Although Contact Energy is providing a predictable hedge against an unpredictable future by saying it cannot definitively rule out future exploration of potential hydro-electricity projects on the Clutha River, on Tuesday it confirmed these are being shelved for the foreseeable future.
This is a victory for common sense, and is at least partly informed by the mathematics of energy generation. It simply is not economic.
Many people will have heaved a joint sigh of relief at the news, not least that years of further consent hearings and protests, with the associated expense and time, will no longer demand headlines, nor split the communities with which the projects were to have been associated.
The announcement effectively ends projects intermittently considered for at least two decades.
Contact announced in 2008 it was revisiting plans for dams on the upper and lower Clutha, costing between $300 million and $1.5 billion, which were originally proposed more than 20 years ago by its predecessor, the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand.
In February this year, the company announced plans for a new hydro-electricity facility on the Clutha were for the time being put "on the backburner", it preferring instead to look to the merits of geothermal generation.
That meant options involving four possible development sites - at Tuapeka Mouth, Beaumont, Queensberry and Luggate - "remained open" but were "more likely further down the track, probably into the next decade".
This week's announcement tilts the balance towards "less likely" and to extending the timeframe for any possible change a further decade or so.
By such time it might be expected the technology of wind will have advanced to the point where the advantages it already enjoys over hydro are beyond dispute.
While hydro is a clean and renewable form of generation it can leave a radical imprint on the landscape and the rivers around which its infrastructure is built - anathema to environmentalists and many others.
Imparting the decision, Contact chief executive Dennis Barnes said the company's investigations during the past three years had shown none of the options considered was viable for development and that all future Clutha hydro options came in at "a much higher cost per megawatt to build than the next available new geothermal and wind-generation options".
Further, on current demand forecasts, the Clutha options were not economic in the foreseeable future.
He confirmed the company had a "range of new generation in the pipeline" to meet foreseeable future energy demand for its customers.
Contact's decision now means it can divest itself of significant land holdings near the Clutha River, although that will depend on the outcome of an internal review established to consider holding, sale or management alternatives.
This may provide opportunities for local farmers or others in the community.
To what extent the company's decision is related to the future shape of the New Zealand industry, with the likely partial privatisation of three big state energy generators - Mighty River Power, Meridian Energy, and Genesis - and coal company Solid Energy, is unknown.
But the admission of the cost comparisons for the different forms of generation is interesting and significant.
It means wind power is likely to become an increasing player in the power mix in this country and those with an aversion to giant turbines atop hillsides across the land might just have to get used to it.
Geothermal sites, while reportedly extremely efficient, are discrete, and are few and far between.
Wind, on the other hand, blows throughout.
The process of generation to which it is harnessed neither degrades our rivers, spoils their flow, nor impacts on their biodiversity.
Among the range of common power-producing scenarios, most with significant environmental impacts, it is a good option.
Economic growth and the prospect of an upturn in the future will herald a greater need for energy than is currently being experienced.
This may change power companies' projections and require further investment in generation.
But, for the moment, the long-running question as to future hydro development on the much-loved Clutha River has been answered: it is water under the bridge.
