I note that there is much made about the Green MP Julie-Ann Genter cycling to hospital when she was in labour and about to give birth.
There were many comments about how the cycling advocate was impressive etc for doing so but I am afraid that as far as I am concerned it was just a stunt that further proves how disingenuous the green lobby is when it comes to alternative energy.
Good on her for being able to and choosing to ride to hospital to give birth, but how come there are posed photos of her so called cycling to hospital on her electric bike seems like she was accompanied by at least one other vehicle so there was some waste of energy there.
Furthermore there is no mention of the fact that the only way to be able to charge her electric bike is to plug it into the electricity grid which is currently being supplemented by coal fired generation to the tune of approximately 35,000 tonnes of coal per week.
Most of that coal is imported from Indonesia and when you look at the facts behind electricity generation in NZ at present it soon becomes plainly obvious that there is a great degree of hypocrisy in this sort of advocacy where they try to give the impression that it’s all about doing the green thing yet they know full well that currently we cannot go without coal fired generation in NZ without some periods of rolling blackouts throughout the year.
So given that there are times throughout the year that we will need to supplement our power generation with coal fired boilers, why are we not still mining our own sources of coal instead of importing it.
Importation comes with increased levels of environmental effects from the transportation and there is the possibility of the overseas producing mines being run at a lower environmental standard that those that apply in NZ. Again showing the hypocrisy of the government announcing the decision to cease using coal fired energy throughout NZ when in fact they know that there are times where we either do use coal fired power generation or we turn off the lights.
But here in New Zealand we have another option that will do away with the hypocrisy and allow us time to develop adequate levels of sustainable generating systems while still producing enough electricity to keep the lights on without the need to import dirty coal from Indonesia.
Instead of filling our landfills with waste we can use that waste to produce power by incineration. Given the latest technology available, the relatively simple engineering needed to transform the Huntly Station to use waste, the availability of area for the processing of the waste, the existing transmission network and the existing rail network into the site, there will be less harm done to the environment from using waste as a fuel than there is from importing and using coal.
According to the Waste Hierarchy, the recovery of energy from waste is the next preferred method after recycling. Disposal to landfill is the least preferred method of waste management, yet it is the most widely used in Third World countries, and is current best practice in New Zealand.
The Auckland region produces approximately one and a half million tonnes of waste per year that mostly goes into landfills.
The government has committed to stopping the use of fossil fuels and converting to electricity use instead and given this focus on the use of electricity to replace the use of fossil fuels the demand for electricity is going to increase exponentially.
New Zealand currently does not have the capacity in sustainable generation of electricity to stop the use of thermal generation outright.
If the hydro lake levels drop significantly due to weather effects and the wind doesn’t blow at that time then we will need to rely on thermal generation or see rolling blackouts as happened in August this year.
We don’t currently have the infrastructure available to rely on sustainable generation at all times and without the use of thermal generation there will be times when the demand for electricity will outstrip supply and then we will be again faced with rolling blackouts.
There are many major cities such as Paris, Zurich, Vienna and London, which are converting waste into energy.
Many of these cities have the process of generating energy from waste as a key component in their waste management hierarchy thereby reducing their landfill requirements almost to zero.
The residual waste that would otherwise consigned to landfill uses technology to generate energy from the controlled burning of that waste. The generation plants burn the waste and convert the released heat into steam which is used to generate electricity. The latest filtering technology is used to ensure that the incineration systems comply with all emissions standards from their exhaust chimneys.
We are facing rising power prices, increasing energy demand and the eventual closing down of the natural gas supply which provides baseload power and solid waste levels are increasing alongside the increasing population.
The changing climate means there is the distinct possibility that our ever reliable sustainable hydro generation may become a lot more unreliable with the changing weather patterns and we will not have enough excess capacity to cope with the present demand under those circumstances, let alone with the projected increased demand from the current government policies.
It is imperative that we investigate the alternatives if we are going to stop the hypocrisy and be able to keep the lights on.
The conversion of waste to energy has many more benefits than the use of coal fired generation.
Andy Loader