Destructive lust for power
Does the answer to our future energy needs lie in industrial-scale wind farms or giant hydro projects? Neither, argues Richard Reeve.
A recent question asked of many Otago wind farm opponents is, would they prefer giant hydro on the Clutha to wind farms?
The question is sometimes intended rhetorically as a taunt: what alternatives do we have? Dams on the Clutha have historical notoriety, and the industrial wind farm option is insinuated, rightly or wrongly, as a palliative to more giant hydro such as created Lake Dunstan.
The answer is no; none of the present giant and irreversible Renewable Energy initiatives proposed for the South Island are preferable or indeed necessary.
Irrespective of what schemes for new generation are proposed, New Zealand’s energy crisis will be perpetual so long as no serious efforts are being made to recognise and understand the stem of the whole problem, which is our inability to control our own consumption.
Unless we address escalating consumption, the present allocation of energy to different sectors of society, and our gridlock dependency on large-scale generation solutions, in the year 2108, while teenagers are zipping across Dunedin’s once-nested beaches on the latest electric trail bikes, we will still be debating where to put new solar farms, which bays to put tidal turbines in, what ridges to flatten for wind farms and whether to dam again.
There is no solution to New Zealand’s energy needs that relies on the irreversible devastation of natural landscapes, sea and rivers.
This is because the problem is inherent in our culture, rather than in mere constraints on development related to putting these resources to use.
Successive New Zealand Governments suggest development schedules with a projected future of the next two to three decades, ignoring the consequences of these schedules a century later; yet the legacy of 19th-century colonial imperialism is a cornerstone of our environmental history now.
As a nation, we pretend that we understand ourselves, disregarding the blind spots in historical self-awareness examined by 20th-century philosophers of history as diverse as Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Popper.
What Meridian, TrustPower, Contact and others are proposing as essential development will in numerous instances look like rushed, irreversible destruction to future generations, who will regret our recklessness just as we regret the clear-felling of the giant kauri forests or the slaughter of whale populations for oil.
Protecting future generations from these blind spots means carefully thought-out integration of renewable energy, with the intention of minimising irreversible impact.
Where this is not presently possible, with companies insisting on economies of scale as the only way to justify new generation economically, New Zealand must make it happen.
We need small wind farms, more distributed and municipal generation, and no Mokihinui or Clutha dam.
If giant wind farms are built at all, they should be constructed out to sea.
In this respect, the Government’s recent national policy statement on renewable electricity generation is commendable in appearance at least, though there can be little doubt that “reversibility” will become the new “sustainability”, a word gutted of its original meaning for business councils to flop about like a toy in front of politicians.
Both Mahinerangi wind farm and the Wairau hydro tunnel are regarded by TrustPower and Infratil as “reversible”, “sustainable” developments.
In the energy mix, the climate change issue cannot be ignored.
It is a worthy ambition to replace carbon-emitting thermal with renewables, but not where the renewables option is extrapolated as essentially good to the point where irreversible local detractions are regarded as a viable trade-off.
Hydro and giant wind have both been touted as climate-friendly, notwithstanding the fact that 2008 demonstrated clearly that there are extended periods when the lakes are low and there is very little wind, necessitating some form of reserve baseload generation.
Currently, other than hydro, this baseload is thermal and geothermal.
With any transition to electric transport, this baseload will need to increase significantly, and no combination of hydro and intermittent wind will sustainably meet the rise in demand occasioned by such a change.
In fact, reliance on too much wind generation will merely result in more reserve generation being built to accommodate periods like the 2008 drought.
In the present decade, we would be wiser to invest seriously in structural conservation, the practice of “negawatts”, rather than building industrial wind farms, though smaller, sensitively placed wind will reduce pressure on hydro.
For the present, we need our thermal reserve generation.
In 25 years, that baseload is likely to come from tidal, geothermal and solar, supplementing our existing hydro and with a variety of wind farms to boot — to wit, those built before the wind-investment bubble burst.
One can well imagine, if the Otago wind farms are thwarted, new environmental conflicts arising with the advent of utility-scale solar in Central Otago, the Mackenzie Country, Nelson and Blenheim, and dolphins being killed by ostensibly benign tidal turbines and pelamis technology.
We should think small, and work generally to diminish the need for new plant being constructed.
Yet, where is the basic demand-side management technology that would allow domestic consumers to monitor the cost of their energy consumption on a real-time basis?
Why do we continue to run worthless lighting in every city in New Zealand, when social security is not an issue inasmuch as adequate illumination is provided by a small portion of the present amount of lighting being run?
Why was Rio Tinto allowed to increase its base consumption of electricity from 554MW to 572MW per annum from 2013? Energy conservation is, like, so 2004.
The greatest service paid to the New Zealand public in terms of domestic energy conservation may, in fact, be by TradeMe, where ordinary Kiwis go to buy secondhand carpet or insulation.
Equally, where are there any serious directives in place to encourage distributed generation or community initiatives for local generation (perhaps three wind turbines for a small town)?
Wind farms do not have to entail intensive development amounting to hundreds of megawatts; nor should ideal wind conditions be the sole determinant of where wind farms will be built.
An intellectual environment has developed in which dubious binaristic distinctions cause dispute among environmentalists whose views and aims are in fact often similar.
There is no choice between giant wind and giant hydro; we may have neither, we may have both.
Either will have irreversible adverse local effects.
Environmentalist opposition to mad energy schemes must face the obstacle of vast legal resources being brought to bear in the Environment Court by businesses with huge budgets.
It doesn’t matter that the Mokihinui gorge and Clutha unequivocally trigger RMA issues of national importance, opponents face a highly uneven, uphill battle so long as third-way-style political parties like Labour and National wilfully navigate NGOs and the public as mere obstacles for fundamentally corporate interests.
Richard Reeve is an Otago poet, editor and environmentalist.
3 September 2008
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