Smart Idea, Dumb Idea

 

Here’s a smart energy idea – build wind turbines at or close to the point of demand for electricity (‘distributed generation’), utilizing brownfield sites:

“Wind turbines will increasingly be built in urban and industrial areas as power firms seek to avoid the planning problems that have blighted some rural generating schemes…”

Here’s a dumb energy idea – fight climate change by chopping down forests to grow biofuel crops:

“Increasing production of biofuels to combat climate change will release between two and nine times more carbon gases over the next 30 years than fossil fuels…”

The Oil Drum Goes Down Under

The Oil Drum has recently gone ‘down under’ with an Antipodean site, The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand.

As I suggested in an earlier post, don’t rely on governments or oil companies to tell you about peak oil - the maximum limit of world oil production which many experts consider has already occurred or will occur soon. The NZ Government, for instance, recently released the “New Zealand Energy Strategy to 2050″. You’d expect peak oil would warrant more serious attention than a few paragraphs, given the significant concerns that a range of experts – including people who have held senior positions in the oil industry – have about the peak’s imminent timing, and about how conventional oil is not substitutable (in any serious way) by oil sands and biofuels.  But the Government’s view on peak oil is essentially “move along, nothing to see here”:

“So while there will, at some point, be peak ‘cheap’ oil from conventional sources, the world has plentiful sources of fossil-based oil.” (NZES page 47).

Read about peak oil, transport and sustainability here at The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand.

Some Practical Motoring Advice

Thank goodness we’ve got the NZ Automobile Association (AA) giving us practical advice on dealing with the end of the era of cheap oil. In this Stuff article, AA spokesman Mark Stockdale suggests that one way to beat the petrol price hike is to use supermarket petrol discount vouchers:

“It’s definitely worth shopping around. You can save a lot of money by shopping somewhere else and picking up your petrol somewhere else with one of the vouchers.”

Sounds great, but hang on, let’s check the math. Mr Stockale says that most vouchers offer on average a discount of 4c a litre of petrol. The petrol tank of my car takes 45 litres. 45 litres x 4c = $1.80. So, I’ve slashed $1.80 off the cost of a tank fill. If I fill my car’s tank every week (I don’t but let’s pretend) then 52 weeks x $1.80…I save $93.60 per year. 

Am I missing something here? Or is this one of those ‘bargains’ that aren’t really bargains? Sorry AA, but $1.80 a week doesn’t seem like “a lot of money” to me. Try giving your members better advice, like leaving the car in the garage and walking or cycling.

>> “Extremely Lame”

In Parliament Today

Here is today’s list of oral questions in the NZ House of Representatives. National will continue to attack the Government on the Electoral Finance Bill and the Clare Curran hiring debacle at the Ministry for the Environment. There are also two sustainability and climate change-related questions to listen for:

• Hone Harawira (Maori Party) to the Minister responsible for Climate Change: “Is he happy with the Government’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions; if so, why?”; and

• Jeanette Fitzsimmons (Green Party) to the Associate Minister of Transport: “Does she expect proposed vehicle exhaust emissions standards to reduce the number of premature deaths from air pollution from vehicle exhausts; if so, how many lives does she expect this rule change could save?”.

Tune in at 2pm.