This is ultimately a matter of price isn’t it. As long as prices are set in line with the full social cost of the product (which an ETS helps ensure) then the consumption of electricity is where we would want it to be.

If the government has some control over the supply, then it must surrender control over the price – or else we will have blackouts. Similarly, if the government wants to control the price in some respect – it must be willing to provide sufficient supply.

The government currently uses SOE’s to keep the price down, and then wants to assume that demand will magically ease itself – thereby justifying lower energy supply. However, this isn’t a realistic assumption – and could eventually lead to blackouts.

I’ve noticed that a bunch of numbers have started appearing saying that supply is going to head through the roof – however, I have heard from a number of people that these supply numbers are exaggerated in the same way that the demand numbers are under-cooked. This is a bad way to run policy – and makes me partially question the neutrality of sections of the public service (something I don’t want to do).

By the same logic we should stop consuming – as consumption costs money, which we could use to make more money 😉

There is some value to conservation – if we could price it, we would understand the trade-off. However, people on both sides of the political divide want to avoid the trade-off completely 😛

Absolutely. A great example is the recent threat by the owners to shift the aluminium smelter overseas if we can’t maintain a realiable and affordable supply of electricity. This smelter ‘provides NZ$3.65 billion worth of economic benefit to the New Zealand economy.’ The smelter was obliging with cutting back production when lake levels looked dangerous, but this comes with obvious economic consequences.

It’s a sad but unavoidable reality that green energy still isn’t cost-effective energy. If we are to continue to avoid nuclear energy then we pretty much have to rely on gas to meet our demands, or at least to have it as a backup for times of low rainfall.

Nice quote 🙂 It is a focus on the means ahead of the ends methinks.

The goal is to maximise the happiness of everyone in society – I think sometimes political groups forget that.

In a previous lifestyle I was the operations manager at a rural electricity lines company. It never ceased to amaze me how people underestimated the importance of a reliable electricity supply until it wasn’t. My concern with the Labour Party and the Green Party approach is that they are putting their ideological aversion to fossil fuels and hydro-electric generation ahead of a rational approach to security of electricity of supply and the contribution of electricity to economic growth.

I think there is a failure on the part of the greens (not necessarily just the Green Party) to recognise that economic well being is important for environmental wellbeing.