He says three major projects would need to be completed:
- Ground transport will have been electrified.
- Heat, especially industrial heat, will have been electrified.
- The electricity sector – generation, transmission, and distribution – will have been greatly expanded to cope with the increased demand from the first two projects.
And this has to be done within the next 26 years.
The electricity sector would need to grow from 155 PJ to 425 PJ. The total cost is estimated at NZ$500 billion.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
The electricity sector would need to grow from 155 PJ to 425 PJ. The total cost is estimated at NZ$500 billion.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
4 comments:
Let's just do the simple arithmetic on these crazy plans to get New Zealand to this fantasy world of "net zero".
It's going to cost $500b, that is $500,000,000,000 over 26 years.
That's $20,000,000,000 per year in round numbers.
Based on current population for NZ, that is $4,000 per person per year, every year until 2050.
A total of over $100,000 for every single person in NZ !!
To achieve what ?
Something is off in his numbers: " In the all-electric home of the future, heat pumps can draw 58 A at start- up, while radiant hobs can draw 27 A. Meanwhile, fast (slow) chargers for electric vehicles draw 33 A (12 A), and electric showers draw 33 A."
I run a very large heat pump, spa pool, induction stove, Tesla Model Y, 2 TV's and lots of electronics on a standard 60A fuse, and have no problems. I've yet to see a heat pump draw that load at any time, and most people with EV's charge using 10A wall plugs overnight.
Also, there are now industrial heat pumps that can deliver 400 degrees C of heat, which covers a substantial proportion of industrial process heat.
Then we get to the old canard about cobalt and mining. Most ev batteries now are lithium iron phosphate i.e. no cobalt. Yes it will require an increase in mining, for a while, to support renewable build out, but unlike mining and resource extraction for fossil fuels, batteries can now be 96% recycled. There will come a point when most lithium mining will shut down because there will be circular usage of lithium.
The author nails his colours to the mast at the end, questioning the science and quoting How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future,16 by Vaclav Smil. Smil is one of many who overstates the scale of the transition required because he fails to understand avoided emissions - by electrifying everything we can avoid the more than 60% wasted energy from fossil fuels.
Doug Longmire says “To achieve what?” Absolutely nothing. When will it dawn on the gullible public that the Emperor is butt naked. We are committing billions of dollars to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
Good report and fairly obvious that NZ has less than no chance of ever achieving net zero. The country is broke and no money means very tough choices between what we would like and what is necessary.
The energy plan for NZ is a discombobulated mess of wishful thinking.
A case in point.
I was driving past a gas station in Auckland the other day in Wiri and next to the gas pumps was a Hydrogen refilling station.
It’s never used.
In a hundred years it might get close to serving as many customers in one month as filling up cars with gas in 1 hour.
The cost for the infrastructure however for this white elephant is huge.
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