The wartime leader wasn’t referring to the electricity-supply worries of New Zealand when he said that in October 1939 but rather how tricky it was to predict which way Russia would jump in its head-scratching Nazi-Soviet alliance.
The epithet, though, is still highly relevant to Russian shenanigans today. And it also perfectly sums up the issues this country faces in keeping electricity supply, and renewable-electricity supply at that, ahead of the industrial and domestic demand curve over the next few decades.
Not only do we urgently need to build up our stock of electricity generation assets, but we need to do it in a way that is sustainable and does not affect the environment. New Zealand has long been seen by countries overseas as in the vanguard of nations running on mostly renewable power supplies, but we are struggling to meet clean, green expectations and to somehow fill that last 15-20% of generated-electricity supply with sources other than coal, oil and gas.
Churchill’s conundrum is alive and well here. It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of green options, with geothermal energy aplenty in the North Island and lots of potential for wind and solar power.
But somehow, despite the enthusiasm for such projects to stop our reliance on that terrible emitter coal to fill the gap, there is still a degree of resistance to them becoming reality.
Environmental concerns are often valid and need to be taken into consideration. But there remains a core of Nimbyism from people who are happy for their heated towel rails to stay on but don’t like to see wind turbines or any other evidence of what generated the power out of their
window.
This week, Contact Energy’s planned Southland Wind Farm, on ridges east of Wyndham, was somewhat surprisingly rejected by an independent panel. The $900 million farm had planned for 55 wind turbines of about seven-megawatts capacity each, with blades reaching 220m above ground at their zenith.
The company said generating up to 1200 gigawatt hours (GWh) of power each year would supply between 110,000 and 150,000 households and make up a significant amount of the region’s annual demand. Construction of the wind farm would create up to 240 new jobs.
The environmental effects meant the project would not promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. Also, it would have a detrimental effect on the landscape and visual amenity values, the panel determined.
Contact expressed its frustration, saying such projects would be critical to move away from fossil fuels and to enable it to be net carbon zero in generation by 2035. Regional Development Minister Shane Jones called it "extraordinarily disappointing" and a major blow for energy security.
Mr Jones said he had long believed the "amenity value" factor was easily weaponised, and there always had to be a tradeoff between landscape and power-station development.
"Each winter we are dicing with economic catastrophe. I guess if we can’t get wind farms built, then perhaps it’s time for us to start digging up coal," he said.
Unsurprisingly, Contact is appealing the decision to the High Court on points of law. Chief executive Mike Fuge said the wind farm’s net environmental effect would have saved more than 1 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
Forest & Bird had highlighted to the panel the possibility of bats crossing turbines while out foraging. However, the group said mitigation was possible and later a spokeswoman said the data it provided was insufficient to adequately assess the total effect of the farm on the bats.
We agree with the view of Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins, that we must protect our indigenous species but there needs to be ways of doing that while enabling more wind farms to be built.
Every year, New Zealanders use around 40,000GWh of electricity. Electricity Authority projections suggest this will rise to more than 71,000Gwh a year by 2050.
Electricity may be invisible but it doesn’t appear out of thin air.
