National’s Infrastructure Forum
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am by David FarrarThe Infrastructure Forum has just started. I’m only half taking it in, as was a pretty late night out with the Young Nationals celebrating the All Blacks massive victory.
Got absolutely soaked to the bone getting home – it was thundering down, and taxis were scarce with a 30 minute delay if you phoned for one.
Anyway back to infrastructure. First up was Maurice Williamson on transport and he summed it up himself with a one liner – National will build more roads – lots of them! He gave some staggering figures on the massive increase in costs that some roading projects have incurred due to consent delays. He stressed this wasn’t about even getiing enough roads for future volume, but just getting us enough for our current needs.
Then Gerry Brownlee on energy. Gerry said that if we found Maui field today, it would be worth around $50 billion. Said that concern over carbon emissions doesn’t change the fact that replacements for current fuel sources are not extensively available, so demand will stay high. NZ second only to Canada in our mineral endowment.
Third up was Nick Smith on RMA reform. Round up of how multiple business organisations, government advisory groups and surveys all rate this as the highest priority. Will be enacted within months not years of the election.
Questions were fairly as expected. A patsy on why broadband is a better infrastructure investment than trains. Some discussion on coal and carbon emissions and whether one can sequester the co2 from coal. Also focus on consenting for roads – the desirability of having one consent application for an entire motorway, rather than breaking it down into lots of small packages – each of which has its own process.
Related posts:
- National’s Infrastructure Plan
- Audrey rates National’s front-bench
- The National Infrastructure Plan
- May 2009 Cabinet Front Bench Blog Poll Results
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
That’s good that they are going to build more roads. They could save money at the same time by not putting anything into Failrail. They’ll only sell it in four years anyway.
Sounds like National is trying to give some sense of vision. Better than what Labour is offering which appears to be three more years of failure to add to the previous nine.
Time for a change.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 am
Good news. One of the big differences between NZ and Australia is that Australians are always building things. There is an expectation that the Australia of the future is going to be richer than the current one, and they’re going to need improved infrastructure to both get them there and to support the increased expectations for services.
By contrast, NZers seem to think that what was good enough in 1950 ought to be good enough now. Which explains a massive expenditure to buy ancient trains, a SH1 out of the capital that (in places) dates to 1940, and the idea that generating or transmitting new electricity is a bad thing.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:22 am
“NZ second only to Canada in our mineral endowment.”
Could you expand on this? How was this arrived at?
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
The RMA, which was designed with the best of intentions, has become a millstone around our neck. It is become a tool for those naysayers in our society to hamper required growth at every opportunity and massively increases the cost of the developments that actually get built.
One has to look at the plans for the Hilton Hotel on the outer T of Queens Wharf in Wellington, which took 14 years to get approval, only to have it overturned by the environment court.
It is heartening to see that reform of this monster would be a priority of an incoming National Government.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:28 am
davidp – in England there are roads in everyday use that were laid out by the Romans. What is wrong with a road that “dates to 1940″ exactly?
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Oh Yeah RRM? What have the romans ever done for us?
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
>davidp – in England there are roads in everyday use that were laid out by the Romans. What is wrong with a road that “dates to 1940″ exactly?
The route may have been laid out by Romans, but it has been upgraded since… Watling Street was dual carriageway where it ran through my town. And it’ll be paralleled by modern high speed roads… the dual carriagway A5 and the M1 in this case.
If the 1940 road is inadequate for the number of users, creates delays, is as dangerous as hell, has to have a 80km/hr speed limit placed on it in order to reduce the number of fatalities, and can isolate the capital if there is a road accident, a slip, or an earthquake, then it isn’t fit for purpose in 2008. Wellington is a modern city of 350,000 people and the capital of a developed country… yet its road connections to the rest of the country look like what you’d expect to find in some dodgy third world country.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:44 am
clark was just on agenda..
is one allowed to comment on her appearance..?
..or would this draw ‘off-topic-demerit-points..?
..is me even asking this question leaving myself open to off-topic-demerit-points..?
whew..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Tell us more phil..
good..
bad..
or what..?
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:58 am
“NZ second only to Canada in our mineral endowment.”
Yes, I would be interested to hear how Australia is doing far worse out of their mineral exports than we are of ours.
Also, well done the ABs! And yes, that was one hell of a storm to walk through last night. Good light show but.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Phil , pop over to No Minister.
I saw Clark on Agenda and noted she looked old and tired with Mike Moore Panda eyes, despite a nice hairdo.
Feel free to add your comments there.
But to infrastructure, it is high time we had decent roads.
Vote:Liarbour has made some headway but National can and needs to do far better.
Even the rickety Kopu Bridge near Thames hasn’t been replaced yet.
Why has the Waikato Expressway stopped north of Huntly.
Isn’t it meant to run to Cambridge?
Doesn’t booming Tauranga also need an expressway/motorway linking it to Auckland.
And if Dear Leader can tunnel the Western Riung route under her constituency, I am sure John Boy can extend the North Western motorway past Kumeu to give him an easy ride to Helensville!
And yes, Wellington does need TRansmission Gully as the recent storms showed.
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:09 am
she was good..
and presented a version of what will be a major plank of labours’ campaign..
namely..we are travelling into troubled waters..
..labour has got our deficits down so that we are in one of the best positions to see this through..
..and that this is not a time to wildly increase that deficit/weaken our position..
..by going out into such a volatile/troubled market..to borrow more..to fund tax cuts..
..especially when those cuts will be eaten up by the pressures put on our economy from the borrowings to fund them..
(whew..!..)
it’s a powerful argument..as one of your lot..john roughan acknowledged..
and as the global economic scene further deteriorates over the coming months..
..that argument against borrowing just becomes more and more powerful..
(ahem..!..of course this all echoes what i have been saying/predicting for some time..)
people will become more conservative about the future..and ironiy of (bitter) ironies..
..it is a labour-led coalition that will provide that ‘conservatism’..
..not our ‘conservative’ party..
..clark also provided another potent image/message..
the ‘we have been here before’/mulddonism of ‘think big’..
..which she ruefully noted..’we paid for for decades’..
key as muldoon..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Sequestering CO2 from coal requires 1.) Extracting the CO2 from the emissions. 2.) Compressing it to a transportable form 3.) finding somewhere to put it.
Getting CO2 from huntly to (say) taranaki would not be cheap….
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
Anybody who thought Klark was anything less than slippery on Agenda this morning is a fool, again and again she avoided questions and quite blatantly lied.
The “lets blame the last National govt” for all out ills is tired and worn out, FFS she even reverted to attacking Muldoon!
I loved the line from Comrade Epsiner “if you are happy to take credit for the good economic climate of the last eight years then you MUST take the blame for the current economic woe’s”..the bilious bitch was flustered for a while after that question.
Espiner will not be receiving an invite to this years Labour party Xmas function.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:23 am
Count me in as another one a bit sceptical of NZ being second only to Canada on our resource endowment. I suspect the Australians, South Africans and Russians will be feeling quite down in the mouth about how we’ve overtaken them …
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Seamonkey, ISeeRed and virtualmark: “NZ second only to Canada in our mineral endowment.”
Potentially the largest oil field in the Southern Hemisphere lies in our territorial waters. Rumours have been swirling round since the 80′s. It’s called the Great South Basin. All rumour, no fact yet. There are some interesting rumours from Lange’s era about the reasons for Zapata and Hunt’s involvement when it was first discovered.
Since WordPress sees fit to send more than 3 links to mederation, I can only give you a couple. Google the rest.
http://www.sharetrader.co.nz/archive/index.php?t-4971.html
http://www.crownminerals.govt.nz/cms/search?SearchableText=great+southern+basin
“Hon David Parker
Minister of Energy
Hon Harry Duynhoven
Associate Minister of Energy
11 July 2007
Media statement
Embargoed until 10.40am Wednesday 11 July 2007
Great South Basin oil and gas quest set to begin
The economies of Southland and Otago are to get a major boost from oil and gas exploration, as international investors prepare to spend more than a billion dollars exploring the vast Great South Basin over the next five years, according to Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven.
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“The intensity of work proposed for the Great South Basin is unprecedented in New Zealand’s history and will effectively double the amount of investment in oil and gas exploration here over the next few years,” Harry Duynhoven said.
The government announced today that oil and gas exploration permits for four areas of the Great South Basin (in the southern oceans off Southland) have been awarded to two major groups of investors:
- A consortium led by ExxonMobil New Zealand (Exploration) Limited (USA) which includes local company Todd Exploration Limited (New Zealand)
- A consortium led by OMV New Zealand Limited (Austria) which includes PTTEP Offshore Investment Company Ltd (Thailand), Mitsui Exploration and Production Australia Pty Ltd (Japan)
Harry Duynhoven said the interest of major international oil companies indicated the high potential of the basin.
“It is one of world’s hot spots for exploration. The data indicates the potential for commercially viable finds, which could have significant future benefits to New Zealand.”
Mr Duynhoven said oil companies were expected to spend $1.2 billion exploring the Great South Basin, and a share of that money would be spent in the southern region.
Energy Minister David Parker said the work assisted the government’s energy goals. “Assuming exploration success, the country stands to earn significant revenue from royalties and taxes flowing from this investment, and it will assist in ensuring security of energy supply.”
“Although the world is working to lessen its reliance on fossil fuels, we will be dependent on oil and gas for some time to come. It is in our economic interest that the oil we use comes from local sources if possible.
“As with other fossil fuels, it is important that New Zealand take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions that come from its use here, just as Japan does for the emissions that come from coal they import from New Zealand.”
For further information, please refer to http://www.crownminerals.govt.nz
ENDS
Also see the Q & A on scoop at scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0707/S00164.htm
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:26 am
philu: “clark was just on agenda..
is one allowed to comment on her appearance..?”
One troll commenting on another!!!! Classic!!!
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Gerry on Energy !!!
Dont make me laugh
Still waiting for him to resign after his fake scare over the electricity shortage.
Parker was right all along that there was concern but no need for alarm.
That this former woodwork teacher would have anything to do with energy policy is laughable
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hey GWW, if we hadn’t had the unusually large recent storms, we’d still be in the shit over electricity supply.
That’s a fact.
Does anyone know National’s position on the underground highway in Mt Albert? I assume they haven’t spelt that out yet. That’s a white elephant, if there ever was one.
Thing about the RMA is, there were plenty of predictions when Upton was designing it that what has happened, would happen. It started to happen, kept happening, year after year, administration after administration. Politicians should take responsibility for that, in their pensions.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Another link on the Great South Basin.
http://www.thebriefingroom.com/archives/2007/06/the_great_south.html
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
DPF said: First up was Maurice Williamson on transport and he summed it up himself with a one liner – National will build more roads – lots of them! He gave some staggering figures on the massive increase in costs that some roading projects have incurred due to consent delays. He stressed this wasn’t about even getiing enough roads for future volume, but just getting us enough for our current needs.
Then Gerry Brownlee on energy. Gerry said that if we found Maui field today, it would be worth around $50 billion. Said that concern over carbon emissions doesn’t change the fact that replacements for current fuel sources are not extensively available, so demand will stay high.
Now give me a minute to work this out, DPF. Maurice is going to build more roads – lots of them! But Gerry admits that replacements for current fuel sources are not extensively available, so demand [and therefore price] of fuelling the cars that will travel on Maurice’s roads will be high.
So won’t people want alternatives to travelling in their cars on Maurice’s roads? Seems not, according to National Party logic – just build more roads, even though people will be able to afford to travel less on them!
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Our massive mineral wealth is generally underwater and expensive to extract – but with the price of these commodities rising they are becoming more economic to mine/drill/whatever. Gerry Brownlee pointed out that our EEZ goes from the sub-antarctic to the sub-tropical, so there is a lot of ocean floor!
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
reid, thats what dams are for – catching water when it falls from the sky. Surprise surprise, a lot of water fell from the sky in winter! Golly!
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Toad
Do you really think that once oil runs out there are going to be no cars and trucks?, we want roads and we need roads.
Despite the Greens insistence that public transport is the way top go people will only use it when they have no other option, mind you that may well be your plan, you demand freedom for gang members to wear patches yet you do not seem to worried about telling us what light bulbs we can use or what food we can feed our kids, perhaps you will just tell us what days we are allowed to use the motorways and force the rest onto crowded smelly unreliable and crime ridden trains.
The Greens are without doubt the biggest bunch of hypocrites in Parliament.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
stephen, ever heard of average rainfall, as in, this year, lake levels were far far far far lower than average compared to most previous years.
Ever heard of luck?
What would you prefer a govt to do, decide policy by logic, or on the basis that something lucky MIGHT happen?
If this wasn’t election year, Liarbore would not have resisted the suggestion to put savings into place for as long as it did. It was pure self-interest, on their part. The thing is, they were gambling, not with their own political fortunes, but with OUR economy.
If you want to vote for wankers like that, you’re an idiot.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
A world bank report found that New Zealand’s natural wealth per capita was second only to Saudi Arabia.
The problem is that most of it is in DoC control and we are reluctant to use what is on private land.
The whole nation seems to have adopted the view that using natural resources (which are actually human inventions anyhow) is raping the planet and an offense against the Earth Mother.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Owen – please explain your assertion: “using natural resources (which are actually human inventions anyhow) is raping the planet and an offense against the Earth Mother”
I don’t have a problem with using natural resources, like solar energy, wind, waves etc, that can sustain human and otehr life on this planet until the time our sun’s hydrogen starts to run out (by which time we will have had to have fond anoher planet to live on if we as a species are to survive).
But don’t we risk an early extinction as a species if we are to use up all the finite natural resources we know how to use before we have developed the technology to replace them with those that have the greater sustainability required to sustain our existence before the imminent death of our star (the Sun) requires our species (and we would need to take other species we rely upon with us) to find another place in the galaxy to live?
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 8:03 pm
toad: are you saying that we should use only those resources that are renewable? So nobody should dig up and use any iron, and copper, nobody should use fertilizers? I’m pretty sure that it would be impossible to live our current lifestyle if we require no “unsustainable” use of any resource. Is there some sort of limit here – so if the known reserves of something are more than 100 years worth, we can use it? More than 500 years? Does that mean that uranium is now also not to be used – we know about enough of the stuff for some gazillion years worth, but it would eventually run out. If we need to have enough of anything to last until the sun wears out, then using even a few kg of coal a year is presumably not possible.
Is that really Green policy? I always suspected it was, but I’ve never seen anyone come out in public with it before.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
PaulL: No, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that when we use finite resources, we should do some analysis re how long they will last. And do some planning re how we replace them when they have run out.
The problem we have now with oil prices is that demand is exceeding supply. We’ve known this would happen for about 3 decades, but there has been no business or political will to either acknowledge it or plan for it. Apart from a few people like Jeanette Fitzsimons who been a voice in the wilderness on this over that time, most of us have just stumbled on, in the hope that other and cheaper energy sources will miraculously appear.
Hence, eg, the ridiculously underestimated and politically driven estimates for oil futures provided by the Treasury and Reserve Bank that are happening even now.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Um, PaulL – I missed the other bit of your post. Iron and copper are not a problem. They are infinitely recyclable, as they are elements that are indestructable other than through nuclear fission or fusion.
It is when you have compounds, as hydrocarbons are, that release energy when they are burned to CO2 and H2O, that you have a problem. The issue I am talking about here is energy resources. Unless the aliens come from another planet and steal all our silver, argon, or iodine or something, our elemental chemical resources remain intact and constant.
In short, the debate is about physics, not about chemisty – about energy, not matter.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
OK, so we can change resources from one form to another, but cannot use non-renewable resources. So, I can take Aluminium Oxide and turn it into Aluminium. And I can recycle that later if I put enough energy in.
Now consider our energy resources. Hydrocarbons are presumably your key concern. I note that you can make hydrocarbons whenever you wish – you just need enough energy input and the raw materials (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen). So really this is a discussion about whether we will one day find another source of energy that is more convenient, less polluting, and cheaper than hydrocarbons, and if we think that is true, then whether we will find that before we run out of hydrocarbons.*
So we are now trying to predict what technology might be in the future. And, to some extent, also what public attitudes will be. So, for example, if we ran out of oil tomorrow (literally ran out – no oil available to anyone at any price), and NZers were faced with dramatic lifestyle changes (i.e. subsistence farming), or using nuclear power, what do you think would be their preferred option? It is easy to say no to nuclear if you think you can keep burning oil or damming rivers. But if neither of those were physically possible – what would the attitude be then? My strong belief is that most of the renewables that people talk about will never be suitable to run our whole economy – wind, tidal, solar aren’t likely to be base load capable any time soon (unless someone develops some fantastic storage technique).
I’m pretty sure that nuclear would be able to easily run most of the world’s energy needs for many centuries based on proven reserves. The main issue is politics, not technology.
Where do you stand on nuclear? That would change the discussion about oil quite a bit.
* Running out of hydrocarbons is an interesting concept itself – we’ll probably never run out, we’ll just get to the point where extracting the ones we know about isn’t economically viable. There is always 50% or more of the oil left in a field when it is “exhausted” – but it is too expensive to get that last 50% out.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
PaulL said: …but it is too expensive to get that last 50% out.
You said it and I agree completely. That is what is it is all about – the cost of finding the most difficult hydrocarbons to find, and extracting them.
As for nuclear, there are places it is potentially economically viable. China, for example. I wish they were doing nuclear, rather than coal, because it is cleaner, despite the waste disposal difficulties. But they never will, because of the cost of the generation, mainly though the capital costs of the plant, is vastly greater than coal or any other thermal generation.
Nuclear is not viable in New Zealand at all, because we would have to have 2 nuclear power stations (because you need a backup for one during maintenance and outages, and the turbines of the backup need to be running if it is to go to capacity immediately), and with our small population and our isolation from the rest of the world, we could never find a way to use or export the excess electricity generated by 2 power stations.
Or does someone have an idea to build a couple of nickel smelters somewhere? Even so, the cost ofthe electricity from nuclear would likely make that prohibitive too.
Vote:August 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
PaulL / toad: a useful conversation above. i’ve learned stuff. thanks.
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Toad>The problem we have now with oil prices is that demand is exceeding supply.
What? Demand and supply are both elastic based on price. The market will automatically set a price where demand equals supply. That is just basic economics that I was taught at secondary school when I was 14 or 15. Did you wag that year?
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 12:23 am
toad: nuclear power plants are getting smaller (capacity wise). And exporting electricity isn’t so hard if we think about it – it is essentially what the Bluff smelter is doing. I wonder whether someone could work out how to export hydrogen – that would be a good use of all that power. And if we wanted to shift our vehicles to hydrogen instead of oil, that would consume pretty much all the excess capacity you talk about. So if we had one power station in Hamilton, another in Chch, use the cook strait cable to balance the two, and make hydrogen whenever the demand for power isn’t peaking. When one is off line you don’t make hydrogen for a while. It all depends how much of your economy you want to use the thing to run – but I think the “we need two, and we couldn’t use two” thing is a bit of a myth.
Also, thinking this through, typically a nuclear plant has multiple units within it – surely you maintain them one at a time?
If we go renewables (in the sense of solar, wind, wave, not in the sense of hydro) then don’t we get the same problem but more frequently – when the wind doesn’t blow, the sun doesn’t shine etc? So if we don’t like nuclear, we can’t rely on renewables, we won’t build new dams, what is left?
Looks to me like NZ has around 8 GW of generation capacity (http://www.windenergy.org.nz/FAQ/elecsupply.htm). This link (http://web.mit.edu/pebble-bed/background.pdf) suggests there are plants on the market in the 600 MW to 1.3 GW range. So even ignoring new technology that is making the individual reactors smaller, I think we could justify 2 x 600 MW plant in NZ.
I think that the future will take us to nuclear power if people are serious about reducing carbon emissions. At present so far as I can tell the NZ public want theoretically to reduce carbon emissions (all those scientists told us we should), but a) aren’t prepared to pay any more for it, b) aren’t prepared to compromise their lifestyles, and c) aren’t prepared to accept any of the options that would allow both a) and b) to remain true. In other words, we’ll either go nuclear or we will continue to emit carbon. There is absolutely no chance that our carbon emissions will significantly reduce without going nuclear.
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 8:15 am
davidp said: What? Demand and supply are both elastic based on price. The market will automatically set a price where demand equals supply. That is just basic economics that I was taught at secondary school when I was 14 or 15. Did you wag that year?
Maybe I didn’t spell it out clearly enough David, but that is exactly what I am saying. If there is less oil and it is more difficult to extract, then the price will go up and demand for it will be consequently reduced. Demand being reduced equates to people driving less.
Hence the stupidity of Maurice’s “more road – lots of them”, .
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am
>If there is less oil and it is more difficult to extract, then the price will go up and demand for it will be consequently reduced.
As the price goes up, then it will be replaced by something else. Which, history shows, will be better and cheaper. After which any oil left over will be almost worthless, just by the way. You assume that we’ll go back to living the lives of our Victorian ancestors. But that isn’t going to happen because people enjoy mobility, and it is essential to support a modern economy.
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I’m very surprised the word ‘elasticity’ didn’t come up there…
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am
reid, I don’t think it was lucky that rain fell into the dams (a lot of rain by all accounts – maybe this will cause the year’s average to be about normal, maybe not). Labour’s management wasn’t very good, no.
Vote:August 4th, 2008 at 11:30 am
PaulL and toad, I heard a guy from the Wind Energy association saying that wind was very suitable for NZ seeing as we have so much backup in the dams – when the wind isn’t blowing, use the dams. When it is, hold them back. The crucial thing there is that we can predict when it is going to be windy, just like any other weather. Not sure if it’s as easy to stuff up like rain/sun is, but by all accounts it’s at least more consistent than rain.
Vote: