Investing in Green Technology
Green technology can add significant value to New Zealand and can be an investment to improve core outcomes in New Zealand.
New Zealand has been using Green Tech for decades, our electricity sector ranges between 85 -100% renewable energy. Its not something that we should be afraid of or hide from, but look towards for ways to improve NZ outcomes.
New Zealand doesn't have a source of energy issue like many nations. New Zealand's issues is energy integrity, ensuring enough capacity so that electricity and energy in general meets the needs of dry spells, but also enough every day capacity that energy prices decrease.
Waste to Energy
The big issue in power market is the private companies have no incentive to significantly improve or change our production levels, as profits maximize when there is a limited supply and increasing demand.
In Scandinavia waste to energy plants have been operating since late 1940's. The technology is now highly evolved, proven, and effective. Nations around the world have begun a range of initiatives that can implement to help tackle tangible issues in New Zealand. These technologies are now the size of major power plants running cities to units for single sites that are stored in a shipping container.
Rubbish Management:
Take materials targeted for landfill and dumps and recycle them through plants that transition it to Electricity.
These plants burn the material at 3000 - 4000 degrees centigrade, and work to European air standards.
These plants can easily manage the load of our biggest cities
Some countries generate 100M US in revenue from these plants importing rubbish from other countries, and through the recycling of the precious metals that is stored in some of the waste.
Green Waste:
New Zealand has a massive wildling Pines issue, we also in our public spaces create a lot of green waste.
There are plants that manage this type of waste in two ways
Turn to Methane gas which is used in place of other gas as an ignition source or used to power turbines for electricity generation.
Turn to Biodiesel, which then can be mixed with traditional diesel to make a highly to make an effective source of fuel for diesel based vehicles and equipment
Plastics:
The reality of the world in NZ is we think we recycle, but the reality is there is a limited number of plastics and material that we collect that we actually recycle in NZ, and we send the rest overseas if they accept it, but most collections are landfilled.
There is now technology that can actually reverse engineer plastics to Diesel, its not the most efficient right now but the technology is evolving quickly.
The processing of the Wildling Pines alone would create enough Biodiesel MIX to run our fuel needs for the next ten years, if we invest in this space, we could also create an export opportunity. But more importantly create our own fuel base that mitigates our reliance offshore sources, and manage fuel costs for everyone.
So what does this all mean and how it can it benefit us:
Investing in these technologies can:
Reduce electricity prices
Reduce the need for more landfills and dumps and manage our waste issues
Reduce our fuel costs
Make our energy requirements self sustaining and ourselves self sufficient
Now someone will tell you these technologies are not the most efficient .
True, wind turbines are more efficient in creating energy, but can they reduce our waste and fuel cost issues at the same time. No they can't
People like to look at problems in isolation but solutions can help and solve multiple issues at once, and therefore making them more valuable than the singular focused individuals would like to admit.
Solar Energy
For me Solar is a piece of the puzzle, but not the only driver of energy certainty in NZ.
The benefit I see with solar is that it can provide a means to mitigate long term electricity consumption growth and reduce cost of living.
Solar installation on all new and current government funded social and community housing. A five year plan to roll out Solar on all current social housing.
This would see a reduction on the main grid of 82,000 households, this accounts for an additional 4% reduction on capacity on top of the other energy.
Energy installation on all new commercial, residential and retail builds as part of the building code moving forward. (which in most cases will be solar as the cost effective option)
A standard Where as technology advances and enables the installation of energy reduction this will be included in all new builds... i.e. Makes sense North Island new builds include hot water heat pumps
On top of that direct funding, we should provide the ability to use tax credits as a form of depreciation (50%) for private households, to enable private individuals to fund their own installations of Solar on existing private property, and recoup a tax credit over a period of time, i.e. a tax credit of 10% of the value for five years. This will then make the ROI for home owners much more significant and entice faster uptake.
Investing in Green Tech and Support
Farmers can't be left as the sole source of Environmental focus and left to their own devices.
As per the economic page funding from revenue changes to be targeted towards programs, research, and technology to support farm based environmental adaption and changes.
Vehicles: The cities have to do their part, Remove petrol only (ICE) vehicles that are above an emission threshold to be imported into NZ (excludes collectable vehicles). That allows; electric, Hybrid and Diesel options free access for vehicle imports, and ICE vehicles that reach an emissions and consumption threshold. This would reduce our dependence on off shore petroleum and associated costs.
We can invest in these technologies to create generational gains, while improving our current issues, for me this is a No Brainer, especially considering we have to do something and are already planning a 1 billion dollar investment as a minimum already.
The question isn't will LNG help, the question is, is that the best investment for NZ moving forward.