The recent general election has resulted in sweeping changes in climate policy in New Zealand, but the commitments to the Zero Carbon Act, to meeting the climate budgets, and meeting our Paris Agreement target, remain. When the article below was published in short form in the newspaper, the editor chose the headline “The good news on climate change – and the rest“. This led to some debate online. Was it really good news? Or could the title equally well have been “The bad news”? I thought that for an international audience “New Zealand votes for a higher carbon tax” would have been a good lead.
Regardless of that, here is the full article from the November 2023 issue of Policy Quarterly.
Planetary Ecology 
I “feel” Lake Onslow pumped hydro is a good idea but I cannot get my head around what seems to me to be a fundamental question (that I have trouble phrasing).
Could we generate enough wind/solar electricity in a dry year to meet demand:
1. For industry.
2. For homes, week by week, if people could use it only when it was generated, ie, the grid determined the day and time of day by rationing – eg, price and “ripple control”.
That would tell us how much storage we would need for any given level of convenience.
I suspect National’s “plan” for a dry year is to burn gas, but if there is any gas it would have been found by now.
Nuclear would cost three times as much as Lake Onslow, take three times as long, and leave us with a thousand times the cost in decommissioning.
It’s a good question. There are definitely other solutions out there, and compared to other countries we are in a better position with so much hydro (although that also creates a longer term problem during dry years.) It will involve some combination of overbuilding renewables, batteries, storage, and demand management like you say. Companies may sign up for cheap power in return for having their supply curtailed as needed. The fossil fuel industry says “build gas peakers as needed.” People are doing modelling on all this, that’s what the NZ Battery Project was for, however the scenarios for how much wind and solar will be built vary enormously. We are at an unusual point where things need to change now in the face of a lot of uncertainty. The whole situation throws a lot of work onto the Energy Strategy which may now need to change direction a bit (and MBIE may have fewer staff and consultants to do the work…)
Thanks. I would have thought the question fundamental and yet the Electricity Authority and MBIE were unable to tell me.
Eventually I suggested professors like Robert McLachlan or Michael Plank might at least be able to tell us whether it was technically feasible or not, ignoring consumer expectations of supply.
National claims its experts have the answers but I suspect those “experts” are climate deniers.
Overbuilding renewables and using surplus to produce hydrogen would be straightforward and useful in industry but might make electricity more expensive than Lake Onslow as storage of hydrogen might be more expensive than storing water.
Naturally it is not what NZ does that will determine the outcome of this vast experiment but we can hardly make demands of other nations we do not make of our own – but that seems to be the default position of ACT and disciples.
Thank for this great article, big picture summary of the journey so far. Schmachtenberger and Rees are also contributing to the big picture analysis of our Predicament. Catastrophe / Dystopia or a “Third Attractor”? Interesting times, and a time where individual humans have a massive opportunity (and responsibility) to make a difference. Your writings help a lot. Thank you.
I “feel” Lake Onslow is a bad idea. Was the Clutha dam a good idea? It was expensive and flooded productive land. Lake Onslow will flood many many times the area of Lake Dunstan, and for what? So we can can continue with the delusions built-in to our economic system that energy is cheap and that we can continue with exponential growth. It’s the continuation of the think-big trend, that government or major industry will solve energy problems and that individuals don’t need to do anything except work harder and consume more.
A consequence of our cheap energy delusion is that we do things like pushing around large volumes of earth in construction and farming, fly in aeroplanes, drive around in energy-inefficient low-occupancy “light” vehicles and design our towns around them, live in poorly insulated houses with poorly insulated ovens and we all switch on our ovens a the same time…
I prefer we do the least damage to the earth we can. I prefer no more species go extinct, we leave the earth as it is as much as possible, loose no more habitat and in fact re-wild areas.
Let’s build more onshore wind farms close to population centres, use our existing hydro assets for peaking, and use demand management. There should be a strong price disincentive to use energy at peak times and during dry years. We don’t need to use the same amount of energy for industry and homes as we do now, we need to use less. Especially in dry years.
At some point we have to accept the fact that continuing to grow population and over-consumption will lead to the end of the world. The “least environmentally and socially destructive” way to maintain our delusions is no longer viable. We actually have to peak our energy use and trend down.
Nothing you say addresses or alters the “dry year” problem – pumped hydro does.
At any given level of consumption, it’s not clear that installing a great deal more wind/solar than we need in “wet years” will get us through a “dry year”, however cleverly electricity is rationed, without massive storage of energy.
At present our hydro storage is certainly not enough. Using Lake Taupo is an option we may be forced to consider when faced with stark reality.
In a dry year, less electricity is produced, and less electricity is consumed. The method of rationing is a second-order problem, but whatever it is will be 100% effective: we won’t use more than we produce.
Industry will probably produce less output. Less irrigation water will likely be pumped. Houses may be colder, and will probably burn more wood. A lesser aggregate total distance will be traveled by electric cars. The national average shower time will be shorter, and people will get around to installing more solar and insulation that year. Some people will realize they don’t need to boil 6 cups in the jug for 1 cup of coffee.
Where is the problem?
The only real problem is people’s expectations: last year used X amount, this year I can no longer afford to use that much. That is just reality.
(Clyde dam of course…)
Well what you are doing is restating the problem: How much change would be needed to get through a dry year before the electorate rebelled and I suggest most likely not much. People might accept the dishwasher working when the Sun is shining or the wind is blowing but they will not accept the lights going out.
The reality is democracy will deliver what people desire until it can’t.
Very well said Kaikatea. Its the part of the solution that is seemingly never discussed. Our technologies are now so amazing that we can actually do a lot more with less.
We have one of the best hydro battery systems on the planet. If we could start to talk about personally managing with less (and not growing the population), then we could likely transition to post carbon very well.
Unfortunately Jevon’s paradox, the more efficient the more consumption. But it can work in reverse, if we can figure out how to teach and “sell” the idea that less is more.
This is where I find Hagen’s “The Great Simplification” and people like you helpful. We have to fully understand the Predicament and the pathways available before we (the collective) can choose wisely. Of course we are not there yet.
“We have one of the best hydro battery systems on the planet.”
No, the existing system is not sufficient for a dry year.
“Most hydro-electric dams in New Zealand are ‘run of the river’ schemes, with enough storage for only a few hours or days of generation.”
https://niwa.co.nz/our-science/freshwater/tools/kaitiaki_tools/land-use/energy/hydro#:~:text=Most%20hydro%2Delectric%20dams%20in,hours%20or%20days%20of%20generation.
A good question would be if we closed the aluminium smelter and stopped immigration might we manage a dry year – I believe the answer is still no, at least not unless we ration electricity.
At present generation is guided by profit and consumption determined by personal wealth – both of these features are nonsensical but that’s how the “free” market works.