Essay by Eric Worrall
Just sign on the dotted line…
New Zealand partners with BlackRock in aim to reach 100 per cent renewable electricity
By Associated Press
3:23am Aug 9, 2023New Zealand’s government has announced it will partner with United States investment giant BlackRock in its aim to become one of the first nations in the world to have its electricity grid run entirely from renewable energy.
The government said it was helping BlackRock launch a $NZ2 billion ($1.86 billion) fund to ramp up investments in wind and solar generation, as well as battery storage and green hydrogen.
Some of the investment is expected to come from government-owned companies.
New Zealand’s electricity grid already runs off about 82 per cent renewable energy after it damned rivers decades ago to produce hydroelectric power. The government said it aims to reach 100 per cent renewable generation by the end of this decade.
The announcement comes two months out from an election, with the government hoping to burnish its green credentials.
Critics point out the nation’s overall greenhouse gas emissions have barely budged since the government symbolically declared a climate emergency in 2020.
…
Read more: https://www.9news.com.au/world/nz-climate-change-new-zealand-partners-with-blackrock-in-aim-to-reach-100-per-cent-renewable-electricity/7f9a7cfd-0a77-486c-93f4-ee47b488a78f
The question is, what does BlackRock intend to do, to help New Zealand achieve Net Zero?
New Zealand already gets most of their electricity from hydro. They are naturally blessed with mountainous terrain and good rainfall, so have plenty of access to good hydro sites, if you ignore some of their scarier green energy projects, like the plan to drill pumped hydro pipes deep into the caldera of one of the world’s most active super volcanos.
The remaining targets, home heating and personal transport, any attempt to force people to embrace zero emission alternatives to their existing ICE vehicles and fossil fuel powered heating could result in a lot of hardship being inflicted on people who in many cases don’t have the money to buy new stuff, nor the money to pay off loans from forced transitions to green alternatives.
Lets just say its going to be interesting to track this new partnership, and the inevitable consequences.
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Well, that is wonderful….and very very virtuous….similar to Iceland and Norway….but means little to worldwide CO2 or the climate…..but very very virtuous.
Story tip, re EVs:
https://news.yahoo.com/finance/news/man-forced-ditch-115k-ford-234104336.html
The most amazing thing is the guy appears to be an otherwise functioning adult. Shame he didn’t bother to learn a few things about the truck and its operation before he sunk $130K into it.
Lots of people who should know better have bought the “consensus” uncritically.
Speaking of the nonsense that lots of people buy into uncritically…
story tip https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbarnard/2023/08/11/the-short-list-of-climate-actions-that-will-work/amp/
He obviously missed the small print on the bill of sale.
‘Only suitable for 15 minute journeys in 15 minute cities’
The big puzzle is how someone that has a cabin in the woods would be so uninformed? Why spend over $130K buying and accommodating a known challenging vehicle?
Maybe its something to do with being in Canada?
And of course the usual fools will declare that if these countries can do it, everyone can do it.
It’s just a matter of will and of putting everyone who disagrees in jail.
Why hully gee! Sounds as reasonable as Sri Lanka going organic.
Like Sri Lanka, New Zealand might discover just how flammable the Prime Minister’s house is.
With 82% dispatchable hydro, plenty of wind and sun, and very little local fossil fuel resources, it makes no sense for them to import expensive fuels when they can generate the remaining 18% from their wind and sun.
Unreliables are last thing a country needs to back up hydro, itself intermittent and weather-dependent.
Sorry, but you can’t call hydro intermittent, it may ultimately be dependent on the weather but no one would call it intermittent like wind and solar.
Yes, hydro by its very nature implies “storage” capability.
Wind & solar – nah.
Nick,
New Zealand can set its “ambitions” high, using well-researched case studies as King Island and Tasmania. All of the global 100% renewables efforts have failed to reach a routine, every-day 100%. Maybe Black Rock knows the cures. Maybe not.
Geoff S
…..
https://prod-media.coolaustralia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/06190642/GenYes-CASE-STUDY-Renewables-are-king.pdf
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/08/battery-of-the-nation-goes-flat/
BlackRock LOANS to NZ..
Then…. not too distant future….
BlackRock OWNS NZ. !
It’s worked for the Chinese.
Black Rock are going to raise $1.22 billion from investors to enable NZ companies to build more renewable projects. So no – no cure, just the same idea of throwing more and more money at it in the vain hope that, this time, it’ll be different.
Actually in NZ the least cost investments in electricity generation is renewable. With a high penetration of dispatchable hydro to buffer the wind, and geothermal giving good base load we don’t have the problems others have. It is an easy call for Blackrock.
Hydro can’t provide base load. It isn’t always available.
I’ve lived most of my life in the hydro-rich Pacific NW. We rely on connection to the interstate grid with FF and nuclear to support hydro and even less reliable sources.
Those of us who can still remember back that far remember that in the low water year of 1977, N Reactor kept the lights on in Seattle.
“It isn’t always available.”
It hasn’t failed in NZ in 50 years
Based off your provided graph hydro hasn’t seemed to have grown in capacity in 50 years either.
I think what you are saying, young Nick, is that NZ has already put a dam on every river that is capable of taking one and that there are basically no more rivers.
That is what your chart is telling me.
What your chart is also telling me that NZ grew in power usable till about 15 years ago, then started to level out. What is this saying about NZ?
Well basically I would put forward that if their power requirements have stopped growing then basically so has their entire country.
Hmmm… could it be that New Zealand has been allowed to become a bit of a basket state?
Thanks for the helpful graph.
“Well basically I would put forward that if their power requirements have stopped growing then basically so has their entire country.”
Here is the similar graph for the US
But geothermal can and does.
The true costs of renewable including backup for when the unreliables are not producing and the transmission costs for lots of small isolated generation sites far exceed combined cycle gas generation especially as New Zealand has plenty of gas reserves but the woke government won’t allow prospecting for new supplies.
Okay so far but renewables have a more limited lifespan – who will pay for replacements 10 or 15 years down the line? Expensive electricity and getting deeper and deeper into debt. Where is the way out?
Geoff,
Tasmania has been running essentially without FF generation since forever. That’s why the 2016 events hurt. The only substantial FF generator in the state was an oil-based one at Bell Bay, dedicated as an emergency backup to the aluminium smelter. So they had to rustle up some fast.
Which they did.
So, Tasmania has been at Nut-Zero since forever?
And yet again with the weasel words. Essentially forever is a meaningless phrase, but it sounds good when you are trying to divert attention away from reality.
So that Baselink cable connecting to the Aussie grid was quite unnecessary?
It makes a lot of money, enabling Tas to sell hydro when the price is good, and buy Vic power when it is cheap.
And when the hydro runs dry. Just another way to get backup from FF without looking like it.
HAS,
You hit the nail on the head.
At one stage my employer company, in which I was in top management, employed 11% of all working Taswegians.
You think I do not know about the electricity supply?
Geoff S
In the last 12 months, King Island has been just 33% wind, 67% diesel.
Yes, been there a couple of times for 3-day stays.
Windmills weren’t turning at all both times.
I thought they must have been just being stored there waiting for a buyer to ship them somewhere else.
My employer company operated King Island Scheelite, the biggest user of electricity on King Island, for a couple of decades until the ore ran out.
Some might think I do not know much about the electricity supply there.
Geoff S
I see there are moves to reopen the tungsten mine. They plan to use their own diesel generators.
The mine is producing.
Anyone want to bother working out for Nick what percentage of global CO2 comes from NZ fossil fuel electricity !
Perhaps NZ can build a “TasLink” cable and become the “Battery for Australia” 😉
Not sure where those numbers come from. Year to Mar 23 had hydro about 60%, Geothermal 20%, and gas about 10%. Very little capability to increase hydro, but Geo could double over time. NZ has some of the best wind in the world (edge of the Roaring 40s).
Everyone knows down here that trying to get beyond 95% renewables is dopey, but for context we have a Labour (with Green’s support) government that has set that as an aspirational target for 2035, but they are running into an election and are desperately looking for distractions. Unsurprisingly Blackrock are providing cover.
But if anyone knows what is on the table could they sing out. All it looks like is Blackrock is setting up a fund to do something that shouldn’t be too hard if you forget the last 5%, and the Government is basking in the glory (or not).
Agreed. Data available here for last 12 months:
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/NZ
Does the person who downvoted the above post believe that electricitymaps is a bogus site? Or do you just have a thing against real data?
No, it’s just Nick acknowledging he has read a refutation of this false claims.
Thanks for reading, Nick.
“Not sure where those numbers come from.”
I conflated hydro+geo with hydro. They are both renewable (or at least fuel cost free) and dispatchable.
Here is a graph of NZ power sources going back to 1974. NZ used very little FF even back when there was no virtue signalling to be had, and it worked very well
That doesn’t look like “very little” FF.
Nick’s eyes only see hydro, wind and solar. !
A bit different from Greta, who sees CO2 !
Bedbugs and mosquitos see CO2. The infrared imaging helps them locate prey.
What is not quite evident in that chart is that a bad hydro year is only about 75% of a good hydro year. A fraction better than Norway where the ratio is about 70%.
With China India not participating in the emissions reduction charade what the rest of the world does is irrelevant.
Absolutely correct.
In fact, most of what the western world does, will cause an INCREASE in CO2 emissions as production moves to China, India etc.
There is not plenty of sun in New Zealand, highest sun is 2,475 hours per year and the sun is too low in the sky as we are too far south. There are a number of solar farms in planning but their projected capacity factor is too high and it’s all going to end in tears as investors find their returns do not match the promised returns. New Zealand is not refereed to as The Land Of The Long White Cloud for nothing.
As for wind about 80% of the wind farms are located in the south of the North Island with a common wind pattern, it’s all or nothing.
“we are too far south.”
Huh? Auckland is at 36.5°S. Algeirs (Algeria) is 36.45°N. Washington DC is 38.5°N.
Britain does quite well with solar at 52° N.
Auckland ~2000 hr pa Algeria ~2850 Washington ~2530.
As someone has noted NZ gets referred to as Aotearoa ‘the land of the long white cloud’.
Wind capacity factor on the other hand is some of the best in the world, but biased to the spring equinox – coming up now.
Britain does quite well from solar???
Lets take a quick fact check on that Klaus
2022 – solar generated 1.325GW on average from a total installed of 15GW
2023 (thus far) solar has generated 1.596GW
so no, Britain doesn’t do well from solar
You are spreading misinformation
Confabulator in chief…?
Nick you really don’t know what you are talking about .
There is a vast amount of coal in New Zealand and major untapped oil fields off our coast.
We still have a lot of hydro potential but with the green influence in government it is impossible to get planing consent for any more dams .
We have some geothermal power stations but some of them do emit quite a lot of CO2 so there again almost impossible to drill for more steam .
We do have a large thermal power station at Huntly sighted above a very large coal field but it only uses coal intermittently when rainfall is below average but some generators are on natural gas piped from Taranaki .
Three year ago rainfall was well below the average and a million tonnes of coal was imported from Indonesia to generate the extra power needed .
Yes we do have over 80% of our electricity generated without using fossil fuel but the UN boffins decided that the methane from our cattle and sheep farming had to be added to our”emissions” which is absolute nonsense as our country of 5 million people feeds 30 million people .
Those so called emissions should be exported with the produce and should never a liability to New Zealand .
I would point out that milk and meat produce exported from New Zealand has the lowest carbon footprint of any food produced in northern countries even after accounting for the shipping emissions .
Geothermal does emit CO2 but addressing it (reinfection) is simply a matter of economics. Anyone say CCS is in the future just needs to come and have a look.
“reinfection” deliberate?
As always, Nick completely ignores the issue of money.
If fossil is cheaper than the wind and solar, then wind and solar make no sense.
Whether you have fossil fuels in country is secondary to that.
Yes, you have enough dispatchable hydro you can do it. No need for wind and sun, just build a few more dams. But very few countries have that kind of landscape and the weather (rainfall) to go with it.
In the UK, for instance, the late David Mackay estimated you would have to turn North Wales, Lake District and much of the Scottish Highlands into reservoirs in order to have enough storage to go Net Zero in power generation. And you can see this is probably right by just looking at the amount of gas they are currently using compared to the amount they are getting from their nominal 28GW of wind faceplate.
It would be politically impossible, as well as being unaffordable.
Or look at the remarks I quoted in another thread by the head of UK gas
transmission, without gas the UK would be on rolling blackouts more than 70%
of the time, and they would have 26 days a year of full national blackouts.
And no, overbuilding is not the answer. One it destroys the economics. Two, it doesn’t deal with the weeks of wind calms.
If they electrify present oil and gas use that 82% might be just something like 40%. What is the plan and cost for the other 60%?
See my https://www.cfact.org/2023/08/06/think-megawatt-hours-of-gasoline/ for the needed sort of analysis.
Just more of the Progressive War on the poor and middle class.
WOAH! These green virtue signalers are OBLIVIOUS to the C02 coming out of Asia and India. They want to think they are making a meaningful difference in global C02. NOPE!
I agree whole-heartedly, but would like to point out that India is in Asia.
It’s all about virtue signalling and votes. Reality doesn’t come into it. It looks pretty certain that leftist government will be gone in a couple of months. When it turns to shet the new idiots will blame the previous idiots. so on it goes.
That’ll be the day….
And on the same day here in Brooklyn (south) we had the coldest day of the year and had a light but chilling southerly. The national electricity transmission company issued a warning about the risk of demand exceeding supply. So all those with wind turbines could go and turn them by hand and those with solar panels could shine the light of a torch/flashlight on to them to make up the shortfall. Yeah, right!
Thanks Blackrock for the very useful renewables investment money. Pity that darkness and low wind is common (and longer) in winter.
Somewhat ironic coincidence. No media even joined the dots!
We are building a house with enough solar to use and also charge the installed batteries and once we have tried it for a year to confirm we have enough excess every month, (the numbers say yes but being of cautious disposition I want empirical evidence) we will unplug from the grid.
I am certain that with the government’s trajectory we will have years of power uncertainty ahead and associated blackouts (or is it blackrocks?).
I want New Zealand to zero carbon tomorrow. Dumb asses.
Anyone know off-hand how much electricity is used in NZ, compared to say Victoria?
Hi bnice2000
This is the NZ power site showing how much power is being produced.
https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/live-system-and-market-data/consolidated-live-data
We don’t have sufficient hydro to back up the wind power we have now so we import coal from Indonesia for back up power. We have plenty of our own coal. The Huntly power station was built on top of a coal field. The powers that be have decided using coal from Indonesia is better than using local coal.
Iceland is more virtuous than NZ – 100% geothermal will power Iceland – wow! Iceland will save the planet!….can’t get more virtuous than that!
Comes from sitting basically on top of active magma sacs.
It can have its drawbacks occasionally, though.
Iceland volcano eruption prompts warnings to stay away from Litli-Hrútur mountain – ABC News
Tonga should be OK for geothermal too… just plug into Hunga !
Thanks, Looks like pretty much on par with Victoria. +/- a bit
Victoria has about 30% higher population. Interesting.
Well, I can’t say for NZ compared to “Victoria”, but Wikipedia says that New Zealand was #55 down on the list of countries ordered in descending amount of electricity consumed on an annual basis (2019 estimate).
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
Put in perspective, again based on 2019 estimates, NZ was estimated to consume only 0.5% (yes, only one-half a percent) of the electricity consumed by the #1 consumer, China.
Furthermore, NZ was estimated to consume only 0.2% of the world’s total annual electricity consumption for 2019.
Blinkered idiots. Drank the “Kool-Aid”
Well they are pretty isolated. No chance of an extension cord across the Tasman. They do have plenty of water and wind and some geothermal. Let them turn off coal and oil and see how they go. It could be an interesting experiment for the rest of the world.
If anything is in their favour it is that they are a resourceful and inventive people.
If that’s the case, why did they elect Jacinda Ah, Dern! as prime minister?
The irony is that curtailing the use of fossil fuels has no significant effect on climate. The green new deal is a mistake. CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Here’s why: https://energyredirect3.blogspot.com
BlackRock’s Larry Fink is, standing right next to George Soros, the Devil incarnate here on humanity.
Never lose sight of the fact, BlackRock are prime drivers of ESG investment strategies.
For those not familiar with ESG, is stands for Economic Suicide Guaranteed.
We thought NZ was on the road to recovery when Jacinda decided she wasn’t as popular as the UN/Woke kept telling her she was.
Clearly the depth of Woke in NZs political class is far greater than we imagined.
Also don’t forget the huge investments BlackRock have in both China and Russia.
ESG using the principle of “Other peoples’ money” at the behest of very few very powerful western oligarchs cf so called (experimental mRNA) vaccines funded, patented by the unknowning US taxpayer at the behest of a very few very powerful western oligarchs….or am I dreaming.
New Zealand’s electricity grid already runs off about 82 per cent renewable energy after it damned rivers.
Rivers are good. Why would anybody cuss them out?
I dunno. They weren’t real happy with Wilson’s River at Lismore a little while back.
Dunno why anyone would be p1ssed off with Wilson’s River
It’s been doing its overflowing caper right out in the open every other year now for the 3/4 of a century I’ve been familiar with its predictable antics.
Well, rivers do what rivers do, but many people don’t seem to make the connection between approving building on flood plains and somebody getting wet feet.
They go crook when there’s not enough water as well.
As Brian said to the ex-leper “There’s no pleasing some people”.
I picked that up too but was too polite to comment on it.
A similar cockup was in a Sky News story where the author was castigating alarmist claims that heat was killing more people than cold.
But the sentence stated that “more people were dying of coal“.
Oops.
Many years ago, the stock sale report on the Tamworth TV station had a typo, and transposed to ‘o’ and ‘c’ in ‘bullocks’.
It was very entertaining for adolescent boys of all ages.
The NZ government has made this decision reality proof. By entering into a commercial contract the government has sold New Zealanders into bondage. They will have to pay up even if a sane, non-evil government should be elected in the future.
No one actually knows what the deal actually is, all it seems is that Blackrock will set up funds and invest approx 5% of these funds. The total market capitalization of listed electricity companies in NZ is around 34 billion dollars 2 million dollars in this total market is not a hell of a lot.
Slightly on off topic but, , this is what happens when you go ‘all electric’.
Although no-one will ever admit.
Especially when trying to use Heat Pumps for heating and hot water.
I will put pound to a penny to say that’s what happened here.
Headline:Bibby Stockholm: Legionella discovery forces asylum seekers off barge days after boarding
Evening Standard UK
It’s a big barge. Although they will have an interconnected air conditiining unit, allowing for heating and cooling, this won’t be a heat pump. The legionella bacteria appears to have been found in the onboard water system (drinking/washing) not the air conditioning system.
Hot water needs to be regularly heated above 50C to suppress bacteria. Hot water systems that rely on heat pump inputs need supplemental electric immersion heaters to achieve this. I bet the weren’t switched on for weeks allowing the legionella to get established. Unless someone injected it as a way of making the barge uninhabitable.
Good day at Black Rock
Pocket the cash and create endless reports – in other words, Blackrock intends to do net zero.
Another canary in the coal mine.
Wouldn’t Norway have a better chance at 100% renewables? It is already at 98% renewables.
“ It is already at 98% renewables.”
But get one big chunk of their export income from oil !
Because . . . well, you know . . . BlackRock, being a financial investment firm, is so well-qualified to apply the scientific method to examining the truth and logic behind any country needing to achieve “100% renewable electricity” in today’s world. Hah!
Dare I ask what percent of BlackRock’s staff are climate scientists? Outside of this, they will get the “advice” that they pay for.
This is yet another case where “follow the money” would be appropriate guidance. BlackRock will skim their 15–20% estimated take on managing New Zealand’s virtue signaling to the rest of the world, and without the ethics (aka fiduciary responsibility) of advising New Zealand that their intended goal won’t make a squat’s difference on affecting New Zealand’s climate, let alone Earth’s global climate.
One wonders if any Kiwis will be bothered to investigate how this arrangement sits with international Anti-dumping laws.
https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm8_e.htm
There is an old saying: “when experience and money meet there is an exchange, experience gets the money and money gets the experience”.
Given the lack of competence of the labour government and the secrecy of the agreement, I as a kiwi, am not looking forward to what happens next.