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"You can call it a forced investment. You can call it a levy. You can call it a tax. It is a guaranteed increase in New Zealand's power bills with no guaranteed return on that investment. And I think that's a bit of a howler." Mike Casey speaks with Newstalk ZB's Kerre Woodham about the proposed LNG terminal and why New Zealand would be better off with a portfolio approach, including more renewables, more solar, better use of existing domestic gas reserves and coal or diesel peakers if required.
The Government’s aiming to sign a procurement contract for a Taranaki LNG site by mid-year, and hoping to have it running by late next year or early 2028.
An electricity levy of two to four dollars per megawatt-hour will fund the build, which is expected to save each household around $50 a year when up and running.
Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey told Kerre Woodham that while he likes to think of himself as a renewable energy advocate, he’s also a pragmatic person.
He says that the dry year problem has to be solved, but we should use the fuel we already have and import, instead of importing a new, incredibly expensive fuel, at a capital cost that would lock us into using it for a very long time.
Could reframing energy independence as a national security issue, rather than a climate one, be our best chance to go electric? The Spinoff collects a range of views from various commentators like Liam Dann, Pattrick Smellie and Joel McManus and shows that it has clearly got the attention of the media and should be getting the attention of our politicians.
Read moreDownload"There is quite a lot of talk about EV price depreciation and resale value, but we are not really talking about petrol car price depreciation. In the next five years or so, we may start to see a big game of petrol car hot potato, first between New Zealanders, and then between other countries." That was Mike Casey writing in Newsroom in January last year but, after the current crisis, it might happen more quickly than expected.
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