It is worse than that it will increase. The Fonterra plant at Whareroa is a large natural gas user. The most logical alternative for them is coal.
Boop boop de do
Marilyn
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The effects in Taranaki will be felt immediately as oil companies change their long term plans. Industries like Ballance who plan major overhauls of their urea plant at Kapuni may also reconsider their plan.
This decision came far too quickly with absolutely no strategic plan in place to adjust NZ to a life with only imported oil & gas.
Claiming the Government have provided Taranaki with $5M for a cathedral revamp and $20m to upgrade DOC mountain tracks is a pathetic drop in the bucket for what will actually be required.
Roughly 1/4 of gas goes to electricity generation. How are those Electric Vehicles going to get charged up?
Roughly 1/3 goes to NZ industry who employ hard working Kiwi's. Throw in a $20 minimum Wage or Living Wage and its good bye to a lot of local employment.
About 4% goes to voters homes for cooking and heating. Well they will be out of luck as hydro gets diverted to EV's.
I ask the question. If an ordinary employee in the gas sector in Taranaki earns over $100k per annum in a low skilled job, how on earth are they going to find something that pays anywhere near that amount with no skills.
No problem - Cindy will increase the minimum wage to $48 per hour. If she manages to devalue the NZD at the same time by 60%, we might even internationally survive. Problem solved ... and just think about all the additional taxes she will get from this wage hike. Win-win.
The term "our nuclear moment" seems to be spot on. Just as we were content to shelter under someone else's nuclear umbrella, so we are now happy to continue to run our economy on someone else's energy. I wonder how long it's going to be before we're able to harness the power of the sun - or the wind! - in order to continue our love affair with aeroplanes?
;)