The Standard » peak oil

Does NZ have $400 million+ to burn?

James Henderson — Sun, 06 May 2012 23:51:41 +0000

The Environmental Protection Agency, bastard child of Nick Smith chaired by National crony Kerry Prendergast, has given draft approval to Transmission Gully. This billion dollar project returns 60 cents of benefits for every dollar spent. Worse than a night on the pokies. And that's NZTA's estimate assuming traffic growth that isn't happening, and not accounting for $5 a litre petrol.

Brownlee’s head in the sand, looking for cheap oil

James Henderson — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:17:30 +0000

Rookie Green MP Julie Anne Genter, a transport planning expert before entering Parliament, gave Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee, whose qualification for the job is that he used to teach kids to make wooden toy cars, a sharp lesson in transport policy in the House yesterday. It's rare for a newbie to show up an old tusker like that. With petrol prices at record levels, I hope someone in the government's listening.

Farrar discovers peak oil, nearly

James Henderson — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:28:46 +0000

Barack Obama will be breathing a sigh of relief after David Farrar endorsed his call to end oil subsidies. It seems the 3rd oil price spike in 5 years is getting the attention of even the Right. Something, they've got an inkling, is wrong and rising petrol prices are here to stay. Pity that, on the cusp of revelation, Farrar opts for the security blanket of neoclassical economics.

Billions down the drain on roads to nowhere

James Henderson — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:13:35 +0000

Gerry Brownlee has weakly attempted to fob off the decline in benefit:cost ratio of highway projects under National. ‘Sure’ he says ‘we’ve been funding projects that barely break even while high BCR spending like early childhood education gets cut, but things will turn around’. Um, no. Look at the projects National has on the horizon, ...

A sustainable future

Ben Clark — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:10:05 +0000

The UN High Level Panel on Global Sustainability has delivered a report about creating a future that's sustainable economically, socially and environmentally. Our government and political parties should be looking at it and measuring themselves against it.

MoT reveals massive budget shortfall from peak oil

James Henderson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:33:01 +0000

Almost missed among all the blacked out paragraphs of the Transport Briefing to the Incoming Minister are 2 interesting graphs. While not explicitly mentioning peak oil, the graph of the National Land Transport Fund shows a massive shortfall in revenue in a 'high oil price, low growth' scenario. The other shows how low-quality National's highway spending is.

Oz & NZ govts suppress official peak oil warnings

The Standard — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:40:32 +0000

Dennis Tegg has a good piece on the release of a secret Australian government report that warns peak oil is upon us: The Daily Telegraph has revealed how the Australian government has attempted to suppress its own report on peak oil. The response from the New Zealand government had been equally secretive and obfuscating.

Adapting to peak oil

James Henderson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:45:19 +0000

As peak oil slowly grinds down our economy - meeting any hint of growth with sky-high petrol prices and making $2 a litre the 'new normal', we are actually, gradually,starting to react. Not at a governmental level, where action is most urgently needed, but in the decisions made by ordinary Kiwis every day.

Denis Tegg: Officials muzzled on peak oil

The Standard — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:41:46 +0000

Denis Tegg on National's head in the sand Energy Strategy. All the official international warnings have been dismissed and the government has forced official to remove any reference to peak oil. The minister flatly refused to answer questions about the impact of peak oil on her fossil-fuel centred plan at the strategy launch.

Govt hits peak denial

Zetetic — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:05:54 +0000

Should we be more angry or scared? Just read the first official government presentation on peak oil. The IEA says conventional oil peaked in 2006 but our government offers only crude denialism and, paradoxically, blithe assurances that they're ready. This is the kind of crap we used to see before we had 2 oil shocks in the past 4 years.

A real plan to save the world does exist

Guest post — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:17:33 +0000

A feasible plan to power 100 percent of the planet with complete renewables exists. This plan excludes Nuclear and Biofuels, which the Scientific American authors of this plan also considered to be ultimately unsustainable technologies as well. Instead this plan revolves around Wind, Water and Solar - WWS

Chart of the day: peak oil squeeze

Zetetic — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 00:05:03 +0000

Peak oil enters mainstream: Labour listening, Nats not

Guest post — Thu, 26 May 2011 21:00:43 +0000

The Greens and environmentalists have been talking about peak oil forever. Now, the IEA and IMF have joined them in warning that governments need to act immediately. Labour has pledged to cancel one of National's white elephant motorways but that must only be the beginning. Meanwhile, the Nats are planning more 'Roads of National Significance'.

Inflation credit and blame

r0b — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:50:43 +0000

Back in October last year the Nats, in a sea of bad news on the economy, latched on to the low inflation rate as something that they could claim "credit" for. No doubt they will now be just as ready to accept blame for the worst inflation rate in 20 years. Almost half of this figure is driven by the Nats' GST increase...

Oil spike takes off

Marty G — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 23:50:39 +0000

Get ready for another petrol increase this week. Last week, the Dubai crude benchmark, which most of New Zealand's imports are priced of, shot up over 4% in NZD terms. Unless that rise reverses right away, petrol will have to rise past $2.25 a litre. We're now pay $160m a week for oil imports - $2b a year more than a year ago.