Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to climate researcher Jen Purdie, even New Zealand with its abundance of windy mountains, geothermal sources and vast hydropower lakes cannot provide enough renewable energy for people to live in comfort and ease.
The author calls it “managing the demand”, but the message is clear.
As NZ gets serious about climate change, can electricity replace fossil fuels in time?
February 16, 2021 2.15pm AEDT
Jen Purdie
Senior Research Fellow, University of OtagoAs fossil fuels are phased out over the coming decades, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) suggests electricity will take up much of the slack, powering our vehicle fleet and replacing coal and gas in industrial processes.
But can the electricity system really provide for this increased load where and when it is needed? The answer is “yes”, with some caveats.
…
It’s hard to get a sense of the scale of the new generation required, but if wind was the sole technology employed to meet demand by 2050, between 10 and 60 new wind farms would be needed nationwide.
…
Managing the demand
As well as providing more electricity supply, demand management and batteries will also be important. Our modelling shows peak demand (which usually occurs when everyone turns on their heaters and ovens at 6pm in winter) could be up to 40% higher by 2050 than it is now.
But meeting this daily period of high demand could see expensive plant sitting idle for much of the time (with the last 25% of generation capacity only used about 10% of the time).
This is particularly a problem in a renewable electricity system when the hydro lakes are dry, as hydro is one of the few renewable electricity sources that can be stored during the day (as water behind the dam) and used over the evening peak (by generating with that stored water).
Demand response will therefore be needed. For example, this might involve an industrial plant turning off when there is too much load on the electricity grid.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/as-nz-gets-serious-about-climate-change-can-electricity-replace-fossil-fuels-in-time-155123
What a miserable vision of the future. A future where energy is rationed. A future where if you try to turn on an appliance at the wrong time a government approved smart meter will nag you about the bill you will have to pay, or inform you that no clothes washing or dish washing machines are permitted be switched on until 2pm tomorrow, when the solar panels are online.
All of this is only a problem because the New Zealand government is fixating on unreliable zero carbon energy sources.
Even if you think CO2 emissions are important, there is an alternative which would not mess up everyone’s lives. New Zealand energy demand currently peaks at around 900MW, less than the output of a single large nuclear reactor.
One or two decent size zero carbon nuclear plants, and there would be no need for any of this. Modern nuclear plants are safe – even in Earthquake prone New Zealand, passive safe reactor designs like pebble bed, which are physically incapable of meltdown even with total coolant loss, would not cause a major radiological incident if the reactor was damaged by an Earthquake.
Affordable, reliable zero carbon electricity would be available 24×7, any time you flick a switch.
Update (EW): Finland, which has a GDP and population comparable to New Zealand, has four operational nuclear reactors and two new reactors under construction. Finnish electricity is around USD 0.186 / KWh, vs New Zealand USD 0.248. Finnish people are every bit as concerned about the environment as New Zealanders.
Correction (EW): h/t Chris Morris; New Zealand peak demand is around 6000MW, not 900MW, but they have a lot of hydro capacity. So they’ll likely still only need two to three nuclear reactors.
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Nuclear power makes too much sense for nonsensical climate alarmists to accept it.
“I can smell the uranium on your breath’
D Lange during a debate circa 1985
Opposition to nuclear power is how I know that the pseudo environmentalists do not believe that carbon dioxide is a real threat. All they would have to do is stop lying about nuclear power and emissions would begin a big drop without crushing poverty increases.
But, Paul, ‘crushing poverty increases’ are a desirable and necessary step towards the goal of a greatly depleted population (hello, famine, war, pestilence) living in genteel poverty and serfdom, humbly serving their entitled elitist overlords. If nuclear were to forestall that, nuclear must be demonized.
Current technology isn’t suitable for NZ.
How so?
When I was in Canada in 1990 a guy that was interested in some sort of technology investment in NZ asked me what they had that we didn’t and as it happened there was nothing obvious at the time. Our phone system was better. We had various things that they basically hadn’t heard of.
NZ was often used as a testing ground for technology as the size of the country could give reliable results within a short time.
So you need to come up with something better than that silly blanket statement.
There is no such thing as unlimited renewable energy. You might need that silly blanket to keep warm if people think wind and solar will be their saviors.
Maybe the warming value of sheep has not been included?
lol
Love it!!!
Exactly, both Wind and Solar have limitations and so aren’t “Unlimited”
The wind isn’t constant but variable
Solar only produces predictable maximum output for 5 out of 24 hours in any given location
Are you claiming that New Zealanders aren’t smart enough to operate current nuclear technology?
Smart enough not to add 3GWs baseload to a islanded system where night time total load is regularly well below that. Roll on SMRs.
+1,000.
Imagine where the developed and developing world be about now if all the treasure wasted on 14th century wind power generation had instead been directed to SMRs (whether or not the motivation was the nonsensical agw conjecture)?
(Domestic solar panels I think are a practical appliance to heat water when possible and reduce energy costs for households. No good reason for governments to pick up the bills for supplying & installing them though)
Its more that the small market means the baseload provided by a single ‘old technology’ site is too large/expensive for existing demand.
As others have pointed out SMR change that…when it happens
https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/
There are many small nuclear reactors under consideration and quite a few in their final stages towards certification and mass production.
Not long before 2007 an inquiry commissioned by the Australian Federal Government (Howard PM) recommended modular nuclear generators for the near and distant future, from memory fifty (50) units around the country.
The leftist side of politics opposes nuclear energy, but uranium is exported for use overseas.
Right now there is a proposal being put to Federal Parliament for the ban on nuclear energy to be abandoned. Makes good sense, Australia has huge reserves of uranium and IF, repeat IF lowering CO2 emissions is necessary emissions-free nuclear is a far better way to achieve it than unreliable subsidised energy systems.
Yes and even labor stalwart Bob Hawke proposed a spent nuclear fuel rods storage facility be built in remote central Australia for the world to use in order to defuse the greenies’ anxiety about nuclear power rollout around the world.
Not smart enough to honour the ANZUS Treaty and permit US nuclear powered vessels to enter.
Current UK plans include 17GW of new nuclear (including Hinkley already building).
but funding it is proving impossible, with the huge guaranteed power price offered to Hinkley not viable for more units and alternatives not giving a return on investment. 2 companies have pulled out of planned sites and if there’s going to be any more plant, looks like it would have to have a high Chinese involvement… yes..
nuclear is out in the UK because it is too expensive…
The UK is doing it wrong somehow. France found a way to make replacing almost all of their fossil fuel plants with nuclear affordable. What France did once should be possible to do again.
Didn’t France accomplish this by mass producing the reactors, rather than custom design each one? Perhaps that’s what needed- a really large mass production that can produce hundreds in a year. That is, assuming CO2 is a problem- and I for one don’t believe that.
that and using the Atlantic and Mediterranean as their waste sites as well as dumping radioactives into the ocean through spill pipes in some locations…
Check out the vast areas of remote Australia, stable land and one of the thickest parts of Earth’s crust, very few and then minor earthquakes.
So as a CSIRO nuclear physicist explained to me during the 1970s, fields the area of sports grounds in remote locations with holes drilled into the ground could become a nuclear waste storage facility forever, foreign countries could be charged rent.
All that’s missing is a predictable and constant water source to maintain cooling ponds for spent fuel rods
The central region gets rather warm and dry
Actually, the French reprocess their used fuel, making it the equivalent of new fuel for refueling, and leaving very little in the way of “waste”, which includes many usable nuclear isotopes.
Somehow the French know (or knew) how to make large scale investment in infrastructure work. Besides nuclear, they also went with a nationwide DSL phone system, securing the modems for $60 and the DSLAMs for $200. This at a time when the US customer was paying$200/modem and $1000/DSLAM.
The French also micromanage the market to help their large domestic companies in autos, aircraft, energy, rail, language, etc., etc. The U.S. does the opposite and ends up with information tech giants not making anything except selling your identity and daily purchasing preferences.
So the answer to keeping technology cheap, is more socialism.
It’s not so much keeping it cheap as getting it in place quicker.
Which is much easier to do with socialism as things are planned and implemented without too much trouble from that pesky public.
Think high speed rail.
and dumping your waste in the ocean, like France did/does with radioactive waste
I suggest you read the book ” Radiation and Reason” by Prof Wade Allison. He is a world expert on medical radiation and provides convincing evidence to show that radiation levels 100 times higher than currently allowed by the regulations are perfectly safe.
The residents of Tibet have lived with higher radiation levels all their live.
Of course, great reset, build back better, new green deal Marxist socialism. World Economic Forum agenda (non-government organisation of woke fools).
One example of what France does to keep nuclear affordable, would be what happened to the Rainbow Warrior.
French nuclear power bankrupted EDF which runs it… the costs of refitting older power stations are enormous… in recent years multiples of them have been offline for refit while Germany helped out with electricity…
EDF still hasn’t finished its Flammanville reactor -9 years late and five times over budget
dunno where you get that crap from Griff.
EDF is now running a good deal of the UK’s electricity, and keeps a lot of SNCF going too.
Funny how a “bankrupt” company according to only Griff can make such a good business.
French nuclear electricity is the one great success story of the last 50 yrs although that last turd president and his ex (Royale) tried their best to screw it all up.
There was widespread anger in Alsace when they turned off a perfectly good working NPP thanks to the crappy greenies like you.
There are two problems. The first is that the regulators are tied to a system that does not allow them to license a new reactor and automatically approve every identical reactor that is built. They have to treat each site from the ground up. This is seriously silly and is a major problem with approving factory built small nuclear reactors. They also have to take account of the mistaken belief that low levels of radiation are dangerous.
The second is that, in the Western world, we have not built enough reactors recently to have a group of people and companies capable of constructing them swiftly and efficiently. The rest of the world is doing it quite well.
And the UK imports electricity via the Channel Tunnel interconnector from France.
griff, nuclear is out in the UK because mindless fruit-loop wacko environmentalists push the risk of ever operating into the unacceptable range. Have you ever sat, as a Director of a public stock company, in a “Fatal Flaws and Critical Paths” review? Sobering event for nuclear power interests.
Absolutely not! It is official govt policy and there was no obstacle to Wylfa and Moorside proceeding if they could have been financed.
ROFLMAO
Griffter has just agreed totally with Ron’s comment..
well done Mr. unaware.
Well… UK doesn’t exactly have the best record on nuclear power. They don’t even have as good a record as Russia.
Better than US record
Ah yes, I suppose you can argue Chernobyl was in Ukraine rather than Russia.
Nuclear is currently out in the UK because its been made to be too expensive….
So the answer is to import power from Russian and Chinese-made nuclear plants on the fringe of the E over the grid. It’s already happening in most other large infrastructure projects built by Chinese.
I don’t think so. See what Hitachi have to say about Wylfa… Hitachi, the company behind the project, decided that the power plant was too expensive to build without a funding deal with the UK Government in place.
And yet wind always has a funding deal in place from the government.
Nuclear is out because the regulatory regime installed by anti nuclear ministers starting with David Miliband is designed to make it needlessly expensive, and no-one has the guts to challenge it.
Nuclear and fossil fuels are only expensive because of State mandated dumping by unreliables. You could change that at the stroke of a pen and the level playing field. Namely all tenderers of electrons to the communal grid must reasonably guarantee them 24/7/365 (ie short of unforeseen mechanical breakdown) along with FCAS or keep them. Immediate end to the great lie peddled by the usual suspects.
This discussion helps to show that all sides are capable of ignoring cost when it’s necessary for them. The ratepayers in the U.S. are the fall guy of nuclear. I’ve had utility company analysts tell me with a straight face that nuclear was cheapest, to which I said yeah if you ignore the fixed costs. That just illustrates the game of ignoring the end user left holding the bag.
Save nature from the Greens and Massively unsustainable RE: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/05/monumental-unsustainable-environmental-impacts/
The Case for the Good Reactor https://spark.adobe.com/page/1nzbgqE9xtUZF/
Seaborg.co
Enviro-weenies do everything in their power to make nuclear expensive, then they use the fact that nuclear is expensive as a reason why nobody should consider it.
I suppose anything can be screwed up if legislators get involved.
It’s almost guaranteed.
Recall Newsome
Since when have greens looked for or considered practical solutions.
Nuclear plants cannot run on unicorn farts, therefore they are not ‘green’.
Everyone knows unicorn farts are rainbow colored.
A UK retail chain sells a comestible called ‘unicorn poo’ which is indeed multi coloured. I somehow don’t fancy trying it.
But you HAVE brought into “unicorn farts”, grifftard..
Your whole flatulent comment load relies on them.
All,
This talk about nuclear – that is just about the ultimate trigger word in the New Zealand vernacular. It just ain’t going to happen – thanks in large part to the perfidious French (Mururoa)and to the US Navy’s “Neither confirm nor deny” policy – And the USS Truxton steaming into Wellington harbour as the representative of the last ship entering under the ANZUS Treaty – and leaving its very very high powered radar on – fritzed a fair % of Wigglingtowns sensitive electronics at the time
I think the Rainbow Warrior incident probably did the most damage.
As the Americans say: wait until their hair driers fail, then they will change their minds. We already have a lot of nuclear industrial activities in NZ, but the Greenies are ignorant of them.
They just need a few government-mandated rolling blackouts to stimulate some new thinking on clean, efficient, reliable, safe, “renewable” nuclear power. Or a few dozen. Or more. Dogmatic people take more convincing to accept reality.
“fritzed a fair % of Wigglingtowns sensitive electronics at the time”
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
… none of which have anything to do with nuclear powerplants, of course.
At some point in the destruction of capitalism, the penny will drop. People will finally wake up and realise, energy rationing it is not about environmental enhancement, it is about reducing the power available to each and every individual that is not part of the elite. Only the worthy will be allowed to have energy to use as they see fit. The rest of us I’m afraid are dispensable, excess to requirements.
Al, Bill, Jeff, Dave the walrus tumbler, HRH the chatty tree man, Schwab and too many others to mention, they, the decision makers, they are the ones deemed worthy and allowed energy supply.
The old adage, “it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know that matters” has never been more apposite.
The problem is, I don’t think most are likely to wake up until it’s too late to change anything.
Eric, you are just outlining the descent of the Western middle class into serfdom.
This is entirely planned. It is entirely programmed. This is entirely intentional.
NZ first took away all the remaining private guns 2 years ago.
And the elites are banking on NZ people not waking up to this until it is too late, as most have been conditioned into sheep with the COVID lockdowns.
And Sheep are easily led to first a fleecing for their wool, and then to slaughter, in this case serfdom. A subsidence living, where the political elites and the very rich have everything, and the serfs provide the labor for them and eat gruel and live meager lives.
And a trip to Fiji or Bali or some other tropical getaway for a vacay?? … forget about that. That’s for their “betters.” Those in power. Those with real money, the billionaires.
Just as it was 200 years ago.
The middle class is gone under Climate Change scam.
When you want a sheep to remain quiet and docile, flip it over and set it down on its bum. When they were willingly convinced to part with their guns without a struggle, government had easily flipped New Zealanders on their bums. They’ll sit and take everything their silly PM wants to do to them now.
The same thing is taking place here in Canada under the cloak of covid, climate change and the propaganda invented about President Trump. Government paid the MSM to fix the last election for Trudeau and now they just do whatever they want.
You have obviously never shorn a sheep or two.
No I’ve never shorn one, but I have “cast” a few to trim their hooves and close inspection for maggots and other maintenance chores while working on a ranch as a kid. The method isn’t fool proof, for sure, but effective enough to aid in getting millions of them sheered annually.
If you put a paper clip (one of those substantial ones) on a cats neck they basically play dead. Very useful.
By the way it is “Shorn” not Sheared.
Both are correct and are often used interchangeably … but I did misspell sheared (sheered. my keyboard has a habit of twice strikingg).
Note to self … remember to bring a jumbo paperclip with me to Pam’s place, to sedate her surly cat.
Cheers
Paper-clip-on-neck, A.K.A. scruffing, works best on kittens who still remember mum. Adult cats tend to resent this treatment and are quite adept at defending themselves with teeth and claws. Better to make friends with a recalcitrant cat with the liberal use of treats.
Some breeds of sheep are more easily cast than others. The Suffolk, in my experience, would go down easily as soon as its head was turned to the shoulder but Cotswolds and Romneys would just circle and stubbornly remain on all fours.
It’s rather like getting a twitch on a horse’s muzzle … works great in theory. However …
Let’s put it this way … animals tend to be individuals, asserting themselves in the strangest ways, regardless what the tradition holds.
That sounds like “animal cruelty!” 🙂
“Argumentum ad ignorantium” logical fallacy where you use gross assumption and ignorance as a pretense to knowledge.
Gross assumption where you believe millions of sheep are shorn regularly because they turn docile when sat down on their bum…
Typical alarmist narrative.
Wrong on both counts. Sarcasm requires far more subtlety, but good try.
The method of casting sheep for shearing and other maintenance that requires calmness is based on empirical evidence … and generations of practice. They are not shorn “because” they turn docile in a certain position. They are shorn because they need to be shorn.
Kiwis never shear/share their sheep.
“NZ first took away all the remaining private guns 2 years ago.”
It never happened. Most gun owners used the payments to purchase new weapons.
“It never happened. Most gun owners used the payments to purchase new weapons”…. that weren’t semi automatics.
“NZ first took away all the remaining private guns 2 years ago.”
If they did that why do I still own a 22 and 303 rifles and a shotgun.
Come on get your facts right.
check back on that in 12 months. Your Jacinda has plan for that oversight.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/12/second-gun-buyback-planned-for-2021.html
When the 3rd buy-back confiscation is complete, all you will be left with to defend yourself is a Maori Haka dance.
And you doing that Maori Haka dance against the your NZ-Chinese cooperative Police force with guns in 10 years will look like this:
Nice deflection.
No. Not a deflection Mike. It’s simply the truth.
They simply haven’t got to your “22 and 303 rifles and a shotgun”… yet.
The first buy-back confiscation cost them more money than they anticipated. But they are correcting that. You will be turning those guns in within a few years. We both know that.
Not true . Well under the expected costs.
Only around 60,000 guns bought back , many got more than expected for old guns they didnt use and for some those that were ‘heirlooms’ were modified into legal use at government expense.
The guns not allowed are only those semi automatic (5,000 or so which were a highly restricted category anyway) and pump and lever action guns above 0.22 with magazines GREATER than 10 rounds. Otherwise it was OK and gun shops still selling semi auto 0.22
I wonder in Aussie how many guns are buried in plumbers tubing?
Way Outback in the bush.
What on earth would you need a gun for in NZ, other than deer or possum hunting?
On a global scale, New Zealand’s rates of gun violence are extremely low. In 2016, there were nine gun murders or manslaughters in New Zealand, a rate of 1.87 per million people…
Fond memories of plinking away at tin cans on my grandpa’s property. Guns are fun.
That’s a pretty big hammer to be swinging at a non-issue then.
A question isn’t an argument, griff.
I think it is.
Griff, I can restate your question as a declarative statement.
As a question: What on earth would you need a gun for in NZ, other than deer or possum hunting?
As a declarative statement: Except for deer or possum hunting, there is no need for a gun in NZ.
Language is a wonderful creation of mankind.
Ultimately, the biggest reason for citizens to own guns, is to protect them from government.
“Ultimately, the biggest reason for citizens to own guns, is to protect them from government.”
That’s the ridiculous argument used in the US and look how many people die a year because of it. Just crazy.
Why is that a ridiculous argument? We now have in America Fort Pelosi set up in DC. Fort Pelosi looks *exactly* like Maduro’s compound in Venezuela. Do you think Pelosi cares any more for the people of Kansas than Maduro cares for the people of Venezuela?
Pelosi wants her fort, manned by soldiers, for the same reason Maduro does. So they can implement whatever policies they want regardless of what the people want or what the policies do to the people.
They are both *scared* of the people.
At some point that fear of the people will push them to bring force against the American people. And then what?
Does the name “Kent State” ring any bells with you?
The biggest reason many of the citizens of Chicago (and Baltimore, LA, New York, etc etc) have guns is to protect their drug vending corners from other citizens of these big cities.
Read up on the sad statistics Simon.
Everybody knows that governments issue guns and train citizens to kill, it’s called war. And when the war ends the citizen must not be licensed to own a gun and never ever use their training skills.
Yes Griff, you need a gun in NZ for possums & deer, and also all the other noxious ferals that infest public spaces.
Such as Antifa, BLM, Extinction Rebellion, and lesser sub-species of greenies.
(Make sure you always stay upwind of them though. Downwind of them their smell will make your eyes water, and you can’t aim properly.)
That’s frankly an evil and disgusting comment
Yep, let just the criminals have guns.
Let the scum of the Earth, eg XR, BLM, AntiFa run wild.
Yes we know you NEED someone to tell you how to run your insignificant life,
… but other people DON’T want or need that.
One has a RIGHT to protect their freedoms.
‘Yep, let just the criminals have guns.’
That’s exactly what the UK did after the Dunblane shootings where a person who was demonstrably unsuited to being allowed a firearms certificate was allowed one by the police. The idiot in charge at the time Tony B.Liar, banned all handgun ownership and at a stroke nobody was shot and killed….oh wait apart from this one instance of a failure to heed warnings, licensed gun owners didn’t shoot people – even though there is a long list of people who should be – and so people are still shot here with illegal weapons. I was amazed to find out that an illegal Uzi SMG was cheaper to buy than a deactivated one!!! And by a large facto too!
my guess is that you’ve never once in your life encountered a rabid skunk or raccoon. I would love to see you defend against one while it is attacking your pet dog!
Griff,
“And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure”
Thomas Jefferson
THAT is why people need guns.
Hmmm… seems to be OK in the UK without arming ourselves against imaginary threats from our own govt.
That’s frankly an evil and disgusting comment.
You have to understand, griff is one of those people who is totally content,or actually NEEDS someone telling him/her/them what to do.
He/she/they would bow-down to whatever they were told to do by whoever told them to do it.
The equivalent of a Nazi stooge or sympathiser/apologist.
The ignorance of history contained in that statement is stunning, but not surprising.
Griff,
If you are happy under your current circumstances then you have no need to fight for something different. Be well.
But many of us detest being under the thumb of a government that no longer puts we the people first. A government that is hell bent on destroying our Country in the unrelenting quest for absolute power.
Yea Griff, everything according to you is OK in the UK. What a twat you work so hard to be!
How come London is the world capital of knife crime then?
How come the met spend more time currently running around trying to fight people refusing to wear masks, and defending ER’s so called right to bring London to a standstill, than actually fighting the crime wave that has swept the city for a decade.
You have a sick mind Griff.
Now you provided proof
Because there are millions of possums , rabbits , feral cats , wild goats , pigs , deer , thar, chamois . . . . . .
There are significant cultural differences between NZ and places like the US. But, between imported Hollywood movies and TV shows with their gratuitous violence and ubiquitous guns, the culture is being changed. It has been quite awhile since I last visited, but I had been told that motorcycle gangs in the big cities like Auckland were becoming a problem even outside the cities. When I last visited in 1989, we weren’t there 2 hours before our car was broken into and everything they could carry was stolen.
However, the bigger reason is an insurance policy. I have read (although I haven’t been able to find confirmation), that after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Japanese decided not to invade Hawaii or the mainland because of the perception that the civilian population was well armed.
After the debacle at Dunkirk, England found itself with very few small arms even amongst the Army, let alone the private citizen. Large numbers of private American sporting arms were sent to England to help re-arm them while new firearms were being manufactured.
Now, if Kiwis don’t really care who rules them, then there is no ‘need’ for anything but small-caliber, single-shot hunting rifles.
It may not be prudent to state publicly what you own.
‘They’ are assuming technology will go along in its merry way unabated. It’s actually likely that technology will collapse. That means the elites will be worse off as well as everyone else.
Right now the middle class lives better and longer than the nobles, kings, and emperors of yore.
Someone should do some serious work on the conditions necessary for high technology to exist. One question is about how large a population is necessary for a given technology to be viable. If you turn 99% of the population into serfs, you reduce the size of the market for most advanced technologies. That would curtail the development of new technologies and make some current technologies non-viable.
Malthus predicted civilization’s collapse because we would run out of the resources necessary for its continuance. That isn’t happening and it’s because of technology. We are doing more and more with less and less. The process is called dematerialization or ephemeralization.
We have a tiger by the tail. If we wreck the economy and prevent technology from continuing to develop, we will get to a situation where Malthus is right. The serfs might suffer the worst but the elites will also feel severe pain.
Nobody should want to live like a noble in 18th century France.
Commiebob
Malthus Sir. Was right, just read. you post and think again what! No electricity,??????
Just so! This is what has bothered me all along about the idea that the elites are out to crush the economy for their own evil designs. I believe this is their plan but I also believe that they are relatively clueless as to what will happen if they are successful. In their arrogance they seem to think that the high standards of living we all now enjoy will continue unabated after fossil fuels are discontinued. That they will still be able to enjoy all the percs of advanced civilization and wealth they now enjoy. No thought is given to who will keep it all going, the millions of workers that deal with the mundane tasks that keep the power flowing.
What is happening in Texas right now should be a wake up call for these dreamers. Life without reliable heat and access to all the marvelous things that run on electricity. And eventually the existing infrastructure will need to be repaired/replaced. Who is going to do that that? Who will maintain their G-5s and mega yachts?
Just maybe they need to put up with the deplorables who make their cushy lives possible instead of begrudging them their small share!
Yes, the wealthy people who are liberal haven’t really thought it all through. That may be because there isn’t a high correlation between wealth and intelligence. Much of the ‘elite’s’ wealth is only on paper. Tangible things like their mansions and cars can’t be defended effectively if they can’t pay a security force with something that can be spent on things they want. This is probably behind the Left’s drive to disarm the ‘deplorables.’ They think that they have a better survival chance if the revolutionaries show up with baseball bats, re-bar, and torches. As I said, they haven’t thought through the lessons of the storming of the Bastille.
When you listen to the liberal elites, like those on the View, talk about most of the country between CA and NY it is quite obvious that they view them nothing more than uneducated, unthinking, unwashed, illiterate, smelly deplorables. Just the way the elite of France thought of most of the population of France.
When the elites start to look down their nose at the *people* the way Schumer and Pelosi do then bad things happen sooner or later.
We, the people, don’t need the elites to rule us.
John O’Sullivan wrote in the “United States Magazine and Democratic Review” in 1837:
“A strong and active democratic government, in the common sense of the term, is an evil, differing only in degree and mode of operation, and not in nature, from a strong despotism. This difference is certainly vast, yet, inasmuch as these strong governmental powers must be wielded by human agents, even as the powers of the despotism, it is, after all, only a difference in degree; and the tendency to demoralization and tyranny is the same, though the development of the evil results is much more gradual and slow in the one case than in the other. Hence the demagogue – hence the faction – hence the mob – hence the violence, licentiousness, and instability – hence the ambitious struggles of parties and their leaders for power – hence the abuses of that power by majorities and their leaders – hence the indirect oppressions of the general by partial interests – hence (fearful symptom) the demoralization of the great men of the nation, and of the nation itself, proceeding, unless checked in time by the more healthy and patriotic portion of the mind of the nation rallying itself to reform the principles and sources of the evil) gradually to that point of maturity at which relief from the tumult of moral and physical confusion is to be found only under the shelter of an energetic armed despotism.
The best government is that which governs least. No human depositories can, with safety, be trusted with the power of legislation upon the general interests of society so as to operate directly or indirectly on the industry and property of the community. Such power must be perpetually liable to the most pernicious abuse, from the natural imperfection, both in wisdom of judgment and purity of purpose, of all human legislation, exposed constantly to the pressure of partial interests; interests which, at the same time that they are essentially selfish and tyrannical, are ever vigilant, persevering, and subtle in all the arts of deception and corruption.”
………..
“Government should have as little as possible to do with the general business and interests of the people. If it once undertake these functions as its rightful province of action, it is impossible to say to it ‘thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.’ It will be impossible to confine it to the public interests of the commonwealth. It will be perpetually tampering with private interests, and sending forth seeds of corruption which will result in the demoralization of the society.
Its domestic action should be confined to the administration of justice, for the protection of the natural equal rights of the citizen and the preservation of social order.
———————————————-
I have always taken these words to heart. They are just as applicable today as in 1837. And these words perfectly describe the situation we are in with our federal government today. Our federal government has taken upon itself as its rightful province of action to control our private business and interests. It’s tentacles weave themselves further and further into our lives every single day. And how to we say “thus far shalt you go, and no further”?
The people making the decisions know nothing about real world economics.
They are convinced that all they need to do is have the government order it to happen.
Actually in NZ we lost the right to semi automatic weapons over a .22 caliber in size. About 60,000 rifles were handed in & the owners were paid for these. There are 250,000 licensed gun owners in NZ with approximately 1,000,000 firearms. So no, we did not lose our rights to own a firearm as we still have approximately 1 firearm for every 5 people in NZ. We don’t own pistols, except for members of a gun club involved in certain target shooting competitions. To give people an understanding of how we Kiwis relate to guns a mate of mine went to hand in a mint M1 carbine. The cop said it’s a shame to destroy that rifle, checked my mate’s police record, told him to go home with the weapon and apply for a special license to keep the weapon which he did.
The buy back cost $102 million, so about $10 million per annual firearm death. A fiscally responsible government would have spent the money on stop signs and school crossing signs thus saving many more public lives….sure, they could have banned further sales at virtually no cost….but that doesn’t have enough virtue….
The irony of the compensated-confiscation is that a well-placed shot from a .22-caliber rifle can take down all your animals except probably your rare North American moose. Therefore, it can be effective against humans. Eventually, someone will realize the oversight and will correct it with the rationalization that “No one needs such a weapon.”
I wouldn’t try it on a bear no matter where you shoot it. I still remember the true story in Field and Stream probably 50 years ago about the fellow who had a bear chase him up a tree and he shot it in the head from the tree with his .357 Magnum. The taxidermist later asked him how he killed the bear and the guy said “shot him in the head then crawled down and cut its throat to bleed it out” The taxidermist told him there wasn’t a single hole in the bear’s skull anywhere.
Tim
I agree that shooting even a black bear with a .22 is just liable to make it mad. They are tough animals. However, there was the case of an adult boy scout leader who was cited for killing a black bear in California after throwing a large rock at it, and hitting it in the head.
However, my remark was addressing animals that can be found in New Zealand.
Tim,
I remember reading a story in Field and Stream more than 50 years ago about a hunter in Alaska that was killed by a Kodiak. He shot it at about 100 yards with a 30-06. It closed the distance in about 10 seconds. The hunter didn’t have the presence of mind to shoot it again, preferably in a shoulder so it couldn’t run. He was apparently stunned that it hadn’t dropped, and froze. After killing the hunter, the bear dropped dead. Later, it was discovered that the initial single shot was perfect. It had destroyed the heart. However, the bear was running on adrenalin.
Most non-hunters don’t understand how long animal (including humans) can live after a ki*l shot. A heart/lung shot on a deer or even a groundhog can leave the animal able to run for yards before succumbing. It’s also why police are taught to keep shooting until the suspect stops their offensive action. A perp high on PCP or meth many times can’t be stopped until the nervous system is impacted enough to stop movement.
Joel
I think that you meant “subsistence,” but “subsidence” may actually be more descriptive of the process that is playing out.
“NZ first took away all the remaining private guns 2 years ago.”
That is not true. Why don’t you tell the full story? They took away semi automatics and good job too. No need for such rifles.
No need? Perhaps in NZ. But it is obvious that you have *NEVER* had to deal with an incursion of feral hogs that are terrorizing the southern US today. One sow can have 8 pigs twice per year, even split male and female. Each female pig can breed within 1/2 a year. In a year you can go from one sow with 8 pigs to 5 sows having 8 pigs each! And then 20 sows having 8 pigs each. And on and on. And these feral hogs absolutely destroy thousands of acres of farmland every year.
These freakazoids are extremely hard to kill and they are *fast*. When you run onto a sow and litter you need to be able to kill them *all* or the cycle just goes on and on!
That is why the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle is the most preferred weapon when hunting these feral hogs. A bolt action rifle, even with a 5 bullet magazine, just isn’t adequate. Too many of the little demons get away to breed more demons.
It’s the height of hubris to think that what *YOU* need should dictate what everyone one else needs and can have. That’s the attitude of King George toward the colonists in America. And we know what happened about that.
“It’s the height of hubris to think that what *YOU* need should dictate what everyone one else needs….”
No it is the height of hubris to assume your right to kill pigs “fast” over rides the rights of innocent people who are killed on mass, because guns like that are the choice of loonies wanting to kill. Let’s not forget many of those who have died are children. So as far as I am concerned you can shove you semi auto up your hubris.
Those pigs destroy ag products that feed poor people. I’m amazed that you simply don’t understand that. It seems you would rather have children die of malnutrition than have feral hogs be kil*ed.
Man, you have *NO* moral high ground to stand on in this argument!
I’d rather people didn’t needlessly die. If you think that having them to kill these pigs is so important then licence the rifles to people who are screened to ensure they are safe with them. I mean seriously screened.
You aren’t from around here apparently. Or from any rural area I know of. I learned to shoot when I was about eight. I was taught plenty about gun safety. I taught my kids when they were the same age.
You simply don’t know about rural life. From the time this country was settled, it has been necessary to protect your livlihood from all kinds of critters. From rabbits eating up your crops that would be canned for winter, to racoons and deer eating up your grain crops meant to feed your animals throughout the winter, to coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions eating the animals you depend on for survival. And today feral hogs tearing *everything* up, from gain to vegetables to pastures. And this doesn’t even include the human poachers, rustlers, and thieves that have always bee a scourge, even today.
What has *always* been used for this? Guns. Not spears, not slings, not thrown rocks, and not bows. Guns. Little guns, big guns. All kinds of guns. From flintlock rifles to percussion rifles and revolvers, to Sam Colts great equalizer, to Winchesters lever action rifle, to Sharps buffalo gun. Shotguns, rifles, pistols, revolvers, you name it. ? Single shot, bolt action, and semi-automatic. Single action and double action.
If people needlessly die then put the blame on those that do it – the criminals. Not on me. Not on my kids. Not on my grandkids however far removed. Don’t tell me that *I* need to submit to what ever restrictions *YOU* feel are necessary for you to feel safe. If you don’t feel safe then do something about it. Move to some place safer. Learn how to defend yourself and your family.
The law abiding won’t rape your wife but criminals will. And taking *my* guns won’t take the guns from criminals. Gun ownership in Mexico is banned for the citizenry – but they get their hands on guns from everywhere! China, US, Bulgaria, Argentina, Iran, you name it. Even if you banned every single gun on Earth the criminals would just use the next best weapon to attack you and rape your wife and you would still be just as defenseless.
“And we know what happened about that.”
The people you are arguing with don’t understand history. Nor do they understand math or statistics, as evidenced by their purely emotional arguments.
Simon;”…No need for such rifles….”
Granted that is true for anyone who isn’t earning a living by hunting, but then you also don’t strictly need a car, or a bicycle, or cricket bats, or for that matter electricty, all of which can be blamed for untimely deaths of innocent people.
Since you have no need for them, I’m sure you’ll have no objection to the government confiscating those dangerous things from you; in the interest of saving lives and to help metropolitan sheeple sleep soundly at night knowing that big brother has banned ghosts.
Mean while, in the real world, criminals still don’t care what laws are passed in the interest of controlling you even if sold under the illusion of protecting your safety.
The curious thing about NZ is that if it gets hotter the demand shifts from the need to supply winter heating in the south to air con in the north. The former suffers from being counter cyclic to the snow melt (aka river flows for hydro) and the equinoxial winds in the Spring to be in synch with solar in the north. A simple problem to address.
Roll on global warming.
The other thing that the models tell us is that the water flows will increase in the winter and the shortages of hydro will move to summer. Again a good opportunity for solar.
But me, I’m doubtful of the modeling, particularly when down-scaled from our familiar CGSM that the IPCC said weren’t really fit for that purpose.
The only rational solution to the entire goat rodeo is to toss out absolutely everything related to AGW, CAGW and “climate change”. It’s all just gobbledygook and bologna. What tiny amount of truth there is on the subject indicates that both CO2 and the tiny amount of warming since the LIA has been BENEFICIAL.
It’s all been one big lie for over 30 years … that socialists and other opportunists have capitalized on to eliminate the middle class, vastly enrich the oligarchs and further impoverish the poor.
NZ might as well start tossing virgins in to any of your numerous, active volcanos for all the good Climate virtue signaling and carbon sacrifices will do.
At least that would be consistent with the pagan religion that climate change has become.
I will be interested to see how your future winters turn out temperature-wise based on my 14 year study of the reality of climate change and its causes, none of them human-related.
I’ve recently read (much to my alarm and disgust) a similar article in my country (Netherlands) .. I was astonished, angry … most of all extremely baffled (and disappointed) why people were not even thinking what that meant for them.
Utter madness led by the critically stupid and the politically insane. This is what happens when badly educated, people get hold of a political philosophy and apply it to everything. Social “science” is now directing real science and the tail is wagging the dog. New Zealand may well become the first, planned 3rd world country.
You make a very good point. Philosophically, there are two main schools of epistemology: the rationalists and the empiricists. Science belongs to the empiricists which demands you measure or observe carefully, erect your explanations as hypotheses, test them thoroughly, and open your work to public debate. Rationalism tends to get things wrong. The Social Sciences are rationalists. They work things out, such as the Sun revolves around the Earth (isn’t it obvious and rational), and climate change is equally obvious – to them. Models are rationalist constructions, so cannot be used as evidence, proof or even be trusted. Yet the AGW hypothesis is based on models and the increasingly poor correlation between CO2 concentrations and global temperatures. Neither of these pieces of “evidence” pass the empiricist standards of proof.
“Rationalism tends to get things wrong.”
Yes, “rationalism” are the good intentions that paves the Road to Hell. It is why homeless addict camps are overrunning so many West Coast cities now in the US.
The social sciences at most academic institutions now are so far gone and morally bankrupt, they don’t even know how to self-correct anymore.
This is the point where it all has to burn to the ground, literally and sadly, to start anew.
Yes, I agree. Thank you for expanding on those important points. Sadly such fundamental differences are lost to so many passing through what remains of a fine educational system.
Don’t expect a sensible solution when the Greenblob is in charge.
If/when the Greens ever get around to accepting nuclear energy, by the time they do we won’t be able to afford it – we will be broke!
Greens won’t ever “accept” nuclear energy. They will have to be forcibly evicted from vestiges of political power.
Kicked to the curb and ignored, while the society builds what it needs out the freezing dark of necessity from having listened to the ignorant, malevolent Greens while the sun was shining.
The greens are irrational. Do not expect rational to come from irrational.
She is obviously a hippy from way back. Look at the hair and the obligatory bit of greenstone around her neck.
Forget her.
Had a lot of fun with ‘hippy girls’ … can’t forget them, even though I didn’t always know their names !!
I mistook her for a hobbit! I thought about what a pleasant place the Shire was to live, but then I remembered; Saruman survived and he does not like happy hobbits! Nasty, happy hobbits!
In distant colonies like NZ such eras like the hippy one live on much longer than elsewhere. Maybe it merged with new-age mysticism.
for people to live
LOL 😂 !
How naive do you have to be to imagine that the goal of the green reset is “for people to live”? It’s more like the opposite.
Nuclear and NZ don’t go together. Let them enjoy energy rationing
And whenever there’s any grumbling from the people, there will be an abundance of happy, smiley tv commercials telling people how to make-do, and how good we all are. They used to call this “fascism with a smiling face”.
Texans are presently experience “demand response”. In Australia it is called “load management”
In unwoke place it is called rolling blackouts.
Some places in Australia have had impressed ripple control on things like water heaters for a long time. New smart meters take that a step further. However when times are tough it still gets down to rolling blackouts.
Wrong to say that New Zealand peak demand is 900 MW. Right now, 10:30pm on Friday 22 Feb, it is 4340 MW. Eric go back and look at the data in your link. It is GWh produced/consumed on a rolling 7 day basis. New Zealand peak demand is a bit over 5,000 MW, so not just one large nuclear reactor.
If you size your nukes by peak demand or something like it, you have problems when demand is low… where are you going to put the power, being as you can’t easily turn the plant down?
France solves this by exporting to Germany at low rates on holidays etc.
You can easily turn the plant down. If it is designed for it.
5GW is the size that Fukushima was
In reality there is enough hydro to follow demand allowing nuclear to be pure base load only.
That makes sense.
And if there max demand is only 5GW, they actually have quite a lot of electricity reserve.
Who knows what this aging ex-hippy is on !
William is correct. NZ’s peak is about 5GW in the winter, about 4GW in the summer. I have interests in NZ in a small wind farm (not that I believe in it per se, the shares were very cheap) and so have studied this a bit. NZ gets most from Hydro (over 2GW) and the majority of the rest from thermal.
If you look at the second chart at his link it says 900 MW of generation, which is nuts as you say. NZ averages around 4,500 MW so probably peaks near 6,000. Here is a real time reading: https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data.
At this moment it is 4434 MW, up from your prior 4340 and down from around 5000 earlier. Unless they have a 5000 MW underwater extension cord from Oz.
The UTTER AND COMPLETE MADNESS that is engendered by the anti-science, anti-CO2 agenda is really has to peak at some stage.
Pity it doesn’t seem to have happened quite yet.
“New Zealand has in-ground COAL resources of more than 16 billion tonnes, of which 80% are lignite in the South Island. There are also substantial resources of sub-bituminous coal in both islands, and a lesser amount of high-quality bituminous coal, mainly on the West Coast of the South Island.”
The irony in NZ is that the Huntly power plant (which uses coal) imports coal from Indonesia. Not in my back yard it seems. The hypocrisy is astounding from the NZ greens.
WTF, I worked as a grad geo in the late ’70s on the resource definition program to supply coal for the Huntly station, why are they importing Indo coal? and what port are they importing through?
Yes, I was working on the nearby Maramarua coal deposits in the 1980’s…huge resource of good shallow coal…it’s madness to import it from Indonesia. How does that help our carbon footprint?
You can burn lignite and sub-bituminous coal, but you don’t get as much energy from it as from bituminous or anthracite. Roughly, lignite only has about 2/3 the energy of bituminous coal. That means substantial surface disruption for the low energy-density lignite.
To put that into perspective, the lignite resources of the South Island are equivalent to less than 13 years of production of US coal in 2014, and factoring in the energy content, it amounts to less than 9 years production. There is a tradeoff between environmental damage and an energy source that probably is only good for a few decades. NZ needs a long-term energy solution, not one that is exhausted in a generation, at the cost of significant environmental disruption.
Although, personally, I would consider widespread installation of windmills to be significant environmental degradation.
I don’t think readers here understand how modern demand response works… this isn’t a forced turn off of power, but a consensual agreement whereby power users are paid to reduce power use at times of high demand…
And furthermore, this isn’t a reduction which reduces the consumers activity: many power uses require frequent, but not constant power use… air con, freezer units… by controlling many units, demand response companies have the ability to micro schedule when power cuts in and out and achieve an average reduction…
Please do look this up: this is quite technical and my explanation a little inadequate…
I think we get it Griff. What I’m questioning is the suggestion we should live this way, when we could have a future of abundant energy.
Its the cost to have abundant energy when its only used 10% of the time.
NZ has always had consumer demand management, electric hotwater is regionally controlled and switched off during peak demand and local grid load.
Easy as because for each household thats 3kW out which can catch up later to restore the max temp for an insulated hot water cylinder which is enough stored for many hours.
Texas would have loved demand management this way instead of wholesale suburb outage instead because thats the other choice and it WILL be used if there isnt a softer way to manage demand.
My supplier gives price signals outside of peak periods which its easy enough to follow…dishwasher on after 9pm , a/c on overnight as then the humidity isnt comfortable to sleep
Nuclear plant output could be modulated with pumped hydro, or by co-locating energy intensive businesses.
I don’t think griff HAS A SINGLE CLUE how anything works.
You REALLY think the demand response in Texas was concentual
You are off your meds again, hey griff.
I bet YOU will not be putting your hand up to have your electricity cut at odd hours.
Your explanations are ALWAYS inadequate because they are based on zero-knowledge fantasies.
I will have to give Griff partial credit on this one. Texas has a program referred to as Load Shedding as a Resource. The Grid Operator will enter into various types of voluntary agreements in which a large load facility will agree that at any time its power can be cut and the facility will be paid an agreed upon sum per MW hour for the lost generation it does not receive. Its done for those times when power prices spike up to several thousand dollars per MW (this week they hit the cap at $9K per MWH). Let’s say you have a 400MW load manufacturing facility with thin operating margins and that you typically buy power for $40 per MWH. If the grid operator pays you $100 per lost MWH, and that’s more money than you could have made operating your facility, then you are happy with the arrangement. If power prices on the margin are greater than $100 per MWH then the grid operator essentially gets power back cheaper than it could have purchased power in the open market. Its a win win for both sides.
But that’s not what happened in Texas this week. Generation tripped off line all over the state and systems shut down loads almost indiscriminately to avoid grid failure. That’s a little different than the system described above.
Just how “voluntary” is an agreement when you don’t have competition with public utilities? What would happen when you asked to have services turned on and you told the utility that you wouldn’t agree to the terms they demand?
Dude, the lost production and load management is paid in higher consumer goods prices and/or loss of jobs.
Load management happens here in Alberta
Companies agree to allow themselves to be tripped off if an inter tie trips and indeed is lost
They do get paid for agreeing to be shed and get paid more if they are actually shed
As we add more intermittent power this will happen more
Wasted money
Why not just have reliable power?
We had a load shed here in June, part of edmonton.
A bunch of wind dropped off and before it’s replacement could ramp in the bc inter tie tripped and so whole neighborhoods went dark
Good thing it was June
Although it can snow in June here
Griff, I fully understand how it works. My problem is with how the technology will be abused. It is not a question of if. It’s when and how.
Would you be able to answer these questions? I don’t shame an answer of “I don’t know”.
I don’t think you are ever going to get an answer from griff. You exhibit an ability for critical thinking that griff has never shown.
And yes, critical infrastructure that can’t afford to be off will be penalized. This will include disabled people at home with needed electrical devices such as oxygen concentrators. They will be penalized for not being able to curtail demand.
Tim, well, I always try to engage in arguments in the hopes that someday I can have a civil debate with someone of a different political, social, or academic disposition on any given topic. (Emphasis is on “try”.)
I remember when it was still possible to do that.
leowaj, having lived in NZ for decades, I can answer your three questions from the point of view of a domestic consumer. I don’t know how it works for big industrial and commercial users.
The only extra comment is that this is a system that was designed to protect the transmission network from overload when everyone tries to cook dinner at the same time. It is not really suitable for ensuring supply when all of the wind farms are idle for days at a time. For that, we need nuclear power – but, as several commentators have mentioned, adopting that is about as likely as it would be for the US to adopt our healthcare system.
griff
You admitted, “my explanation a little inadequate…” Don’t worry, we have come to expect that from you.
hmmm.. seems to be a big discrepancy between Eric’s link and this link..
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and-energy/energy-and-natural-resources/energy-statistics-and-modelling/energy-statistics/electricity-statistics/
Someone else can sort it out ! 😉
Quote:
It’s hard to get a sense of the scale of the new generation required, but if wind was the sole technology employed to meet demand by 2050, between 10 and 60 new wind farms would be needed nationwide.
This is more poor than a really poor thing.
What use to anybody is a wild speculation like that, especially without any definition of Wind Farm? ##
Surely it ain’t difficult. Count up all the non-electric energy you currently use, convert to electricity ‘units’ and add to your present consumption.
Surely Shirley surely to goodness, New Zealand has some sort of Economic Plan , please say you do, and in that plan will be controls to set the desired amount of Inflation. Read= Growth
The UK figure is 2% = how much prices rise for no extra value, how much is stolen from pension funds and maybe = a guideline for how much MP’s salaries/expenses rise, about 5 times the 2%. And of course, the pay of university teachers.
Go work it out hun. Not difficult.
You have, bless, set some thought processes in train – some of us have been thinking/voicing them for some little while.
(No pre or actual diabetics, no BMI over 30 and no alcohol for Public/Civil Servants, Scientists and all other teachers)
e.g. We all recall Gina Raimondo – someone who patently has ‘problems with food’, basically an Obsessive Compulsive.
Is such a person/mentality fit for Public Service – would you trust one the babysit your newborn?
Shall we suggest that ‘Larger Folks’ also have ‘a problem with food’.
Difficult for them to deny it but lets see you try hun. ’twill be intersesting
Another similar test for ya – “Is The Earth Flat or Round” What are you made of – have you the time or mental agility to argue the point?
o
If you wanna suggest that ‘people’ are using to much electrikery and folks as yourself can step in to ‘Manage Their Demand’, in order to ‘save them’ – what if some identical rules were applied to ‘Food Demand’?
What if someone, via epic new technology, took steps to mange your own personal demand?
e.g. Only allowed the fridge door to open under some very strict condition(s)
It will be for your own good and not forgetting, how could we, The Planet
How could you (haha) deny it in light of what saying here?
While we’re on, what about surplus stuff coming out of Universities, perfectly useless verbiage such as your windfarm prediction and even total lack of a most basic guesstimate at energy demand 30 years hence.
You didn’t even try to try. You made No Effort what so ever.
How should that be rewarded?
About time for some Supply Side Demand Management of Universities methinks
## And we all (should) know why.
Her mind is constantly looking forward to when she can next eat something.
It is not nor ever is on the job in hand – we know that from the craic about “switching on their ovens”
The Human Animal always gives its true motives away and Jen only has one – and it is not what she is publicly doing and talking about. Its what’s in her oven at going-home time
Sack her.
For her own ++ good, mental as well as physical, in the long run.
++ Ooops, edit to include The Planet.
What am I like eh?
The Flat vs Round Earth would be a brilliant question to ask any aspiring politician wouldn’t it – take it away and play with it
😀
I want to see them build wind turbines and solar panels without fossil fuels. In fact I want to see anyone do so.
They don’t build them now, they order them from China.
But New Zealand will have to put a large dent in that 0.1% of global CO2 emissions if we are to save the planet. 😀
well lil miss goodytwoshoes ah-der-h mm banned the oil n gas biz thatd keep em secure
and the mugs re elected her
enjoy the results
What a miserable vision of the future
Well, this is The Conversation, after all. It’s mission appears to be to create as much alarm and anxiety as is possible. Despite the claims of neutrality and freedom from bias…
Who takes The Hectoring seriously?
And, The Conversation regularly promotes liberal memes.
Ah yes, the Green Motto: Save the Planet – Kill the People (except me and my jets).
“might involve an industrial plant turning off”
Who is going to pay the workers at this plant when it is turned off and they are sent home?
Its because they reduce power demand when its expensive and use it when its cheaper.
No one is sent home as the reduction is only for a short period and the most energy intensive part.
eg a foundry wouldnt be melting during evening peak, same for other large industrial plants, steel paper making etc.
Nonsense. If an unexpected cloud covered the sun and energy prices spiked, the foundry would suddenly find itself between a rock and a hard place – either it stops the process, and has workers standing idle, or it continues and has to try to absorb the cost.
The reality of course is nobody would put up with this – the foundry would be relocated somewhere with saner energy policies.
After New Zealand outlaws cattle and sheep because of their methane emissions, bans flying and tourism because it is carbon intensive, and frightens off all their industry, I’m not entirely sure what they will do for a living. Shuffle government paperwork maybe.
What they do in NZ is turn on and off the wood grinders at the pulp and paper mills. They can only do this because the machines they used to feed got shut down as the mills downsized, so they now have overcapacity.