One of our local weaknesses under the Labour/Green Coalition is scant attention paid to security of supply. The NZ Climate Science Coalition has knowledgeable power engineers who keep in touch with it. — RT
[Anon]: This is the second day that prices have been above $600. This is nearly ten times what one would expect for this time of the year, and this on a day when the load is not particularly high and wind is above normal. But note that prices crashed from $600 to about $400 in 10 minutes; I don’t know why. It’s possible the South Island lakes are getting low enough to scare Meridian and others. During the 1992 shortage the North Island was feeding power south but we no longer have the spare thermal capacity in the North Island to do this consistently. Yet nobody seems to be taking any notice.
Views: 72
On top of this we have many people calling for the destruction of Hydro dams on the Waikato river because they seem to think that they are harming the environment.
We know that brain power is in short supply when this stuff is trundled out .
The dams on the Waikato are the best thing that was ever done for New Zealand ,
For a start they help immensely with flood control and we no longer have floods on the lower Waikato river .
Secondly with the large number of wind farms and solar panels the hydro stations are easily turned on and off to supply power at night and when the wind stops blowing .
I have seen comments that hydro power stations only have a life of 30 years but Arapuni the oldest station was commissioned around 1930 and Karapiro was commissioned in the late 1940s .
Now the latest is that dammed water has dammed dead vegetation that gives off dammed methane over time .
If that is all people have against dams that is dam funny .
We have seen two small hydro projects scuttled in the North King Country by eco greens .
The first was on the upper Waipa which involved piping ware from an intake on a plateau and piping it to a gorge and building a small power station in the gorge .
The project hit problems when work was commenced down the steep side of the gorge.
The project consent was for a six meter strip but contractors had to clear more and the environment court shut the project down .
I am sure that within 10 years the area would have been reinstated back to its former state .
The other was a dam on the Mokau south of PioPio and the resulting lake would have been a great asset for sailing and rowing but a concerted effort by greens stymied that project .
Graham