Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Miliband’s Epic Failure

UK

Miliband risks energy bills crisis

Ed Miliband has rejected calls to “open up the North Sea” as war rages in Iran, claiming that the biggest “long-term threat multiplier” to UK security is the climate crisis.

Dr Will Jones: Industry is Being Sacrificed to Net Zero Ideology, Says Siemens Energy Boss

Europe is sacrificing industry to Net Zero ideology, the Chairman of Siemens Energy has warned, with strict emission targets crippling manufacturing in Germany. The Telegraph has more.

Kerre Woodham: A massive press conference to tell us very little

Well, a great deal of expectation and excitement. We all gathered around the wireless to listen to the 8am announcement about reform of our electricity and power sector and, wow, a lot of hullabaloo and hype over a meh kind of announcement.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Here's what's so disappointing about the energy announcement

If you were looking forward to today to learn how the Government would rescue the country from the energy crisis we face, you are already disappointed by now because you've looked at it and you've seen there's nothing here.

There is nothing here that is going to stop us going through what we are going through right now. For months and months every winter for the last two winters we've seen the closing down of mills, extremely high power bills, and a shortage of gas - and all of that's going to continue.

Mike's Minute: Stop putting the bill on the taxpayer

It never takes long to find the bank of the taxpayer.

The Green Building Council has lined the Government up for Lord knows how many millions so we can all ditch our gas heaters, buy heat pumps, and save money and the gas industry.

Mike's Minute: Why are we only now thinking of new energy ideas?

It's only the start of Wednesday so let's be honest we've only had two days of news, and we already have two stories around power.

The first was Transpower saying we need to find more avenues of power generation and we need to do that quickly, because until all the promised transition stuff comes online, we are going to be short of capacity.

John McLean: Electricity short circuit

New Zealand’s batty energy system

New Zealand is running dangerously low on electricity. During times of high demand, the only thing saving New Zealanders from power blackouts is electricity generated by burning imported coal at Genesis Energy’s Huntly Power Station. Between April and August 2025, Genesis will import about 800,000 tonnes of overseas-mined coal for burning at Huntly. Power prices are cripplingly high, with no respite in sight.

Mike's Minute: Nimbyism will kill us

Another swing and a miss.

Contact Energy wanted to build a wind farm in Southland. They have been turned down. They are not the first and they will not be the last.

Close to $300 million and hundreds of jobs are now not happening because of it.

Sallust: The Cold Truth – Britain’s Grim Winter’s Tale

Unfortunately, climate activists live in the fantasy world of averages and averages of averages, not reality. In their mythical universe temperatures can be stabilised and power consumption projected, all based on those averages. Their ideology has been allowed to drive Government policy for years and the result has been a misguided reliance on the vagaries and unreliability of solar and wind power.

Sallust: The Net Zero Riots

The Russian-British satirist and author Konstantin Kisin has popped up in a video chat with Youtuber and podcaster Chris Williamson with a damning verdict on Britain’s prospects while being led headlong into the crippling consequences of taxation and a Net Zero fantasy.

Kisin starts right out with the view that “at the moment” Britain is “f***ed”.

Roger Partridge: Lessons in market signals as electricity crisis recedes (for now)

Misguided good intentions paved the way for this winter’s energy crisis.

Fortunately, the country has avoided blackouts. But we came perilously close. Transpower’s decision last week to allow greater use of hydro reserves eased immediate concerns. Meridian Energy is now “very confident” we will avoid an energy-saving campaign. But while this year’s crisis has passed, our energy security remains fragile.

DTNZ:

“Even in Opposition, Hipkins is cratering our chances of getting the energy we need to keep homes warm and factories running through the winter,” says ACT Energy and Resources spokesperson Simon Court.

“He says he’s open to cross-party action on the energy crisis, but not if it involves natural gas.

Mike's Minute: Surely the clock is ticking for Chris Hipkins

You can see how the rumblings around the future of Chris Hipkins as Labour Leader have started.

They have added to their problems this week with the social media post from David Parker wittering on about his tax dream. The old Capital Gains Tax, get all those rich bastards lined up and raid their pockets.

It's a sorry old state they find themselves in.

Professor Alan Brent: NZ energy crisis: electricity demand will jump as NZ decarbonises....

NZ energy crisis: electricity demand will jump as NZ decarbonises – can renewable generation keep up?

The prime minister has called it an “energy security crisis” and signalled a review of New Zealand’s electricity market as wholesale prices spike and industries suffer.

And he’s right – this year has seen pricing turmoil. August saw daily averages ranging between NZ$164.52 and $853.57 per megawatt hour (MWh). By comparison, August 2023 saw a maximum daily average price of $168.43 per MWh.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Labour can't hold on to the oil and gas ban forever

That was quite a smart move from Chris Luxon yesterday, calling on opposition parties to support the Government in fixing this energy crisis we’re in at the moment.

Not only because this is now so serious, with businesses closing down and cutting jobs because they can’t afford the power bill, that it really requires everyone in Parliament to be grown ups about it - but also because I think this is going to politically snooker Labour on that oil and gas ban.

Mike's Minute: We need the full story on the power crisis

A not unfair question to ask, as we return to the power crisis of 2024, is are we being told the full story?

For the third time Tiwai has been asked to reduce power use.

Methanex is allegedly in the throes of cutting another deal with the Government over gas.

Kerre Woodham: How long is a fix for the energy crisis going to take?

We're talking energy today, or rather the lack of it. New Zealand seems to have sleepwalked into an energy crisis, according to the Chairman of Open Country Dairy, the second biggest player in New Zealand's dairy export industry. Laurie Margrain said in a story the crisis is not coming, it's here. He said an example of its arrival is that the factory has had to incorporate standby coal-fired boilers into its brand-new Southland alternative-powered cheese factory, because of the certain risk of insufficient electricity generation.

Clive Bibby: Our energy crisis, when it comes, will be one of our own making

I am not an expert on any subject but have long held an interest in opportunities we seem to be overlooking that could make a huge difference when deciding what we want to become as a sovereign nation punching above its weight - in a world that for some, appears to have no future - at least not one that appeals.

I, like so many other ordinary kiwis watch good ideas being ignored by the “powers that be” who seem frozen in time, frightened to move in a seemingly positive direction because of the consequences of something going wrong in the process.

Stuart Smith: Will We Learn from Watching Europe?

The European political landscape has been shifting for some time, with Brexit leading to a rising tide of discontent with the administrative state that is the EU. After Brexit, bureaucracy in Brussels moved quickly to reassure remaining states that it was an unfortunate aberration; that all was well with the Union, and the bureaucrats continued, business as usual, in the comfort of their tax-free jobs.

The huge Dutch farmer-led protests against their government’s move to reduce the use of nitrogen fertiliser by up to 70 per cent and thus jeopardise their country’s food-crop production, was another warning that not all is well in Europe.

Clive Bibby: Let’s not make the same mistakes

 

There are lessons to be learned from the energy crisis that has already and is about to engulf most of the countries in the Western World. 

It is somewhat ironic that those who have trumpeted their allegiance to the IPCC mantra most fervently are those who now find themselves “up the creek without a paddle”. I find it nauseating to watch the same governments facing blackouts of damaging proportions floundering around in panic mode as they try to find answers to a crisis of their own making. 

It is also a timely reminder that this country isn’t witnessing the same calamity only because our energy supply is already approximately 70% clean and until recently, the backup generators were powered by reliable fuels.