Windflow slams Huntly CO2 consent application
8 July 2008
Windflow Technology director and chief executive, Geoff Henderson, has labelled the Genesis "Energy Efficiency Enhancement" project at Huntly power station a sham.
State-owned generator, Genesis,
is seeking a resource consent to increase Huntly's carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions by more than 50% to 4.6 megatonnes per year.
"Labelling such a project 'energy efficiency enhancement' is pure hypocrisy
and greenwash", said Mr Henderson. "In the context of the Resource Management
Act, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (both of which are
legally binding), such consent conditions should be relics of history
by now."
"The Board of Inquiry into the Taranaki Combined Cycle power station in
1994 recommended that the applicant should pay to avoid or remedy the
adverse effects due to CO2 emissions by ensuring 100% absorption of those
emissions. And the Minister for the Environment at the time, Simon Upton,
adopted this recommendation for increases above prior rates of emission
from the electricity sector."
"Now this latest consent application, for the country's largest thermal
power station, represents a huge leap backwards. Instead of 100% remediation
(for all emissions or at least the additional emissions), there is nothing.
Instead of honesty about the purpose of the station (to meet demand growth
by additional gas-fired power and CO2 emissions), there is greenwash about
'energy efficiency enhancement'. Genesis should be offering to pay the
cost of absorbing any additional emissions, not trying to get away scot-free
with a 50% increase!"
"Politicians from all parties have talked of the need for economic instruments,
i.e. the polluter-pays principle. But instead of implementation, there
has just been talk."
The Government is the 100% shareholder of Genesis, it cannot escape responsibility
in this matter:
1. it is still party to the Maui take-or-pay contracts which seem to be
fuelling a mad rush of power-station construction in their dying years
2. it has failed to "call in" the Huntly consent application so as to
revisit the recommendation of the only other Ministerial Call-in, ie 100%
polluter-pays under the RMA.
3. it has failed to issue a National Policy Statement on CO2 emissions
when this is clearly needed
4. it has failed to implement anything to send the correct price signals
about CO2 emissions.
"Instead of 'think globally, act locally', successive NZ governments seem
to 'think and talk globally, act like an ostrich' on the issue of climate
change," said Mr Henderson. "Meanwhile other countries are leaving us
behind in the field of renewable energy. Denmark, which has already ratified
the Kyoto Protocol, has become the giant of the international wind industry
(worth $10 billion annually). But successive New Zealand governments seem
to listen only to business-as-usual interests, who refuse to meet the
challenge of renewable energy in the 21st century. We are the poorer for
it!"
"Increasing dependency on gas-fired power is crazy in the context of climate
change policy, but that is exactly what New Zealand is doing. New Zealand's
"clean, green image" seems to be little more than image - where is the
substance to back it up? Where is the action to match the government's
rhetoric on the Kyoto Protocol?"
Mr Henderson wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Marian Hobbs,
on May 24th, seeking a ministerial call-in or a National Policy Statement
for Huntly and two other similar projects. That letter has been acknowledged
but not replied to.
The Huntly "Energy Efficiency Enhancement" Project resource consent hearings
will be held this Tuesday, July 10th.