Contact Energy - CEN Chart

[Bobdn]

Better to just keep Huntly maintained. Burning a little bit of coal and gas from time to time is better than spending $15 to $30 billion.

And you can still go crazy on solar and wind knowing that at least Huntly has your back if it's a cloudy, still day.

[Nor]

Better to just keep Huntly maintained. Burning a little bit of coal and gas from time to time is better than spending $15 to $30 billion.

And you can still go crazy on solar and wind knowing that at least Huntly has your back if it's a cloudy, still day.

So true. Even totally eliminating Nz's tiny contribution to climate change will have zero effect.
Better infrastructure projects to spend it on.

[BlackPeter]

Better to just keep Huntly maintained. Burning a little bit of coal and gas from time to time is better than spending $15 to $30 billion.

And you can still go crazy on solar and wind knowing that at least Huntly has your back if it's a cloudy, still day.

Don't they have gas turbines as well in Huntley? In 10 years they probably can fuel them with green hydrogen. No need for outrageously expensive storage lakes which may or may not leak (or break ) during the next earthquake.

[fish]

Don't they have gas turbines as well in Huntley? In 10 years they probably can fuel them with green hydrogen. No need for outrageously expensive storage lakes which may or may not leak (or break ) during the next earthquake.

Yes genesis could use clean natural gas instead of dirty coal .
We do need a more pragmatic government that will reverse the hypocritical exploration ban

[BlackPeter]

Yes genesis could use clean natural gas instead of dirty coal .
We do need a more pragmatic government that will reverse the hypocritical exploration ban

Agreed - the exploration ban was clearly quite counterproductive, wasn't it? But I talked about green hydrogen ... in 10 years we have hopefully facilities producing this stuff in NZ from spare hydropower ... and this could be used in (modified) gas turbines to produce power when we need it. No need for a hugely expensive storage lake cantered between several fault lines ...

[Ferg]

We well might be in agreement (given your added qualifier). Can't however remember too many think big projects where the business case did stack up. Can you?

Thanks for the reply.

I was originally looking at this as two different issues: the first being the provision of energy self sufficiency and/or capacity (with the late disclaimer I added) and the the second issue being the rampant inflation that followed with the drastic & draconian policies to curb it. I never looked into it that closely to see if the inflation was caused by 'Think Big' borrowing and expenditure or by the oil price shocks of the time, or a combination of the two. Or possibly even something else? It would be interesting to see some post-analytical work on that. Although I note that one such project, the Clyde Dam, was built between 1982 and 1993 during which time we did not have rampant Muldoon inflation.

I'm not sure that link I provided adequately proves the connection between think big expenditure and subsequent inflation. So whilst I suppose we can be thankful to RM for the additional capacity, some of that could be withdrawn for the downstream economic impacts perhaps. I wonder how long it will be before we regret decommissioning Marsden Point Refinery, if not already? I haven't seen the economics for the Clyde Dam but I'm guessing we as a country are now thankful to have that additional electricity generation capacity.

Although would the economic impacts have been worse without these projects? On that note, I have never seen any of the business cases for the projects. I wonder if they are they still available and what they were projecting would happen if the projects did not proceed. That said, we are on an island at the bottom of the world - so I would probably also support *some* energy projects that increased future resilience and capacity that were marginal business cases.

Edit: in conclusion, I would not want to see us fall into the same mistakes made by previous Governments. And to your last post , I agree we should be looking at hydrogen as a fuel source. That makes sense to me.

[kiora]

Better to just keep Huntly maintained. Burning a little bit of coal and gas from time to time is better than spending $15 to $30 billion.

And you can still go crazy on solar and wind knowing that at least Huntly has your back if it's a cloudy, still day.

Or makes more sense to invest in biomass conversion???
"Genesis isn’t considering further imports of wood. Instead, it wanted to develop a local source of pellets or “biomass”, said interim chief executive Tracey Hickman​.

“It’s worth some focus by government and business to see if a sustainable local supply chain can be developed. Compared to some other decarbonisation solutions, biomass conversion could be implemented much sooner to the benefit of the country,” she said in a statement.

With a reliable supply of pellets, Hickman said, Huntly could become a lower-carbon source of back-up electricity generation for another decade – or even longer."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/...ng-short-trial

Or biogas ???
https://www.beca.com/getmedia/4294a6...-Potential.pdf

[fish]

Or makes more sense to invest in biomass conversion???
"Genesis isn’t considering further imports of wood. Instead, it wanted to develop a local source of pellets or “biomass”, said interim chief executive Tracey Hickman​.

“It’s worth some focus by government and business to see if a sustainable local supply chain can be developed. Compared to some other decarbonisation solutions, biomass conversion could be implemented much sooner to the benefit of the country,” she said in a statement.

With a reliable supply of pellets, Hickman said, Huntly could become a lower-carbon source of back-up electricity generation for another decade – or even longer."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/...ng-short-trial

Or biogas ???
https://www.beca.com/getmedia/4294a6...-Potential.pdf

No shortage of biomass.
Would it not make sense to use the waste logs that can cause flood damage .
I also wonder if the ashes/waste resulting would be a good phosphate/potassium /trace elements fertiliser

[fish]

Agreed - the exploration ban was clearly quite counterproductive, wasn't it? But I talked about green hydrogen ... in 10 years we have hopefully facilities producing this stuff in NZ from spare hydropower ... and this could be used in (modified) gas turbines to produce power when we need it. No need for a hugely expensive storage lake cantered between several fault lines ...

I do feel hydrogen in the scale needed would be difficult to store and require expensive technology to produce large amounts electricity.
We have natural gas stored in abundance if the government would lift the ban-costing the taxpayer nothing .
Look how well Norway is doing with their hydro and gas

[BlackPeter]

I do feel hydrogen in the scale needed would be difficult to store and require expensive technology to produce large amounts electricity.

...

It appears that scientists in Europe do see that differently ... they have big plans for green hydrogen for 2030. Gosh, that's only 7 years away!

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/e...al%20processes.

Anyway - I agree that gas is still much better than burning dirty coal ... and Europe uses this currently as well as place-filler.

And of course - NZ is often at least 30 years behind the rest of the world related to anything environmentally positive. Last developed country to phase out leaded petrol and one of the last civilised countries to allow the uncontrolled application of RoundUp and one of the largest per head producers of rubbish - i.e. for the specific NZ conditions you well might be right ... we well might need longer than anybody else to produce and store green hydrogen ;

Green NZ - LOL.