While this was released by the NZ Climate Science Coalition it is obviously 
relevant to Resource Management and the Centre also recommends an amendment to 
the RMA to recognise that renewable energy does not necessarily deliver the 
claimed benefits.

I am not suggesting that the Ngawha plant should not have gone ahead, and am not 
suggesting there is no place for renewable energy in the right circumstances. I 
have installed solar water heating in the last several houses I have designed 
and built.

But we need to make our decisions based on correct information rather than on 
assumptions based on political  enthusiasms.

Rodney District should fight back.



Owen McShane


*The New Zealand*

*Climate Science Coalition*

Hon Secretary, Terry Dunleavy MBE, 14A Bayview Road, Hauraki, North Shore City 0622

Phone (09) 486 3859 - Mobile 0274 836688 - Email - 

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29 January 2008                            *FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
 
*NZ Legislators Confused about ‘Renewable Energy’*
* *
 “Government power policy decision-makers are confused about so-called 
‘renewable energy’,” said Owen McShane, chair of the policy panel of the New 
Zealand Climate Science Coalition today. He was commenting on an article in 
/National Business Review /about the stalling of a proposed gas-fired plant in 
Northland.
 
"This story reveals that figures supplied by the New Zealand Geothermal 
Association demonstrate that if the Government is serious about ‘greenhouse’ 
gases it should prefer combined-cycle gas plants such as the Genesis 400MW 
combined cycle gas plant proposed for Rodney District, to some geothermal 
plants,” said Mr McShane.
 
“The Minister for Climate Change Issues, David Parker, will not permit the gas 
powered plant to go ahead because of Government's energy strategy, designed to 
help us meet our Kyoto commitments. But the expanded 25MW geothermal plant at 
Ngawha produces about 600 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity 
produced, while the Genesis gas-powered plant would produce only about 400 grams 
of CO2 per kilowatt hour. Geothermal plants always release subterranean CO2 
which otherwise would stay underground. Some release very little. Ngawha happens 
to produce more than a modern combined-cycle gas powered generator. Being 
‘renewable’ is not enough.
 
“This means the fossil fuel driven Genesis plant would be more GHG efficient 
than the ‘renewable energy’ powered plant at Ngawha,” said Mr McShane..
 
“Governments around the world have fallen into the trap of assuming that using 
what they call renewable energy will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while 
fossil fuel plants will always increase them. But this is not necessarily so. 
The Government has committed us to using biofuels to replace a percentage of our 
petrol and diesel even though, in most cases, the biofuels will produce more 
greenhouse gas emissions than petrol or diesel when the whole cycle is taken 
into account.
 
“The Resource Management Act requires decision makers to favour renewable energy 
even though renewable energy may actually increase our Kyoto commitments in some 
cases.”
 
Mr McShane said that Government's need to understand the science and to ensure 
that decision-makers take into account changing technologies and the facts of 
each and every circumstance. Section 70 of the RMA needs to be amended to read:
"Decision makers shall recognise that 'renewable energy sources' may or may not 
emit more or less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels and other non-renewable 
energy sources, and that each application should be assessed on its overall merits."