Blair: Kyoto is not enough
News for Don, Peter and all the rest who want to get New Zealand off the Kyoto bandwagon.
In London’s The Observer today, British PM Tony Blair writes:
We also have to recognise that while the Kyoto Protocol takes us in the right direction, it is not enough. We need to cut greenhouse gas emissions radically but Kyoto doesn’t even stabilise them.
Whatever else you can say about Blair, he isn’t a climate change denier. However he may be the only person on the planet who is both a climate change believer and a Bush apologist:
It won’t work as intended, either, unless the US is part of it. It’s easy to take frustrations out on the Bush Administration but people forget that the Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto when Bill Clinton was in the White House.
He also points to nuclear power as one of the solutions for climate change, so look out for that argument to resurface in our media this week after the first of the G8’s Gleneagles-deal meetings on Tuesday.
A good way to prepare: keep in mind that James Lovelock specifically exempted New Zealand (and Iceland) from his call that nuclear power is the only way for countries to quickly kick the carbon habit. In an interview with Linda Clark on National Radio last year, he specifically said NZ has sufficient renewable resources and the small population needed to avoid having to split the atom to keep the lights on (and the blogs running).
October 31st, 2005 at 12:21 am
With the two biggest problems (global warming and world poverty) Blair seems to know the score. So why in the world is he so chummy with Dubya?
The Nuclear thing is difficult though — I have some very left-leaning (scientist) friends in the UK that are pro-everything-green but also believe that the *only* way that places like England have a realistic chance of seriously reducing emissions without being sent back to the third world is through Nuclear power. The population density is just too high for other methods to work. I agree that NZ don’t have the same argument, because this country is practically deserted by comparison (thankfully). But for Europe, do they really have realistic alternatives to nuclear?
October 31st, 2005 at 6:57 am
You don’t refute what Blair says on Bush, presumably because the facts are hard to ignore.
As for the nuclear power issue, I an glad to see the Greens quoting someone who is pro nuclear power. Even if not needed in NZ, this seems to be an admission that it is safe and desirable in some circumstances.
October 31st, 2005 at 7:52 am
Yes we may be deserted, but that does not rule out nuclear power for New Zealand because we are currently very inefficient users - poor insulation in houses, so in the past we just used more power to keep them warm. Yes we could probably do without nuclear power, but we’d have to make some significant changes. Also comparing Iceland to NZ is not necessarily valid, as they have about 1/10th the population of NZ, and something like 80-90% of it is concentrated in one city! We still have significant centres distributed all around the country. I for one am glad that the nuclear question is being raised. Too many people are pulling the merino wool over their eyes if they think it should even be part of the options for our future. Relatively - it is one of the cleaner forms of producing energy available. One of the few problems we will see is the increase in U prices though - once again due to increasing demand.
October 31st, 2005 at 8:00 am
The nuclear industry are now wheeling out climate change as a reason why the taxpayer should subsidize their uneconomic technology. Ho Hum.
I think the frog would be better off linking to someone such as Monbiot whose latest column lays out a convincing argument as to why nuclear fails at the first hurdle: namely each dollar invested into nuclear displaces less CO2 than other available options.
He also mentions the fact that these plants will not work without public subsidies - in fact insurance companies refuse to provide commercial cover - thuis the need for the Price-Anderson in the US.
The future is decentralised generation - this not only provides clean appropriate power but also breaks the economic strangle hold of the current power generating/transmission entities. No wonder the centralised generators are fighting.
I also recommend following up the quoted article from the RMI
http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E05-08_NukePwrEcon.pdf
Enjoy !
October 31st, 2005 at 8:53 am
Bernard,
The head of the Electricity Commission also pointed out that nuclear fails in NZ for the very simple reason that any economical sized plant (ie > 1GW) would have too much generation concentrated into one “shaft”, and that we do not, could not, provide a sufficiently large viable backup in the case that the nuclear plant tripped.
Most generators in NZ are in the order of 20-200MW; by contrast a nuclear plant is too large to fit into the very complex control and scheduling schemes used to manage the entire system without gross commercial distortions and unacceptable supply risks.
October 31st, 2005 at 10:18 am
Realistically - New Zealand will not have a Nuclear Plant until we can all have “Mr Fusion” converters in the back of our DeLorean Time Machines.
Which isn’t something I am expecting soon.
David - What the hell are you talking about with respect to Blair and Bush?
As for the rest of the world… it has to burn atoms or coal, or freeze in the dark. Which one is most likely to help with the CO2 emissions? There WOULD be alternatives if people could get their butts in orbit cheap, but we haven’t actually done the “learn to live and work in space” thing well enough, so the SSPS is still dream talk… though it should happen before the NZ Nuclear Industry gets off the ground.
respectfully
BJ
October 31st, 2005 at 10:20 am
The issue is economic growth. Given the complexities of getting any kind of energy generation past RMA these days (imagine any org putting an RMA application in for a nuclear power plant) NZ is faced with the decision about how much more it wants to grow.
The basic fact is if you want to grow your population, your economy you need to grow your energy generation/consumption. The more complex and richer your economy is the more energy you need.
So, the real issue for New Zealanders is to stop looking at how we might progress without the assumption of perpetual economic growth. Once we ditch this phony idea (don’t ask me how, that’s the challenge) then we can get on with looking at how we can better use the energy generating resources we have.
Unfortunately the dogma of the day embedded into the craniums of all NZ’ers is that to be happy as a society we need economic growth, any suggestions to the contrary are met with bovine disbelief.
October 31st, 2005 at 11:11 am
Bernard Woolley-thinking, your words are not a justification for nuclear power, they are a justification for spending public money on insulation (and solar water heating).
NZ and Iceland are a valid comparison because both are richly endowed with renewable energy, i.e. geothermal, wind, hydro.
October 31st, 2005 at 11:16 am
gee frog..the big story of the day seems to be passing you by..
you had better check out whoar.co.nz….sir humphrey..or sagenz..
the mainstream media haven’t got it yet..:)
it’s to do with saddam..oil..and the real nz connection…cor!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
October 31st, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Steve,
Couldn’t agree more. Unlimited growth only works with unlimited resources - something we don’t have. There is nothing wrong with a stable population size and a stable economy IMHO. And whether or not we like it - growth will *have to* cease at some point — its just a matter of whether we do it in an orderly fashion ourselves, or let it happen *to* us some time down the road. How do we sell this message though? If NZ does decide that we are quite happy with our current comfortable population density and all the simplicity that brings to our energy requirements, then how could we convince ordinary NZers of this? Especially given that the number of desperate refugees arising from other countries with poorer planning (like USA) will probably rise rapidly in the future.
October 31st, 2005 at 12:28 pm
hold that thought….the economist got it wrong..and sucked us in…:)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
October 31st, 2005 at 9:38 pm
Every nation could have solar water heating in every home - paid for by the state and installed by ballot order.