Ending our Oil Fix

Eliminating New Zealand's dependence on foreign oil is not airy fairy, tree hugging nonsense. It is cold hard calculation about our future security and prosperity...

In my recent post China's Unquenchable Thirst for Oil I argued that conflict between China and the US over the world's dwindling oil reserves is inevitable. Heavily dependent on foreign oil, NZ stands to lose badly. We must eliminate our dangerous oil addiction and our vulnerability to external forces - by drastically cutting oil consumption, boosting renewable energy, conserving energy and using it efficiently.   

Here are some things that government has to do:

• get people out of cars, by boosting public transport and walking/cycling infrastructure, and bringing in congestion charging;
• reinvigorate our railways, thus slashing the tonnage of goods hauled long distance by trucks;
• complete rail electrification, allowing goods trains to be hauled by electric locomotives;
• conserve energy, by adopting new energy efficiency technologies and conservation measures;
• provide financial incentives to encourage households, farms, businesses and hospitals to generate their own power, e.g., through solar hot water heating, fuel cells.

Sorting out our energy supply will play a major part in ensuring NZ's long-term independence, security and prosperity. It will also have other major benefits, such as cutting the cost of energy to consumers, meeting NZ's Kyoto commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improving urban air quality, and boosting community resilience in time of disasters and war.   

Reform on this scale appears daunting. But the Australian government is showing the way. Responding to Australia's water crisis, Prime Minister John Howard yesterday announced a water management strategy (worth AUS $10 billion) that is full of hard-hitting measures. These include federal control of the Murray Darling river basin, addressing the over-allocation of water entitlements, and modernising irrigation infrastructure to reduce water wastage.

For New Zealand, one lesson is that bold and farsighted reform can be achieved, even in the face of opposition from vested interests and knockers. Another is that we should not wait for the crisis to hit, but must act now to avoid it. 

Comments

[dave]

My last posts to China thread neatly coincide with yours here.

Decentralising power-creation, and energy-saving, give autonomy back to the people, and save money on centralised infrastructure.

They give power back to the people, in all respects.

These are political decisions, mostly to be implemented by central and local government. The less the "market" and big companies have to do with them , the better.

Living surrounded by hills, with unreliable knees, my aim is an electrically assisted bike for a good proportion of my mileage. No point in hauling around 1400kgs of empty ute as I still do, so just waiting for the products available here to be improved...

Ideally a new extreme surge in oil prices would concentrate minds easily and make change acceptable, but without a new ME crisis--- war on Iran -- looks like oil and other prices easing off for now.

With a meltdown in the financial markets , see Gabriel Kolko- Counterpunch 2006 on derivatives, we'll maybe even go so far as a Recession .

[uk_kiwi]

What about the incredible expense of a centrally-planned solution. 'Think-big' was an expensive attempt (gas to gasoline, anyone?) and what you are proposing is more of the same. While it makes good sense for government to improve or at least maintain rail services, and mandate better efficiency standards for housing, it has to be in the context of not draining money out of productive areas of the economy.

For example, you would require businesses to install fuel cells (which must be fuelled by liquid hydrogen) would cost a fortune and be totally unneccessary. Solar heating is not always practical or cost-effective, especially retrofits.

What also needs emphasizing is that people really LIKE the freedom inherent in cars, and desire more of them and bigger. The only thing that will get them out is cost. As such, maybe you underestimate the long term effectiveness of the market mechanism- if the cost of oil rises, people will drive less, there will be much more demand for alternative fuels and public transport, and it will happen. It is much harder to visualise a dynamic self organising market response, but history repeatedly bears this out.

No sense bankrupting the country for an oil shortage scenario that most expert forecasting organisations believe to be AT LEAST 20-30 years off.

[Peter]

Dave - related to your comment about a surge in oil prices, what's interesting in regard to climate change is that a lot of people around the world seem to have suddenly woken up to the danger recently. Canada's Globe and Mail has an interesting article on this, describing it as a tipping point, here...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070127.wclimatemain0127/BNStory/ClimateChange/home

The question is, what does it take for people to start changing actions, like getting out of their cars, and walking or catching the bus? It's easy to say in an opinion poll that you're prepared to make lifestyle changes to fight climate change, but whether that translates into action (unless there is some sort of crisis) is another matter.

Peter

[Peter]

uk_kiwi - thanks for your comment.

I don't underestimate the long-term effectiveness of the market, particularly in a business as usual situation. What markets are not good at is triggering timely change in response to crises, actual or latent.

If we simply faced an oil peak in 20 to 30 years time, then leaving the market unfettered would perhaps be the right approach. But we face several large and interconnected threats - peak oil, climate change, and the threat of disruption to oil supplies caused by great power confrontation, war, and instability in oil producing regions - all of which pose real dangers if we continue down the oil dependency path and rely on the market to see us through.

To look at this another way, if we were threatened with war, we would not be arguing that the market was the best way to respond. The government would take charge and no one would argue, as happened in WWII. One of the great WWII success stories was the way in which (in the US and UK) government, business and industry cooperated to manage the war effort.

I agree that there would be expense involved, and it makes no sense for investment to be made in wasteful technologies. To my way of thinking, a scheme such as the government providing NZ households with incentives to install solar hot water heating is a good investment, because it will save a lot of electricity and negate the need for more hydro dams, which carry a range of obvious and hidden costs.

Peter

[dave]

Exactly Peter .

Europe is not leaving it up to the free market to get people to save energy.
New regs on insulation, and the 40 percent of glass in south-facing walls,are a start leading up to further regs close to the german "Passivhaus" in 2050. My guess is that that will be speeded up .

Subsidies for installing solar water-heating increased at the end of last year from 40 to 50% .

Your Canadian article expresses very well that the people can be ahead of the government in their appreciation of future trends.

Most of the pollies I know are just so busy in committees etc, that they have no time for studying and 'thinking' --- therefore others who have, or make, the time to think further have a valuable role to play.

With falling water-tables here, that is going to be the next area where Europe and national gubments start pulling their fingers out .