Make life better for renters.
Probably won’t all happen but that doesn’t matter . . . oh Malcolm watch out if Bill catches on to Jacinta’s policy he’ll be the next PM (on second thoughts, no need to worry Malcolm).
it all works fine until, as Margaret Thatcher noted, when you run out of OPM. The time eventually comes when the middle class can no longer afford a first-world class standard of living.
The problem is that most voters are merely looking for the politician who promises them the most free stuff.
How to pay for it doesn’t matter to them, in their minds you can raise taxes on the rich infinitely.
I once talked to a young liberal who declared that we could easily afford universal health care for all.
We just needed to increase the tax rate on the top 5% to 80%.
On live TV this morning, Minister Phil Twyford (Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Transport) called us Climate Change Deniers. OK, that’s my support for Labour gone.
Love the “science den*er” term. It’s bullying at its best.
Like New Zealand can affect ANYTHING on a global scale? I am sure there have been people all over the world saying “if we could only get New Zealand to cut their CO2, everything would be alright!”
They did film ‘Lord of the Rings’ there. That had global reach.
And ‘The Hobbit’.
It would truly be horrible if New Zealand collapsed and the world was spared another fifteen-hour adaptation of a 300 page novel.
Like all foolhardy climate cuckaloos, they are using magical thinking. They will harness the energy from rainbows and pixie dust. Devil take the hindmost, and money is no object, when “the planet” is at stake. Virtue-signaling, planet-martyrdom is what matters to these morons.
Don’t worry. When things get ugly, fossil fuel will return. Cold, starving miserable people have no reason not to storm the castle. Leaders know this. They may wait a while, but they realize it’s suicidal to hang tight. Witness Europe.
The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control There is co real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. There are plenty of reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. Such actions will have no effect on climate and probably no effect on the amount of CO2 that mankind is adding to the atmosphere.
The biggest import category for NZ (by $) is petroleum and petroleum products.
The next largest category is vehicles and machinery.
NZ has more registered vehicles (99% ICE) than people (possibly displacing San Marino as world leader per head of population).
NZ can despoil the landscape with as many wind turbines as they like but will still be reliant on the warm nipple of mother oil for a long long time to come.
With NZ’s hills/mountains, valleys, and small townships, they NEED motor vehicles to do anything! Until the motor car, it was almost impossible to get between the small places – even the little rail transport they have required extensive tunnelling. And most development was on the coast, because they could ship (literally) between towns by water. I just cannot see intensification of their (excellent) electrical system for electric cars being affordable, or even possible.
“I just cannot see intensification of their (excellent) electrical system for electric cars being affordable, or even possible.”
Precisely because of the excellent electrical system, the availability of low cost renewable additional generation, and a network that is significantly underutilied at off peak times when domestic evs can charge, if the rest of the world can deliver the vehicles at even current prices they’ll be more cost effective than either ICEs or hybrids.
It’s different down here.
80% of energy for electricity generation is from renewable sources, by far the most important being hydro. Wind and geothermal contribution is minimal. Further development of wind is restricted through a public resistance to turbines – NIMBY.
The above stats do not cover the direct use of gas, the energy from which exceeds that of hydro. NG pipelines service all the major cities in the North Island. A major user of gas is the dairy industry which is the leading generator of export returns. Over the last 10 years there has been a significant shift towards NG or LPG appliances in homes. It is cheaper than electricity.
Gas powered power stations are extremely important as they contribute a major part of electricity generation and security of supply when dry weather depletes the hydro lakes.
All gas wells in NZ are past their maximum production and up until now has been a real concern that we will run out.
What is this decision about? The current Labour government needs the support of the NZ Green Party to retain power in parliament. They are in coalition. In my opinion nothing will change over the long term. NZ needs gas and will do so for a very long time yet. Thank goodness for democracy and the common sense of most Joe Blobs in the street. The Labour tenure is limited.
Regards
M
Well said Michael Carter .
This is what happens when the Green Party gets into government in a coalition .The labour Party never mentioned stopping oil and gas exploration in their manifesto .The population was swayed by a young woman and thought time for a change .The next election will be fought on this issue .
Absolute right Michael.
This move is at the instructions of Green Peace via the Green Party.
NZ has huge untapped gas resources. We’ll never be 100% renewable because the Greens oppose new hydro and oppose nuclear. Wind and solar are never going to make up the difference as they perform just as poorly as they do elsewhere in the world.
HELP NZ! I live down here. It is beautiful but full of leftist AGW propaganda daily spewed by schools, the government (carbon taxation!) and every TV news or talk radio station. The leftist policies will make NZ go broke … maybe in 30 years? “People” think electric cars are the answer. They are ANTI cutting down ANY trees. They are ANTI getting new water cleaning facilities (because a few trees need to be cut down) near where I live in Titirangi. I still enjoy living here but the LEFTIES in NZ – are NUTZ!!!!!!
no,no,no. Cut down trees, turn them into damp pellets and ship them to the UK to be burned. Very green we are told.
This is silly policy. It will increase carbon emissions because our hydrocarbon fuel for essential purposes (flying etc) will have to be be transported from distant suppliers. Plus loss of job, tax and export income. If you want to change encourage at the consumption end, not the supply end.
And there is a very imporftsnt lesson for those out there. This foolish policy is the result of the tail (the disappearing Green Party) the wagging dog in our MMP elected coalition government. Beware of MMP folks. It ain’t what it seems.
Especially when it is a modified version of MMP used in Germany. I recall when MMP was introduced in 1996 in NZ and my initial thoughts were “What could possibly go wrong with that?”
Now we know.
Supertankers are a very efficient transport method, especially if they orbit thru the Southern Ocean….
GreenPeace New Zealand has been pushing this for years and using propaganda, lies and junk science as their basis. I’ve been somewhat critical of GreenPeace NZ over the years each time they print lies and push their propaganda which usually results in nothing but personal insults from the mindless drones who can’t think for themselves. Even had the delight of having a meaningful discussion with one of the Cook et al 97% bollocks co authors who eventually left the debate with his tail between his legs when I started questioning his lack of morals and ethics. GreenPeace NZ executive director Russell Norman used to be leader of the Green Party until he quit a few years ago. Chances are he still has a lot of influence with the party now that they are in coalition power, you know the same people who have no problems admitting that their co-leader is a benefit fraudster. Even Russell’s public statement the other week about how GreenPeace was denied charity status was full of lies. Crooks abound here in NZ, especially in the liberal loony left.
Where you see crooks and corruption please do all you can to shine a light into their dark corners and encourage others to do so. In any enterprise including politics there are those with some morals left who just need a little push, a little help and a little encouragement to become useful whistleblowers. It also helps with recruitment for the other (the RIGHT) side!
Greenpeace, New Zealand
‘The Energy Future Is Here Report’
Available at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/reports/The-Future-is-Here-report
Another Greenpeace report might be available:
‘Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable New Zealand’, 2013, on the internet anyway.
Greenpeace New Zealand, June 8, 2010
Feature story:
‘The Energy [R]evolution’
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/news/energy-revolution-2010
“What will all this all look like in such a small country, with such a small working population.”
Oh such a teensy-weensy little … etc .. country … actually has about the same
population as the Republic of Ireland, and four times the land area … you never
hear TROI being described as tiny/little/etc
In fact it would be easy to concoct a long list of countries of much greater
size than NZ, and with many times the population, whose relative contributions
to Mankind have been insignificant or non-existent.
Which is not to deny that it is to be deeply regretted that NZ has fallen
into the hands of Ideologues.
You don’t have to remind people of how small Ireland is, because they already know it.
IMHO, this announcement is a nothing burger. NZ tends to be gas prone, there is little known oil, but given the 30 year window, they can always change it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_industry_in_New_Zealand
In any case, just because they say NIMBY, doesn’t prevent importation of hydrocarbons from elsewhere, which will be in the cards anyway.
It would be like me announcing that in 30 years I will not give $1 million to charity–a meaningless pronouncement of something that was never going to happen anyway. Lol.
The oil and gas will still be there for future generations if they don’t explore for it now. Every cloud has a silver lining if you wait long enough.
Relax.
Nothing in there to prevent onshore exploration in the meantime. Its only new offshore exploration permits
and probably doesnt include those already issued.
30 years of Labour, Green, NZ First Coalition?
What an extrordinary concept.
Excuse me while I go over and pound my head on a brick wall
The thought of Winston Peters holding the balance of power is worrying.
This policy looks like a bone that’s been thrown to the Greens (who are not part of the coalition government; they merely guarantee supply) to keep them happy. Labour’s coalition partner, NZ First, is a more economically pragmatic outfit. The current oil explorers can continue exploring under present arrangements and renew their exploration licences should they wish to. It will take thirty years for any effect of the policy to be felt . . . by which time the government will have changed on three or four occasions, with most of the period seeing a centre-right party in power.
New Zealand may at the moment have a left-wing government, which means the odd whacko scheme gets a bit of playing time, but the bulk of the people are sensible and know how many beans make five.
I welcome the announcement . . . it’s the sort of thing that makes the likelihood of this being a one-term government get closer to a certainty.
Sorry Graphite but you are wrong .The green Party is part of the government .Three of them are ministers and one an under secretary .James Shaw ,Eugene Sage and Julie Anne Genter are Ministers .
Ministers outside Cabinet. Not part of the government.
word games
A case of Greenwash by the NZ labour party to appease their Green party coalition partner. It is also a case of nimbyism because NZ won’t stop importing the stuff. FYI NZ produces less than 1 percent of the world’s oil, but does produce a bit more natural gas.
They will loose high skill, high pay Oil and engineering jobs and replace with low paid low skill tourism jobs.
Incidentally New Zealand earns 17 percent of its export earnings from Dairy. But now earns more (about 18 percent of export earnings ) from its Tourism industry. Tourism is its bigger earner.
And how, you might ask, do the tourist get there? They fly or come on cruise ships which are both high emitters of CO2. But shhhhh let’s not mention that inconvenient truth.
The NZ job market took a nose dive on the election result and shows no sign of recovery. This latest stuff is just making things worse. The oil announcement is actually one of their less incompetent and insane actions, which us the really scary part.
How about if the rest of the world starts denying oil shipments to nations who believe it’s evil?
These climate lemmings who don’t bother with real science when making policy but rely on New York Banner style movements should be exposed for the hypocrites they are.
I’m gonna have some fun with this…Infratil may have realized what the former UPC/First Wind/ Sun Edison) cats (Longroad Energy Partners) were up to…
New Zealand, 2018:
Population 5,000,000
New Zealand, 2048:
Population 328,000
You didn’t factor in the climate refugees (sarc).
I was once lectured on the evils of oil and gas by an attendant at a gas station in New Zealand. I asked her how she got to work and where her paycheck came from.
The irony and hypocrisy were lost on her.
There is a pretty strong chance that the NZ government will be lucky (for them) to last a full term. It is a badly stitched together coalition rife with arrogance, ineptitude and some strong signs that indicate there may be of outright corruption.
This article gives a bit of a view why the whole sorry mess may collapse at any moment. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103068858/photo-says-it-all-how-shane-jones-reacted-to-governments-oil-news
The press were besotted with Jacinda in the election, but a couple of horror months mean that this announcement (and a hike in petrol taxes) is their deflection mechanism from the corruption & incompetence stuff they were getting hammered with. Cindy’s fall from grace is similar to, but much faster than Canada’s True Doh’s.
What a great photo; politicians in a World of pain!!
No NZ Govts usually struggle on for their full 3 year tem even if they don’t achive much in the last years. anyway parliament is pretty much reduced to vaudeville anyway.
NZ does not have that many resources readily available. We have marvellous mountains but no access. We some geothermal but tourists need that for local heating. We have taniwha who guard our waterways and require tribal monetary feeding at planning permission time. The place is not tropical and sun is not plentiful for harvest. We rely on grass production, tourists, aluminium smelting, fertiliser and import substitution for foreign exchange.
We once lived in peace until the American Disease struck and achievers of year 7 level believed they could run the country. We have an electoral system that allowed a party with 7% of the votes to appoint a government substitute.
Now we are on the slippery slope to a wage price spiral with planned reduced economic output and unions having power to appoint the Prime Minister.. A regression to the 1970’s with an ex student politics Finance Minister. Very Gilbert & Sullivan but catastrophic.
Who do we consult in Venezuela for economic counselling?
Even if New Zealand finally slid beneath the waves, it would take a couple of weeks for people in Australia to notice, and longer still for the rest of the World.
We might get a decent rugby team if it does.
We started playing Rugby in NZ at 10 and by 14 we had a fair skill set.
Australia will not match NZ until they start their players younger IMHO.
How exploited are the current leases? Also new areas may be inacessible or uneconomic at present.
Governments and regulations can and do change within 5 years, let alone 30.
All this may be moot. Mr. Middleton?
Volcanoes and sediments with gas and oil do not mix. I doubt NZ had much to offer, amazed they had any at all, have no sedimentary deposits or shelves to explore, so that gas and oil rush was very brief. Sort of like declaring a dead horse dead.
It’s not the lack of successful oil and gas finds that is the problem — nobody’s hanging out for that longshot. It’s a cessation of spending by international corporations and the subsequent loss of supporting jobs that is causing the worry. The best bet is that a centre-right government will be elected next time around and the policy will be, as promised, discarded.
But while that’s the way the smart money will bet, it’s no shoo-in. I’d want a shade of odds before committing.
The centre-right government of the past nine years (three terms) was just barely right of centre. The PM was pale green at best, a believer in “climate change” and his government had plans to introduce electric cars into the official fleet.
He’s quit Parliament, as have most of his cohort, and the new kids have taken over. They’ve been making the right noises about Labour’s daft policy but whether that translates to practical action when they regain the Treasury benches is not set in concrete.
On the other hand, these companies have to take the long view.
If you have a volatile situation where the ban is on again, off again, every time a new government is elected. Many companies will decide that they can get a better return on their investments elsewhere.
Apparently laws make dreams come true. If so, they should make cancer illegal immediately. Join the cure.
the ban will apply to new permits and won’t affect the existing 22, some of which have decades left on their exploration rights and cover an area of 100,000 sq km.
The headline should read>>
New Zealand bans all new offshore oil exploration as part of ‘carbon-neutral future’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/12/new-zealand-bans-all-new-offshore-oil-exploration-as-part-of-carbon-neutral-future
Will they also ban all imported fuel? And all land based exploration?
Say goodbye to the forests. Hello to the haze of woodsmoke.
And on the other side of the world, here in Scotland we have an SNP government, propped up by the Greens, who have presided over the closure of the last two coal-fired power stations, banned onshore fracking for gas, and want to close the remaining two nuclear power stations as well. The last time I went to the cinema, in amongst the booze and car ads, there was propaganda advert by the Scottish government, with a ‘Greener Scotland’ theme. I nearly threw my popcorn at the screen.
Commiserations sono (my forefathers from Ayrshire) we feel your pain!
Neighbouring Australia is heading down the same virtue signal path as New Zealand. A day or two ago, PM Malcolm Turnbull said
“It is critically important that we invest in energy sources of the future and that we affect the transition from older forms of [energy] generation to new forms of generation and we do so seamlessly.”
Mr Turnbull was announcing $100 million of taxpayer money earmarked to research brown coal conversion to component gases CO2 and Hydrogen as a path to reduced CO2 in the atmosphere. (Yes, you read that accurately. He missed the point that to work with brown coal you start with a seam, so you achieve nothing seamlessly – grin).
In matters like this, the words of politicians – many being lawyers not scientists – are only as good as the input from real scientists. Australia has senior scientists who have systematically dudded the political system by offering shallow, poorly researched and bad advice. The various Chief Scientists and the learned bodies like the Australian Academy of Science must. by now, have realised that there is substantial questioning of the basis for climate change and global warming hypotheses, yet they still try to silence debate.
Australia and new Zealand both deserve better. I doubt if either leader has a clue about the negative effects their words will have on attracting future industry and keeping existing industry. It is clear writing on the wall that emphasises “No industry welcomed here”.
Bet they go the way of South Australia, and Victoria in Australia. They sill use imported diesel generators, and make actual usage a State secret.
Living in the twilight start of a dark age is depressing.
I feel the same way. It’s sad when you start thinking “at least I won’t live long enough to see the worst of their plans”
But there is still room for humor.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f47391c3-8a71-4f40-8195-4fab33420277
When are they going to commission the first wool-fired power station?
Okay, I’ll scratch it off the bucket list as a destination and place with NK and Venezuela. One-track minded into the ground is not a place to be or visit.
New Zealand bans economic activity. In order to lessen the countries carbon foot print.
As a fourth generation Kiwi farmer I have always taken a keen interest in politics since the 1950,s I am sure that our new wave of politicians have little idea how the country functions and this ban on oil and gas exploration has been pushed by Greenpeace and the Green party .Despite what the coalition agreement says the Greens ARE part of the government .Any one who believes otherwise has a vacuum between their ears .
Unfortunately the Labour party has support from a large number of people in cities and towns who have retired or are getting close to retirement .A British film from the late 50’s “I’m all right Jack “comes to mind .
Cheap reliable energy is the life blood of modern civilization and any government that takes steps to increase the cost of energy because of ideological beliefs does not care about the welfare of the population that they have been elected to govern .
Spot on! And tonight after our recent storm theres still 45,000 folk without power. It’s cold and windy wind-farms are idled and solar panels …. nuff said. With Labour and the Greens we’re in the dark……
Jacinta, indeed. Along with the leftward tilt of trends goes the participation rate of women in operating government levers of power. The human race benefited greatly from the nurture instincts of women but I’m afraid this safety net for the nuclear family has been imported whole cloth into the job of managing whole communities and countries.
There is such a thing as too much ‘mothering’ even in a family (Am I right that it is the root of the word smothering?). “Com’on dear, he can bathe himself and comb his own hair. After all he’s fourteen.” Some women like Margaret Thatcher, Benidir Bhutto, Golda Meir, Indira Gandi, Cleopatra, Katherine the Great, my mother… show that women can leave this family instinct behind (or perhaps it wasnt a strong point for them in the home) when they take on the completely different avocation of running a government supposedly of free people. Today it’s even worse because the ready made we-know-whats-best-for-you ideology feels closer to their instincts.
Are there any female leaders today who have not fallen under the spell of the marxbrothers, despite an unblemished record of the worst and most deadly politico-economic regimes on earth . You might counter that the world has had more schizoid male jerks and no-talents running countries and you’d get no argument from me.
You present lot may not go around robbing the treasury for your own gain, building palaces and monuments to yourselves or jailing people you don’t like. But smothering me and spending my money the way you think is best for me is pretty much as bad.
Flash! Georgetown, Texas claim they are the first city to consume only 100% renewable energy. Bravo! That should silence the naysayers. WUWT should feature a story about Georgtown, but I wager this breakthrough will go unacknowledged. [Sarc Off]
NPR, so it must ne legitimate news:
https://www.npr.org/2017/03/07/519064002/texas-city-leads-the-way-on-renewable-energy