National isn't serious on climate change

Back in the days of FPP, politics was simple: the government governed, and the opposition opposed. If the government did anything, it was Bad. If anything happened, it was a) Bad; and b) The Government's Fault. The approach is clearly on display in Gerry Brownlee's response to the canning of Marsden B: it's a bad thing, the result of "policy uncertainty" and therefore a failure by the government. The facts that Marsden B would have increased greenhouse gas emissions by 2 million tons of CO₂ a year, that National Party climate change spokesperson Nick Smith has been complaining about this all year, and that National now claims to support action on climate change don't get a look in. Something happened, therefore it is a) Bad; and b) The Government's Fault.

It's even more laughable that Brownlee tries to have it both ways, blaming the government for Marsden B's demise, then in the same breath complaining that

“Environmentally sustainable energy projects can’t be expected to flourish while the Government’s climate change policy is in such a mess.

Apart from the fact that a dirty stinking inefficient coal plant is the very antithesis of environmental sustainability, I'd have said that this showed that things were moving in the right direction, and that generators were being pushed towards sustainable options. Which is the result National claims to want - except, clearly, when the government wants it, in which case it must be Bad.

There is one thing that is clear from this: National is not serious on climate change. It has no coherent policy, not even enough to welcome a positive move towards keeping emissions low. Instead, it simply sees it as another front on which to engage in the same mindless oppositional politics it has in the past.

On an issue as important as this, I think the public have a right to expect something better than that.

The end of Marsden B - and of coal

It's official: Mighty River Power is discontinuing its plans to seek resource consent for Marsden B following concerns about economic viability. It's an excellent outcome - the carbon dioxide emissions from Marsden B would have cost us $60 million a year, slightly more than Mighty River's 2006 dividend to the government. The only reason the proposal looked profitable was because the true cost of carbon (let alone the cost of lung cancer, emphysema, mercury and environmental degradation) was not included in the equation.

Now Mighty River will focus on renewables, particularly geothermal. So it looks as if another electricity company is going to go green.

Meanwhile, this may be the end of coal in New Zealand as well. If its not profitable in a written-down 70's-era station with practically no up-front costs, it certainly isn't profitable in a newly constructed (and therefore more expensive) station. We have a dirty legacy remaining in Huntly (which could burn gas, but instead prefers imported coal - again because the true costs are not included in the balance sheet), but after this its a fair bet that coal won't be getting a look in. And that's something we should all celebrate. Burning coal for electricity is like rolling in your own excrement - dirty and stinky, with added health problems to boot. "Clean and green" countries just shouldn't do it.

Marsden B doomed?

It looks as if the government's clear signal that it is planning to internalise the cost of carbon will spell doom for Marsden B - the power station is just uneconomic if the true environmental costs of its operation are taken into account. Which really makes you think about how things might have been if the government had been able to internalise that cost back in 1997, when it was first proposed. Our electricity sector would be looking quite different, with more hydro and wind, and significantly less gas than at present. And of course there would have been no question that Huntly would switch back to using coal. Unfortunately, ten years of dithering have allowed fossil fuel emissions to grow unchecked, and it will now be that much harder to force them back down than if we'd done it right the first time.

Marsden B "unlikely to happen"?

Speaking of preventing the construction of more fossil-fuelled power stations, according to Energy Minister David Parker speaking on HeatwaveFM yesterday, Mighty River Power's coal-fired Marsden B power station is "unlikely to happen". Here's a transcript from the full interview [audio]:

"My belief is that's unlikely to happen. You have seen in the last six months announcements from both the National Party and us that we favour a cap and trade system for electricity sector emissions. Now, that's effectively saying that we think there should be full cost of carbon in the electricity system at least in the margin in respect of new generating capacity. And with that sort of additional cost faced by a new coal-fired power station it would be unlikely to stack up economically compared with renewables."

This is how cap and trade systems and carbon taes are supposed to work: by sending an economic signal that effectively prices dirty generation out of the market. Here's hoping that Mighty River gets the mesage...