Marsden B power appeal

The granting of the Marsden B resource consent was never the final story. The consent came with a record 160 conditions attached, and as I noted here at the time, an appeal was promised by all the usual anti-industry suspects, including Greenpeace and the Green Party. The promised appeal was announced by Greenpeace.

It argues that firing up the station is a move back to out dated, polluting energy sources. Greenpeace says it is a terrible blow for the environment, for the local community and for efforts to tackle the world's greatest threat - climate change.

Given that the last appeal for the last large power generator -- Genesis Energy's Whanganui River hydro project -- was effectively killed on appeal, there's no reason to hope that this apeal will be any better for the country's generating capacity, and for efforts to tackle one of New Zealand's greatest economic threats -- its inability to build new projects to keep industry powered up.

At the time of the Whanganui decision I quoted Alan Jenkins from the Electricity Networks Association, who warned that the principal objective of having enough power to meet demand is steadily being eroded. "It's very hard to invest in coal [because of Kyoto], nuclear's a sort of four letter word...hydro is suddenly becoming too hard...what's left?...we can't do everything on windpower," says Jenkins. If there's no power, there's no industry. And industry is our real lifeblood. Jenkins's warning is as relevant now as it was then.

Greenpeace's "campaign against coal has sent reverberations throughout the energy industry," boasts the Greenpeace website, as if that's a good thing. Think about Greenpeace next time there's a blackout.