That's the only way to describe the regime's announcement yesterday that it plans to go all-in on climate destruction and build an LNG import terminal for "energy security". How will it pay for this new source of emissions? By taxing our (overwhelmingly clean and renewable) electricity supply! So kiwis who use clean and green electricity will be paying to subsidise dirty gas imports. Madness!
The "justification" for this is (of course) "security of supply" and "eliminating price spikes". But the government didn't even consider spending the full $2.7 billion cost of the terminal on renewable electricity generation (endless cheap power apparently being "woke" or something), let alone on a GIDI-style scheme to get high-value industrial users off gas entirely (which would be cheap: $200 million to wipe out 10 - 20 PJ of demand). As for "price spikes", they're an issue only for major industrial users to stupid and shortsighted to hedge. But then, that's the underlying problem, isn't it? Major industrial users - of both gas and electricity - being stupid and shortsighted. And so we all pay to subsidise their poor business practices.
(And its a hell of a subsidy - taxing electricity to pay for gas halves the price of imported LNG, making it only twice as expensive as the current wholesale price. What we're effectively looking at here is a huge wealth transfer, from ordinary kiwis to a handful of mostly foreign-owned, highly-polluting companies. But I guess they pay bribes to Ministers and we merely have votes...)
We're also paying to pretend that gas has a future, to keep people hooked. But with solar and batteries looking to rapidly decarbonise the electricity system, and higher prices driving users off gas, that's pushing shit uphill. This is an industry with no future. And the sooner we accept that and plan for its orderly demise, the better off we'll all be.
But perhaps the biggest condemnation of the plan is from the gas industry itself. After all, if LNG was such a shit-hot idea, you'd expect them to be paying for it, right? So the fact that they refuse to risk any of their own money, and are instead demanding that we all pony up to build their dream, tells us that they don't really believe in it. They're just another loss-making industry sticking their hand out. But if they won't pay for it, there's no reason why we should. If the present regime signs a contract for this bullshit plan, the next government should simply repudiate it, just as the regime did for the IREX ferries. And we'll all be better off when they do.
