5. Purpose
The purpose of this Act is to promote economic growth and development by enabling people, families and groups with shared or common interests to manage the use, development and protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate, so as:
(a) To provide for their own social, economic and cultural wellbeing, and
(b) To provide for their retirement, and
(c) To provide for their own health and safety, and
(d)) To initiate, respond to, and adapt to change, and
(e) To promote personal mobility, and
(f) To promote their access to energy.
while –
(a) Sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources (excluding minerals and petroleum) to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of current and future generations; and
(b) Safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, and soil and ecosystems; and
(c) Avoiding, remedying or mitigating any adverse effects on the environment which might arise as a result of any proposed use or development of natural and physical resources.
[Exp Note: Most should need no explanation but the addition to (c) is to prevent councils simply requiring these actions when writing district plans rather than when considering applications and without compensation. This is an attempt to restore some balance and to emphasise the enabling intention of the Act. Question; Should we include “by enabling and assisting people and communities etc…”? When I was in ACC under the T and CPA we used to actively assist people to prepare their applications. Now applicants are told that staff cannot assist because they have to report at arm’s length etc.]
The differences to the present purpose are subtle but significant.

You misunderstood. My point was that there would be no need to change the RMA to lessen the ability of people to object to and therefore delay windmill projects in their neighbourhoods if the people who like windmills volunteered to have them in their own neighbourhoods. If no one objects to them, they’ll sail through the approval process.

Although I agree with this. Any movement that so completely misunderstands incentives and how markets work is going to do damage.

There is too much messing around here. We need to build coal fire power stations. For NZ at the moment it is the best choice as we have heaps of coal. Nuclear is another option, which is fine if people accept it. Global Warming is a myth anyway, and even if they do find some relationship with CO2, New Zealand is a tiny player compared to China which opens a new coal power station every week.

As for conserving energy, we need a reality check here. The best way to do this would be to introduce spot pricing to consumers as mentioned about. When the power gets expensive, a little alarm bell rings and you run around your house turning everything off. Your growing power bill is constantly displayed next to your phone. In principle this is a good idea, but consumers will be wary.

They should be too. Because NZ doesn’t have enough generation. Once we have another 500MW of generation, or so, and power prices fall back to more reasonable levels, then we can have a discussion about peak billing, etc. For now, consumers won’t wear it.

You are deluded. COntact closed down an old, clapped out and inefficient plant and built a larger new station next door in the 90s and have plans for additional units. 30 year old turbines have no value. They are too hard to move and reassemble. It;s cheaper to buy a new one.

aardvark

Re wind it’s not just the windy days we have issues with – the very cold peak demand days are often still. And of course don’t forget all the back up gen required to cover when wind isn’t generating at capacity (60 to 80% of the time)

Note the RMA also helped stop plans for a large coal fired station near Whangarei so the RMA is not biased against thermal generation. Most new generation has been thermal because closed power stations have been able to be reopened whcih is always going to be much easier than starting afresh. I’m guessing much of the new generation comes from Huntly which is very large.

I have driven that route. The Mojave and Sonoran deserts are incredible places. They look much better in their natural state than covered in industrial structures. I think your romanticising of “green” power is biasing your perception… would you be talking about, say, an oil refinery built in otherwise pristine desert in “poetic” terms?

All power generation is going to have an environmental cost on its immediate area. But at least a nuclear or other thermal station only covers a few hectares, whereas the equivalent wind farm will cover the area of a very large city or of a medium sized national park.

I’m becoming convinced that the biggest threat to the environment are Greens. Biofuels are likely to drive tigers to extinction and clear half the Amazon, while managing to starve millions of Africans. And now they want to cover wilderness areas with thousands of massive power generators, along with their maintenance and access roads and their huge concrete bases. And all for tiny amounts of power. It’s a tragedy.

Yes the makers claim they’ll withstand hurricane force winds — but everything has its limit.

What happens if we have a major civil emergency and it takes out a huge percentage of our power generation, just when we need it most?

Me… I’m all for tidal energy. Totally reliable every day – day in, day out — and since the generators are sunk well below the waves, storms aren’t an issue. Hydro can just fill in the patch between the tides when the generators stop turning.

But as alluded to here, the talk on the radio today was about forced savings. WTF. With all of this talk about tax cuts etc, I’m sorry but with energy saver light bulbs in your house and other insulation and heating adaptations, not only will you be able to save more money than tax cuts will give you, you’ll negate the need for forced savings.

Why is it also, that households are asked to turn off lights in the rooms they aren’t in (sensible) yet a drive through town will see all manner of empty buildings, car lots and offices all illuminated from the outside with massive flood lighting. Why do shops need to be heated to resemble the interior of the desert, why are there so many bloody automatic doors. Why are wasteful companies not as worried about saving energy and their bottom line as efficiencies in productivity?

It’s all about the dollar people. If you need to heat your house in a way that costs, fine, but there are ways that kiwis can make bigger savings that miniscule tax cuts could produce. The bottom dollar people. Red Herrings about RMAs and other development hurdles are fine ways to say I’m not willing to look outside the blinkers for another option.

DavidP. Have you ever driven the road between LA and Palm Springs. Those are not rusty trendy 2008 fad generators, and to tell the truth the allure of free renewable energy like that is somewhat poetic. Your ideas are all together just too defeatist. Are you wanting something handed on a plate. Unlike a Dam, if (and a massive if) one was to take down a wind farm, that is quite possible, the rather dystopian picture you paint is just all together not true and of course typically reactionary. The hills out the back of San Bernadino (wonderfully 70s song) are anything but what you describe.

We should be engaging wind, solar, tidal, wave as well as new Hydro etc

Or if the road to get to that hill runs through your neighbourhood and the windmill builders need to widen it to transport huge quantities of gravel and cement past your place.

Or if you can see that hill, and know that you’ll be looking at the rusty remains of hundreds of windmills long after they’ve stopped generating power because the gear boxes failed and weren’t replaced because windmills were a 2008 fad. And no one is going to remove the things because they’re enormous and the concrete bases are the size of a bus.

Or maybe you’re not poor, but like to enjoy the wild areas of NZ without seeing structures taller than the BNZ tower with the equivalent of spinning 747s attached to them. We should be trying to protect the environment, not “tag” it with ugly development in return for negligible amounts of electricity.

So what? unless you have insight about the costs and revenues that equipment was earning, I’d have thought it perfectly reasonable to think plant sitting idle for 99% of the time may in fact not be paying its way. New Zealand is poorer if the businesses in it are forced to tie up capital in stock that sits idle and doesn’t justify itself.

So “NIMBY” is really just a term for poor people not wanting to have the value of their properties devalued?

If the ‘poor people’ you refer to are consistently located on windswept hills in the middle of nowhere then yes.

Otherwise, no.

Personally I woud have reached for the torch that should have been in the emergency kit , ( yip i have one in my bag) grabbed the troops and done a bit of team building. no emails,some korero, a group grope for those who needed it and a sessh on how we shoud react when things really go pear shaped.

That being said, the beehive basement is a dog and I speak from experience.
No government has spent enought money on resourcing it the way it should be.We need a national comms central but my bet is that when we are faced with a real hairy arsed crisis that things wont be managed from the buzzy bee bunker for long.

Yesterdays wee power cut was but a reminder of what life could be like we when are faced with a full blown environmental verison of a cluster fuck but it showed me that we aint ready at all – no way – It will be bad and when we the light go out big time, those in wellington will still think the most important thing will be to blame the government….. Sad, very sad.

I read that Dear Leader had a hissy fit because the power didn’t come back on straight away the other day. Poor we dear, must be fucking dark in the bunker when the power fails.