New Zealand Environment Court Says No to Huge Wind Farm

Karl, Jim, RR, nik: i appreciate your criticisms. i didn’t personally feel this was a good or a bad decision initially. i could see that it was a huge let-down to a large number of renewable energy proponents. i also put in there why the court ruled against Meridian — that they had not examined alternative sites enough. this seems to be an important factor in the decision and was clearly a major mistake of the energy company. apparently, clearly, and as I reported, this was not considered an appropriate place for a wind farm.

i would have reported in a biased manner if i said that was an incorrect decision or if i hid why the court ruled against the wind farm project. i reported both sides here, from what i can tell.

the decision was made by the Environment Court, i don’t imagine they take environmental issues with just a grain of salt — no effort to hide that, of course, and make it seem like it was made by environmentally uncaring people. my impression is that these are environmental guardians (and i think that others reading this article presume the same)

i agree with the comments about home-scale renewable energy, but that wasn’t the topic in this blog post. perhaps, i could have led into that more, but it is hard to compare when you’re talking about 1 million homes at this point, since even with amazing incentives for home technologies very few people are taking advantage of them and taking action themselves to use more renewable energy.

the mayor of Central Otaga and leading wind energy activists make clear that this may set a precedent for the future of wind power, or renewable power even. reporting that that may be the case is not biased. that is a clear and important potential result of this case.

more info could have been put in there regarding the potential of other projects, *perhaps*. however, given that this project wasn’t just an idea, but a $10 million investment, me tossing ideas in on “the best place for a $2 billion project” is hardly fair as well. would it be fair for me to say where the best place is for a large, renewable energy project??

so, i see your concern, but:

1) i had no personal feeling of bias in whether or not this was a correct decision. it is really hard to say, since it is a weighing of many different environmental concerns and not an easy topic to weigh, clearly

2) this was a let down to wind and many renewable energy proponents (not all, but many for sure) — this is something to report. this could end up being a landmark decision on the topic, whether the decision is right or wrong. if you are not a proponent of large find farms, you may be happy about it. if you are a big proponent of large-scale wind farms, this is probably a disappointment.

3) why the court rejected the proposal, from what i found on the topic, is in there — something to report

4) whether or not offshore wind, wave energy, or solar is a better technology requires dozens more posts. i am not setting up this post to knock onshore wind turbines as a horrible option for renewable energy. if i did that, i would clearly be biased against them.

5) i reported a case, a story, what happened in Central Otago and what the real and potential effects are. i did not feel bias about the decision, just tried to report the two sides of the coin on this issue. sorry if you did not feel it represented your side or if you did not want the other side presented at all

if you have additional information on the project, please feel free to add it!!

but don’t take this as an attack on the people who opposed the wind farm, the decision made by the Environment Court, or yourself.

Overpopulation is the number one culprit in the world’s energy shortage. Also goes for food, space, water, whatever. 13 y/o girls have the right to be mothers and be supported by the collective. They all want electricity, cars, burgers, suburban homes, even section 8 will do. The number one thing New Zealand could help the world with is to perfect the benign auto-immune contraceptive contagion that could save us from ourselves. I thought it was working for Koala bears. But woe would be the rich, and the parasitic, some centuries in the future, without their obedient masses of wage slaves.

Firstly, Jim Beau is very correct about the writers comments. They are very bias. They have written an article in which I can only assume they know absolutely nothing about.

The whole ‘wind farm’ issue is very complex, but the power companies try and sum it up with a couple of ‘greenwash’ adverts and some nice sponsorship. They fail to mention the huge profits they make off carbon credit trading, where no carbon is actually saved anyway, the fact the wind farms need almost constant maintenance and currently we are not suffering from a power shortage.

This country is drastically under uses solar power potential and even good building principals that reduce the need for new power generation. Creating more power from these ‘power factories’ is mealy a plaster over the wound, we need to fix the problem and start producing some energy from our own homes. Alternately sea floor ‘tidalcurrent’ power generation has huge potential and is currently in the process of being tested in Cook Straight.

Get with the times, wind generation is old technology. NZ should be leading the way with the new technology at hand, its what we do best.

Keep NZ Green, not green wash 

Zachary, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This is cringeworthy stupidity. You obviously know nothing about the local transmission issues, other generation in the area, New Zealand’s market-dispatch rules, other sites, or the character of the land that was the be destroyed by a whopping industrial site. Project Hayes would have been an act of unmitigated environmental vandalism. There is no question at all that this was an excellent and brave decision by an outstanding Judge.

The NIMBY comment shows the writer has a bias. I opposed this and I live outside the region. Agree with Karl – neither the writer of this article nor the applicant (nor indeed the nation) have adequately considered alternative sites. There seems to be a real information gap here. The only attempt that I can find to survey the wind resources available in this country is a report by Connell Wagner

(http://www.electricitycommission.govt.nz/pdfs/opdev/transmis/renewables/TTER-App4.pdf)

The NIMBY comment shows the writer has a bias. I opposed this and I live outside the region. Agree with Karl – neither the writer of this article nor the applicant (nor indeed the nation) have adequately considered alternative sites. There seems to be a real information gap here. The only attempt that I can find to survey the wind resources available in this country is a report by Connell Wagner

(http://www.electricitycommission.govt.nz/pdfs/opdev/transmis/renewables/TTER-App4.pdf)

I’m very sorry to read about this and disappointed in New Zealanders, I thought they were more attuned to the Earth and conscious of the dangers of pollution.

Perhaps changes in attitudes will be reported, I hope so …

Mary

What about offshore wind? That has a greater potential than inland wind anyway. Seems to me that putting this in a national park would be an eyesore creating new maintenance roads and development. It would have been nice if the article explained what alternative sites might have existed rather than blaming the NIMBY people for this project fail.

What about offshore wind? That has a greater potential than inland wind anyway. Seems to me that putting this in a national park would be an eyesore creating new maintenance roads and development. It would have been nice if the article explained what alternative sites might have existed rather than blaming the NIMBY people for this project fail.