Selling coal to Newcastle
Leigh Catley from Horticulture New Zealand points out this month’s Grower Magazine that New Zealand now imports $2 billion dollars worth of food. I calculate that to be roughly 500 cans of tinned food each. Actually a lot of that imported food is ‘fresh food’, not tinned. Doesn’t that seem excessive in a country that, if any country could, should be able to feed itself? As Catley points out:
“Last year New Zealand imported 535,000kgs of jam and marmalade from China - a 420% increase on the 102,000kgs imported in 2003. In that time the average cost of the imported product has increased from $1.34 per kg in 2003 to $2.33.”
And, why for instance did we need to import $70 million worth of meat from Australia? Was that some sort of humane gesture on our behalf towards the sheep and cattle on our farms? (Let foreign sheep take the bullet this dinner time.)
More likely it is too hard for us to work out what is the New Zealand meat and what is the Australian meat? Horticulture New Zealand’s Chief Executive Peter Silcock says mandatory country of origin labelling (MCoOL) is the only way to ensure that consumers get to make the right choice for them, “whether their purchase decision is based on product origin, the price, safety concerns, political beliefs, nutrition needs or just plain old flavour preference”.
“Ironically, the Watties Chef Jellimeat petfood cans do feature the information on the label “Made from New Zealand Beef.” They are happy to be specific on a petfood can, but not on a can for human consumption!”
November 27th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Maybe this is muddle headed but I feel that globalisation will end in tears for NZ as we will be left (as always ) paying for the short fall in our exports by exporting our land to foriegners (and eventually the Chinese). Hendo and his Act friends will go to their chateaus in Portugal and drink wine.
Do National or Labour have any plan to retrain the “unskilled”?… I know from personal experience there are an awful lot of people who didn’t get a trade and wished they had. There are also an awful lot who buy businesses (eg Rent A Car) and find everyone and his brother is doing it. The media are big on good news, concentrating on the tree on the hill but ignoring the mud all about.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
While obviously global capitalism is rather illogical in many of the way it works, and this means you get many, many perverse results, it’s also the case that there is a huge logic to having different countries and lands specialising in producing different commodities.
Many parts of the world are much better suited for growing different sorts of food, so it makes perfect sense for the different countries of the world to grow these different foods and trade them with each other. It would be totally silly to expect New Zealand to grow all the food that it consumes. That would be incredibly inefficient and expensive - not to mention environmentally unsound.
The logic of Frog’s above complaint is that the Greens favour NZ (and all the other countries of the world) becoming fortresses in food production. Such a policy is indicative of the backward style of the Green Party in having policies that are actually pretty bad for the environment. It reminds me of all the unthinking Green groups in Europe that object to NZ butter coming to their side of the world due to “food miles”.
Bryce
November 27th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Frog
Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. What if there is a temporary oversupply in one country, and a temporary under-supply in another? How about comparative advantage?
November 27th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Oh JH I thought you wrote “retain” and I was going to say Labour and the Greens definitely have a plan to “retain” the unskilled while chasing away the skilled people that could save this country from the export of our most basic natural resource of all.
But back on topic it is totally bizzarre that we import any food. One of the reasons of course is that food exporters are usually peasant economies and hence it is cheap. By giving tax cuts we could actually reduce labour costs and produce more of it here. As other countries catch on to the protectionist advantage of GW/food miles we might even become a net importer of food and exporter of land as JH says. Or we could all just give up and go basket weaving like Kedgley wants.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
THe Greens would run short of brown rice, mung beans, tofu and chick peas if they stopped food imports
Seriously, I wonder if much of that jam was low quality and used in cakes and biscuits. Similarly for meat, it either might be seasonal, has low local availability like pork or is low grade cuts going into processing.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
the Greens do not advocate banning food imports, stopping international trade in food, or any kind of protectionism as you all seem to be riffing on. All we are asking for is mandatory labelling of food products for their country of origin so that those consumers who choose to buy NZ can know which foods are from NZ. Is that really too much to ask? What possible objection can you have for that?
P.S. 70% of our balance of payments deficit is from purchase of oil. If you want to stop NZ being forced to “export land” then the answer is clear - stop driving.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
The title of the thread post reads “Selling Coal To Newcastle”. It doesn’t appear to relate primarily to food labeling, although does head off on that tangent.
We don’t need to stop driving. We will power our cars with electricity. Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on a Tesla.
Ironicly, this may make me more green than most members of your party, whilst hitting 0-100 in under four seconds
Bring on electric powered cars, I say!
November 27th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
“P.S. 70% of our balance of payments deficit is from purchase of oil. If you want to stop NZ being forced to “export land” then the answer is clear - stop driving.”
Unfortunately not as simple as that stuey. Nz’s current oil production exceeds its demand, but the oil is shipped to Australia because Marsden point can not efficiently process it. Unfortunately also NZ’s oil production is majority foreign owned. All of which may add weight to your argument, but yeah.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Country of origin labeling is just the latest in a long line of unnessesary regulation on consumer goods advocated by the greens. Who suffers most? Those who are struggling as it is to make ends meet. Those on the minimum wage whose interests the green party claim to care about. While most can afford to pay a little extra for all the regulation, people who are stuggling, maybe raising a family will take notice at the ensuing price increase. To them this will be yet another stupid gymic.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
You what? How on earth does CoOL increase food costs? If there did have to be an increase in costs it would be infinitesimal. What are all the expensive things that food manufacturers are going to have to do that they are going to have to pass on to their customers? Go on, tell me what they are?
Also, food manufacturers are very reticent about passing on costs - you always see them try to swallow up increases in commodity or transportation costs and only once their margins get too slim do they increase costs.
Any possible increase in costs to the manufacturer caused by CoOL are completely dwarfed by the recent huge rises in transport and distribution costs and world food prices (e.g. because of bio-fuels)
November 27th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
>BluePeter Says:
>November 27th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
>We don’t need to stop driving. We will power our cars with electricity. >Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on a Tesla.
>Ironicly, this may make me more green than most members of your party, whilst hitting 0-100 in under four seconds
You’re assuming we’ll somehow automatically have enough electricity to power lots of electric cars that are powerful enough to do 1-100 in 4 seconds. Unfortunately you can’t just drill big holes in the ground and find electricity there like we did with oil.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
So it is true that our balance of payments deficit is being made up for by (in effect) exporting land? And it is true that the construction industry are big funders of national and labour… and that there are a high proportion of climate skeptics in the construction industry? Is it not also true Prime Minister that these people believe that profit should take precedence over good urban planning and design! In fact Prime Minister isn’t it true that this same group of wankers are responsible for the crappy, bunch of sticks we call urban New Zealand [”order! OrrrrDerrr!!]. Yes Prime Minister we need OrrDer!!
November 28th, 2007 at 1:33 am
“And, why for instance did we need to import $70 million worth of meat from Australia? Was that some sort of humane gesture on our behalf towards the sheep and cattle on our farms? (Let foreign sheep take the bullet this dinner time.)”
They had a drought, needed to reduce stock numbers dramatically and we are the closest consumer market to supply?
November 28th, 2007 at 3:31 am
Stuey, You are not quite correct that 70% of our balance of payments deficit is from purchase of oil. When Saint Michael grabbed the purse strings we didn’t have a trade deficit worth mentioning. Now it is over 6 billion a year. Just under half this amount is from the increased cost of oil.
2001-03 2007
Oil 3.2 5.9
Machinery 4.3 5.3
Motor Vehicles 4.3 4.9
Electrical Machinery 2.9 3.7
Aircraft/ships/railway 1.2 1.8
Metals & metal products 1.5 2.4
Foodstuffs 2.5 3.4
It is especially worthy of note that for the last two items the percent increase in value of exports was only half that for imports. In the case of foodstuffs that could mean that pretentiuos twats with more money than sense have taken to buying stupidly expensive “designer label” food and drink rather than the buy the cheaper and tastier kiwi imitations.
In the case of metal it is simply that aluminium hasn’t risen in value as much as steel and other metals. Perhaps the aluminium industry was able to increase production to cope with China better than the steel industry.
It seems we will have to stop driving on playstations as well as on real roads.
By “export land” do you mean selling it to foreigners or mortgaging it to foreigners. IMHO the latter is what we are really doing and it far more dangerous than selling it outright.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:15 am
>>How on earth does CoOL increase food costs?
Show us how extra compliance would not increase costs.
Offhand, I can think of the admin overhead, frequent label changes as suppliers change, staff to monitor and enforce compliance…
If consumers demand origin labeling, then suppliers will move to provide that information. I note some supermarkets have already done this. Why make it compulsory?
November 28th, 2007 at 7:16 am
>>You’re assuming we’ll somehow automatically have enough electricity
We’ll build the generation plants required.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:40 am
so..the latest poll has the greens on 3.5%..
(worrying enough..!..eh..?..)
but the real gonad-kicker in this poll is for the auckland greens..
0.9%..(!)
are we panicking yet..?..auckland greens..?
or..just ‘carry on’ as usual/always..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
November 28th, 2007 at 8:43 am
is ‘little dick’ still running the gig there..?
isn’t/hasn’t he/ak greens ‘done well’..?..eh..?..)
they haven’t just slipped back into their old (between elections)’ torpor/social/coffee club mores..?..
have they..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
November 28th, 2007 at 9:36 am
>>0.9% in Auckland
Ouch….
November 28th, 2007 at 10:00 am
a large part of the greens problems in auckland stem from the fact that between elections the green mp’s/leadership avoid the place like the plague..
there are no auckland green mp’s..
and (aside from the public transport’ issue..which is more ideologically..than regionally..driven/focussed..
the greens do not address our/auckland issues..(!)..at all..!
and..we never see them..
(i know..!..go figure..!..)
(we thought we had nandor..but he ‘bailed’/found fatherhood..
at one stage there was a push (from me and others) for him to stand in auckland central..
and for him to ‘work’ auckland..
but that momentum has now well and truly passed..(!).(.eh..?.)
combine that total lack of attention to auckland..
..with a dysfunctional/social/coffee club model of an auckland gren party ‘organisation’..
and you start to see/undertand them now reaping what they have sewn..
(y’know..!..i still think/know auckland is the key to the greens’ sustainabilty..(politics 101..eh..?..)
but i failed dismally in the greens in my ‘time’ there..
to get them to see/change..
(and in some defence of those auckland greens who aren’t just there for the coffee/chat..
it is very dispiriting being part/a sub-branch) of an organisation that ignores you..and your concerns..
except for that time every three years..
when they set those few auckland greens’ sysiphian (fund raising ‘levies’ for every electorate..
and harangue/overwhelm them with ever-extending financial/fundraising ‘final deadlines’..
the auckland greens have also been poorly served by a ‘leader’ who sees the ‘job’ as a stepping-stone to mp-hood..
the way things are going..
his chances don’t look too good..
eh..?
(and never once..!..in all those elections..
where a few greens (man/womanly) strive to handle/cover the large number of auckland electorates..(once again..another sysiphian task..
never have those (smug/well-financed/’members’ of provincial green groups..
ever offered to ‘help’ in auckland..
and hey..!..
ya gotta be gobsmacked by such apparant lack of basic political ‘nous’..eh.?
especially on the part of the green party leadership/m.p.’s..
(i posted this comment on kiwiblog..here is your copy..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
November 28th, 2007 at 10:02 am
As you should know stuey it increases the cost of production, because it would require extra labeling. I know this cost would be small but as I said before this is just the latest in a long line of unnessesary regulation, all of which combined does have a measureable effect on those who can least afford it.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Labelling can also be seen as a non tariff barrier and so damaging to the wider game of free trade.
Ahuahu
Your oil production numbers are all out of whack. we are nowhere near matching local production with demand. We consume about 120kbpd, production last year was only 18.5kbpd. That has changed a bit this year with Tui coming online and getting up to 50kbpd but it is still ‘only’ 50% of demand.
The reason they export most of the crude is because it is light and our market is too small to absorb the narrow range of products you can efficiently make with it, and they make more money exporting.
That is a legacy of Think Big, as NZRC was configured to best make large quantities of jet and diesel out of lower cost heavy crudes. Light crude is better for petrol, but that was intended to come from the Motonui gas conversion plant. That’s why we import a lot more refined petrol than diesel. The bigger, more diverse refining industry in AUs can better absorb and efficiently process the quantities we produce.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:02 am
(and in other ‘interesting’ news today..)
the top-ten ‘hits’ on the ‘conservipedia’ website..
1. Main Page [1,897,388]
2. Homosexuality [1,488,013]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis [516,193]
4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity [416,767]
5. Homosexuality and Parasites [387,438]
6. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea [328,045]
7. Homosexuality and Domestic Violence [325,547]
8. Gay Bowel Syndrome [314,076]
9. Homosexuality and Syphilis [262,015]
10. Homosexuality and Mental Health [249,14]..”
(heh-heh..!..eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
November 28th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I don’t know if you Frogbloggers are still discussing foodmiles and Frog’s anti-importation of food stance, but in case you’re interested here’s an article published today from Australia’s ABC about foodmiles (which even quotes an expert from Otago University)
Food miles can mislead:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/11/28/2103395.htm?site=sci ence&topic=latest
Bryce
November 28th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
kevin says: When Saint Michael grabbed the purse strings we didn’t have a trade deficit worth mentioning.
wrong
November 28th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Country of origin labelling can’t be seen as a trade barrier. Often enough it helps sell the product. Earlier this week I was specifically looking for Belgium chocolate. It would only act as a barrier if they have something to hide.
It shouldn’t add to the cost of most products, since they are labelled anyway.
I for one support this move.
Trevor.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Phil u, im ammused! I use conservapedia, which I find much better then wikipedia on certain topics, such as creationism which wikipedia is very dismissive of. I must say I have never looked up Homosexuality and how its is related to other things. Is that list for real or did you just make it up, because if it were real I would have thought it would have gone more like this:
1. Main Page
2. Homosexuality
3. Hillary Clinton
4. Atheism
5. Evolution
6. Abortion
7. Global warming
8. Liberal
9. Fox News
10. Communism
Trev: I dont see it so much as a trade barrier but an unnessesary expence.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
# BluePeter Says:
November 28th, 2007 at 7:16 am
>>You’re assuming we’ll somehow automatically have enough electricity
>We’ll build the generation plants required.
Generating power from what?
It won’t be hydro, because there aren’t enough rivers left. Will it be wind? Maybe we’d have the space, but it would take a lot of steel to make the turbines. It won’t be any form of nuclear power yet invented, because we don’t have enough uranium. It won’t be solar panels, because there’s a limited supply of the trace metals to make them from. So what sort of generating plants will these be?
Coal?
November 29th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Nick C: “[CoOL] would require extra labeling” - oh would it? what are they going to have to stick two labels on each jar instead of one?
I maintain that the admin overhead costs to food manufacturers would be miniscule and that no extra label changes would be necessary since labels change all the time (adding promotions etc) anyway. And anyway the additional cost to manufacturers is completely dwarfed by the recent increase in transportation and commodity costs.
November 29th, 2007 at 12:53 am
“Unfortunately you can’t just drill big holes in the ground and find electricity there like we did with oil.”
Sounds exactly how you build a geothermal plant to me
Trevor.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Andrew says >> kevin says: When Saint Michael grabbed the purse strings we didn’t have a trade deficit worth mentioning.
wrong
Andrew, if you are going to assert that StatsNZ has got it wrong you had better provide the link.
StatsNZ provides a straightforward graph on page 4 to support their assertion that “The trend of the trade balance has been in deficit since March the 2002 quarter.”
http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/25FB0DB9-3E0B-4E28-82C4-49E28CD3 595F/0/overseasmerchandisetradesep07hotp.pdf
November 29th, 2007 at 2:34 am
kahikatea,
Much of it could come from hydro, but only by breaking away from the traditional mindset. For instance, many micro-hydro techniques can be scaled up to utilise the waste water from existing hydro generation.
I think modern wind turbines are mostly made from composites, although I could be wrong. A number of researchers have proved the feasilibility of roof-top turbines. We have millions of rooftops to put them on.
I agree it wont be nuclear.
A small amount will come from solar panels but a big amount can come from solar thermal substitution of existing electric hot water and space heating.
Tidal, wave and geothermal generation have enormous potential in this country.
It just requires the right motivators to make it happen.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:44 am
phil, are you saying that the Greens have the support of 0.9% of the one-third of voters that live in the Auckland region? If so then that means the Greens have the support of the two-thirds of voters who live in the “provinces”. Seems the Greens do have something in common with National after all.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:46 am
woops, should have said: If so then that means the Greens have the support of 5% of the two-thirds of voters who live in the “provinces”.
If my algebra is correct.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:41 am
kahikatea
Wind, solar, hydro, wave, geothermal, coal, 4-th gen nuclear. There are plenty of options.
Just because the Greens seem hell bent on stopping any energy generation method they don’t agree with, doesn’t mean the rest of us are.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:41 am
“Will it be wind? Maybe we’d have the space, but it would take a lot of steel to make the turbines.”
Surely the amount of steel in a 2MW wind turbine is small compared to the steel in the appliances that it will power?
Sounds like someone clutching at straws to me - better add biomass to that list
Trevor.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:31 am
“I maintain that the admin overhead costs to food manufacturers would be miniscule.”
I agree with you, but as I have said this is just the latest in a long line of regulation, all of which combined has forced up the price by a considerable amount.
Also I fail to see how this is going to decrease the transport cost. That realies your assumption that as soon as we get country of origin labeling everyone in New Zealand is automatically going to start buying the kiwi-made stuff, something i doubt. It only works in Australia because everyone there is patrioic, and believes in Australia. In John Howards consession speech he said “Australia is the greatest country in the world”. That attitude simply doesnt exist in New Zealand, when was the last time we heard an New Zealand politician say that?
November 29th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Indeed. I buy Italian tinned tomatoes. The locally produced version is rubbish - too much water, wrong variety for Italian sauces.
That origin label isn’t compulsory. Nor does it need to be.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Phil
I thought you might find this interesting, it really does seem as is left wingers are being instructed how to think now.
http://liberalhq.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Liberalpedia/Abortion
http://liberalhq.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Liberalpedia/Evolution
http://liberalhq.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Liberalpedia/Framing
http://liberalhq.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Liberalpedia/SecondAmendment
http://liberalhq.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Liberalpedia/WarInGeneral
November 29th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
i just checked the label on the jam in my cupboard & it says “made in nz from local and/or imported ingredients”
well that’s bloody useful.
i hope the law closes loopholes like that.
kevin: sorry i read your post too hastily, i was thinking of current account balances. trade balance was declining toward zero since the mid nineties, but throughout the nineties the nation continued to climb further & further into debt.
i read the other day in an academic study that current thinking in mainstream economics is that balance of payments is not a meaningful economic indicator & should be ignored in policy making.
how do you like that?
November 29th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
“Generating power from what?
It won’t be solar panels, because there’s a limited supply of the trace metals to make them from.”
There are several forms of solar panels. You are thinking of photovoltaic panels - direct conversion from sunlight to electricity. However solar panels are also used for water heating. Coupled with reflectors, the water can be turned to steam. With steerable reflectors, the heat can be used to generate electricity using relatively conventional means - very similar to those at geothermal plants. In fact, the geothermal plants might be able to use solar heat by day and geothermal heat by night.
Trevor.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Insider
“Ahuahu, Your oil production numbers are all out of whack. we are nowhere near matching local production with demand. We consume about 120kbpd, production last year was only 18.5kbpd. That has changed a bit this year with Tui coming online and getting up to 50kbpd but it is still ‘only’ 50% of demand.”
Oh yeah you’re right I was basing my consumption figures on something not very reliable I’d read a reasonable while ago. However I’m well aware of the makeup of the oil production profile in NZ, and the temporary nature of Tui. I’m also aware of why Marsden does what it does. What I was actually trying to allude to was the absurdity of trying to say that we could stop importing petroleum and petroleum products: Our economy would collapse, because our remotely distributed population would have no way of fertilising their crops, no way of transporting their goods to a marketable point, let alone nationally or internationally. Its true we could all build mud huts and sing songs around the campfire and grow bountiful volumes of Kumara and Watercress and eat Kiore and die at the age of 42 and have a very insignificant carbon footprint. But we are human beings, we love luxury, we love cheap power, we love the great things that are made with industrial chemicals, we are consumed by a lust for consumption that will ultimately, inevitably lead us to a point where everything will collapse. It will have been beautiful though, in a way.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:58 am
andrew,
I would suggest, from the correlation between the level of foreign debt and median house prices over the last 40 years, that this country is closer to calamity than any of the experts will ever let on for fear of triggering the disaster. The Reserve Bank classifies foreign debt as either corporate or government. This makes it impossible to work out how much of the 150 billion in corporate debt is actually mortgages and credit card debts sold by New Zealand banks to foreign finacial institutions. That’s one h*ll of an exposure to a global confidence collapse as recently seen with the global repercussions of the US sub-prime collapse. 150 billion is equal to one million $150,000 mortgages.
I agree that that balance of payments is not a meaningful economic indicator & should be ignored in policy making. At least the goods and services part is. The foreign indebtedness part is probably a key indicator on it’s own.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Ahuahu,
You’re being a tad pessimistic. We’ve got heaps of coal and lots of old steam locomotives. Our remotely distributed population would have a way of fertilising their crops, a way of transporting their goods to a marketable point. And with modern boiler technology you wouldn’t even see much smoke. And we have plenty of steam traction engines still chugging around from one vintage machinery fair to the next, so farmer’s will still be able to plough and harvest. Problem solved.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Better if we ran those steam locomotive on wood chips, positive carbon balance then! Really cool for the tourists as well.
Trevor29 We can’t afford foreign windmills either. Didn’t a Waikato windfarm hearing just fall over because someone proved that they took 7 years to get back the carbon emitted building them. There was something in Spiegel recently about the new ones being cheap crap things that break down all the time.
I would be more inclined to buy NZ tomatoes if they labeled them GM free and you could trust the label.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
“Trevor29 We can’t afford foreign windmills either. Didn’t a Waikato windfarm hearing just fall over because someone proved that they took 7 years to get back the carbon emitted building them.”
Must have missed that one. Do you have a link?
“There was something in Spiegel recently about the new ones being cheap crap things that break down all the time.”
So don’t buy cheap and nasty.
Your point of view doesn’t seem to be shared by the top executives (who ought to have the inside knowledge) at Meridian, Contact Energy…
Trevor.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
that must be this story:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikatotimes/4296930a6579.html
it would seem that in this case, it is not windpower at fault, or turbine design, but the proposed location of the farm which is a location without very much wind.
December 1st, 2007 at 10:28 am
Thats the one. There is another at
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/waikatotimes/4298945a6579.html
The submission is supposed to be on the net but I can’t find it.
Anybody got the link?
If you google him the guy submitted to the DNZES
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentTOC____27489.aspx
Lot of good ideas in there, why was there nothing about them in the review of submissions?
If he impressed a resource commission he must know his stuff.
December 1st, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Interesting view of carbon emissions here.
Found the link for the stuff above:
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~demon/windy.html
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Reading the files from Emerald’s link:
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~demon/windy.html
it seems to me that Sean Cox is overstating his case a little.
I can’t see why he uses a figure of 0.1 tonnes of CO2 displaced for each MWH (MegaWattHour) for the Te Uku wind project and 0.4 tonnes per MWH for the other projects. Even if a wind farm displaces mainly hydro generation, that hydro generation can then be used to displace thermal generation, so the figures for thermal generation alone should be used.
When it comes to paying for it in overseas currency, Sean Cox is ignoring the possible balance of payments effect of the energy generated itself. If a wind farm (or other renewable generation) displaces power generated from gas (directly or indirectly) then that gas can be used in place of imported fuels or exported. Assuming that plans to import natural gas (methane) are quashed, we can use any gas saved instead of petrol by a simple CNG conversion of some of our vehicle fleet. (If natural gas is imported, any gas saved is a direct reduction in imports.) If the displaced generation is from coal, then we can reduce coal imports or increase coal exports accordingly.
(This includes gas or coal displaced at the point of use, if electgricity is used for heating instead of gas or coal.)
These arguements are important because they will apply to any renewable sources of electricity.
I am intrigued by his suggestions of using tree thinnings as a source of power. That certainly sounds like a possible alternative to gas fired generation and running Huntley on charcoal would be more environmentally sound than running it on coal.
If his figures on the wind speeds are correct, someone hasn’t done their homework properly on the Te Uku site.
Trevor.
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I see you linked to my Te Uku files.
Please comment on them and I will try to answer any questions.
Please make allowance that I am an aerodynamicist and environmentalist. Not an Electrical Engineer.
I do know about wind turbine grid integration.
Trevor29:Remember this is a submission in opposition!
There was no problem making it look bad. Just the opposite, this is optimistic. The median numbers are so awful they would not have been credible.
The electricity replacement model was done assuming 2GW peak wind output available.
In this case I believe the coal stations HAVE to be on-line, because the hydro stations cannot react to load changes fast enough. This is why Huntly was built in the first place. They are the first choice for load stabilization because they are the cheapest.
As more wind power is bid it will replace others in the order of cost so it will be
Gas Turbines, geothermal, hydro, in that order. Neglecting the minor ones.
This is all for a Wind turbine without it’s own co generation, that is a more complex model.
As far as I’m aware if there is not a massive grid upgrade in NZ there will be no replacement of coal generated power by wind power if more than about 1.2 GW rated output of wind turbines is installed.
The key to getting these coal burning station out of it is to have renewables that are the equivalent to coal stations. Hence my focus on wood chip.
That 0.1 number is probably wrong, it is just the official MFTE number for Maui gas.
The other projects are given a better number because they DO actually replace coal stations as load stabilizers. It is just an average, the actual number is indeterminate.
The payment calculation was really to compare with the other options and give some kind of objective measure.
It is unfortunate that the time I had to do this was not enough to do the detail for the other projects.
I agree that this kind of ‘where does the money come from’. should be done for all energy projects.
The very high cost in foreign exchange, the high capital cost and the very low domestic content of imported wind turbines just make them bad by this measure.
Why hasn’t NZ already got several Wood chip power stations?
This technology is a ‘no brainer’ for NZ.
Running Huntly on wood chip is not “more environmentally sound than running it on coal.” Is is about as green as you can get.
Huntly is already built and payed for, closing it down rather than running it on ecologically positive and renewable charcoal would be an act of stupidity.
Also if the Huntly site had a wood gasification unit the CSG unit could run on the gas from the wood and the charcoal remains would fuel the steam turbines.
The Raglan area really is not windy.
http://www.windenergy.org.nz/FAQ/resource.htm
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html
To see how variable NZ is for wind compare it to Denmark on the stanford map!
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:04 am
Sean, I can’t see how your wood chip proposal could work with the dual-fuel furnaces used at Huntly.
From http://www.schoolgen.co.nz/thermal_energy.aspx
“Coal is put into several large grinders, crushed into a fine powder and blown into big boiler furnaces. If gas is used, it is piped into the furnaces and then burned in the boilers.”
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
Sean, An alternative use for your proposal would be to replace coal as the source for indutsrial and hospital boilers in the South Island where 90% use coal, chipped rather than powdered. Most North Island steam boilers use gas because it’s readily available and allows unattended start up and shut down.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Kevyn, I had a discusion with one of the managing engineers from Huntly last year about the main steam boilers. They should run on charcoal (derived from wood chip) without much modification but are unlikely to be able to run on wood chip inself without serious work.
CSG unit could run on gas from a wood gasification plant and this would provide about 1/2 of the charcoal needed for 1 boiler.
More charcoal could come from microgen or another CSG unit.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
From http://www.viewsofscotland.org/snp_conference/PeatAudit-Guide.pdf
“The CO2 emissions arising from electricity generation depend on the fuel used: nuclear power has
almost zero emissions, coal firing is usually taken as 0.86 tCO2/MWh and gas as about 0.3
tCO2/MWh. The generally accepted grid average is 0.43 tCO2/MWh”
Another reference is
http://www.ref.org.uk/images/pdfs/Whiteco2.pdf
which gives values of 0.43 to 0.86 (the latter figure is for coal) and gives some of the complexities involved with determining these figures.
That value of 0.1 looks decidedly unrealistic as a figure for electricity from gas generation. It looks more like a New Zealand grid average, which could be out of date since we have used more thermal power in recent years. In any case, the value for displaced generation should be somewhere between the gas and coal figures, i.e. around 0.4-0.8.
Trevor.
PS: the figures are tonnes of CO2 per MegaWatt-Hour or kilograms of CO2 per kiloWatt-Hour, which are equivalent.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Sean Cox said:
“In this case I believe the coal stations HAVE to be on-line, because the hydro stations cannot react to load changes fast enough. This is why Huntly was built in the first place. They are the first choice for load stabilization because they are the cheapest.”
I disagree. Hydro stations can react quickly to load (or supply) changes. In fact, the frequency regulating station is usually a hydro station - that’s all we’ve got in the South island. Coal-fired stations can’t be brought on line quickly and can only react quickly if they are already fired up.
I believe that Huntley was built to meet the total annual load and the peak demands of the North Island, rather than for short-term grid stability.
This doesn’t really affect Sean’s argument. Wind power is useful, but has its problems and the most obvious one is its short term variability, which on one site can be from nothing to full power or vice versa in 15 minutes or so. Spacial diversity helps - i.e. installing wind farms in different areas so they are affected by different weather. However you still need enough despatchable power to meet the demands, and wind power isn’t despatchable.
Trevor.
December 9th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Sean’s submission mentioned that Stuart Island has areas with average wind speeds above 9 metres per second. Given that they use diesel generators running off imported fuel and pay about twice mainland prices for electricity, they would appear to be ideal candidates for alternative energy resources such as wind, wave and tidal flow (through Foveaux Strait). Do they have any of these? Are there any plans to use wind, wave or tidal power?
Trevor.
December 10th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Same question for the Chathams.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Couldn’t agree more Kevyn, except the Chathams doesn’t have a tidal resource that I know of - perhaps solar instead.
Trevor.
December 11th, 2007 at 4:55 am
Certainly solar-thermal would be viable. Perhaps conventional windmills with compressed-air storage to run their existing deisel generator sets?
January 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am
Question for Sean Cox:
In your submission, you raised the question of how to pay for the foreign currency.
I commented above (2 Dec 2007) that the electricity generated by the wind farm could generate foreign currency. I suggested as an example that any saving in natural gas use could be used to substitute for imported fuels. However a more direct way of earning foreign currency is by way of our aluminium smelter, which in dry years has been forced to cut back production of aluminium, which would have otherwise been exported. In addition, although we don’t import or export natural gas (at the moment), I believe we do export products made from natural gas, namely ammonia and/or urea. (Urea is made from ammonia, which in turn is made from hydrogen, which is made from natural gas, all at the Petrochem plant in Taranaki.)
Do you agree with this line of reasoning, or have I missed something?
Of course, for this to be significant, the wind farm would have to generate a respectable amount of electricity, which the Te Uku wind farm might be struggling to do.
Trevor.
January 1st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
“What Price Paradise?
So the Government says it wants to make it harder for New York bankers and Canadian music stars to buy a slice of heaven down under, the truth is, it has no intention of actually stopping such land sales, and land is only a fraction of what is being flogged off shore.
New Zealanders are rightly upset that the world’s wealthy are buying up so-called trophy properties, including our high country, beach and lake fronts, so they can escape from an increasingly overcrowded, polluted and violent world. Kiwis paying high rents or wanting to buy a home are also frustrated that residential property prices are artificially inflated because small-time foreign investors want to get rich at their expense…”
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other8068.html
Why push Ahmed Zhaoui’s rights and smacking? Ahmed Zhaoui could have been handled as a mess and sorted but Kieth’s anti SIS/ US paranoia showed through, and Sue sailed in between parents and their children.
Many people would look at the above document and think oh but they don’t really understand the economy. People rate economists with surgeons and the deeper they are in the system (surrounded by money) the more credibility they are deemed to have. To convince more people your gonna have to go deeper into the counter arguments. I think we need to have a drive to get more people improving their knowledge of economic issues. Confucius once noted that without a strong (well reasoned argument) a person can do little better than mimic a fish out of water.
It seems to me that as a country we have no plan (although the free marketeers would probably conclude that we don’t need one). In the 1960’s and 70’s we were building dams. Now we are selling off as much land as we can to foreigners, and talking about the advantages of a greater population… (and the need for nuclear power plants) with little though to exporting or comparative advantage.
Pull your finger out Green Party!