Few countries are as well placed as New Zealand to benefit from geothermal power. Few can match its potential in supercritical geothermal energy. If New Zealand exploits this advantage, it could move from energy adequacy to energy abundance.
Cheap, reliable, plentiful energy is the master resource behind nearly every form of prosperity. It powers homes, factories, data centres, transport and the innovations that make all the rest possible. A society with abundant energy can afford to be cleaner and more resilient.
Then there is capital. Political and economic instability in the United States and Europe is bad news in many ways, but it also creates openings for countries that remain stable, lawful, and attractive to investors.
Right now, billions of dollars linked to investor-class visas are looking for productive homes. New Zealand is rightly welcoming that capital. But putting it to work requires easing regulatory burdens.
The same is true of land use. However incomplete the current reforms may be, the government is at least pushing in the direction of growth.
Land use rules can either enable a country to adapt, build and expand, or they can lock it into stagnation. A society that makes it easier to build houses, labs, factories and energy projects is a society that makes room for the future.
Closed societies try to force the future into outdated rules. Open societies reform their rules to accommodate the future. New Zealand has shown, in at least one striking case, that regulation need not be the enemy of progress. The country built a functioning regime for rocket launches with remarkable speed.
Initially, it relied on NASA authorisations while it developed its own regulatory environment. If the mindset were applied more broadly, it could become a serious home for frontier industries.
New Zealand’s success is not guaranteed. There are plenty of voices arguing for stasis, degrowth and zero-sum thinking. The public sector often frustrates initiative rather than enabling it.
Opportunities do not become achievements on their own. They must be recognised and acted upon.
Rational optimism is not wishful thinking. It is the discipline of seeing genuine possibilities and having the courage to pursue them.
Then there is capital. Political and economic instability in the United States and Europe is bad news in many ways, but it also creates openings for countries that remain stable, lawful, and attractive to investors.
Right now, billions of dollars linked to investor-class visas are looking for productive homes. New Zealand is rightly welcoming that capital. But putting it to work requires easing regulatory burdens.
The same is true of land use. However incomplete the current reforms may be, the government is at least pushing in the direction of growth.
Land use rules can either enable a country to adapt, build and expand, or they can lock it into stagnation. A society that makes it easier to build houses, labs, factories and energy projects is a society that makes room for the future.
Closed societies try to force the future into outdated rules. Open societies reform their rules to accommodate the future. New Zealand has shown, in at least one striking case, that regulation need not be the enemy of progress. The country built a functioning regime for rocket launches with remarkable speed.
Initially, it relied on NASA authorisations while it developed its own regulatory environment. If the mindset were applied more broadly, it could become a serious home for frontier industries.
New Zealand’s success is not guaranteed. There are plenty of voices arguing for stasis, degrowth and zero-sum thinking. The public sector often frustrates initiative rather than enabling it.
Opportunities do not become achievements on their own. They must be recognised and acted upon.
Rational optimism is not wishful thinking. It is the discipline of seeing genuine possibilities and having the courage to pursue them.
Join Dr Marian Tupy for his Wellington based public lecture, Why the future is more abundant than you think, from 5:00pm Thursday, 19 March 2026.
Marian L. Tupy is the editor of HumanProgress.org and a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. This article was sourced HERE
7 comments:
Someone buying a house is capital to benefit the economy? What a load of small-minded codswallop. With thinking like this out there it is no wonder the country’s economy is in the toilet.
Sadly the generating companies have zero interest in supplying cheap and plentiful electricity.
What they are interested in is supplying large and plentiful profits. Unless there is a system change, this will continue to be the priority
Everything comes back to the leadership of the country, established in our once-esteemed Parliament. We can all see from the past couple of decades that such leadership is moribund, if not actually malevolent. With no change at the top, don’t expect any improvement at the bottom.
Once we had an abundance of democracy, now that has been squandered and is gone.
Geothermal maintenance frequency can be considered “significantly higher”—typically multiple times more frequent in terms of checks and interventions—compared to hydropower, which relies mainly on periodic major overhauls rather than continuous upkeep.
Any more rainbows you want to chase or cotton candy you want to feed your unicorn?
We need coal-fired and nuclear power stations as well as hydro-power. Wind and solar power are for carbon zero, brain-free-zealots.
Don't forget that hydro releases millions of tons of CO2 as the dissolved organic matter glows through the turbines.
Any carbon credits required ?
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