7 August 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Greens’ energy policy futile attempt to solve non-existent problem

New Zealanders would face huge extra costs in a futile attempt to solve a non-existent problem if the Green Party’s energy policy ever gets a chance to be implemented. This is the view of energy consultant Bryan Leyland, chair of the economic panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, commenting on the energy policy released this week by Jeanette Fitzsimons, of the Green Party.

“The Green Party energy policy shows, once again, their abysmal ignorance of the New Zealand power system and their determination to burden the New Zealand economy and households with huge extra costs in a futile attempt to solve a problem that does not exist,” says Leyland. “If their policies were adopted, their summertime ban on thermal generation would lead to very high power prices if it didn't rain and there would be massive electricity shortages in the winter whenever the wind didn't blow. Their policies would increase household electricity costs by at least $1200 per year, further increase unemployment and decimate real incomes. As a result, our brightest and best would flee overseas.

“To achieve their objective of 90% renewables (which is impossible anyway because we need to rely on fossil fuels during dry years and when the wind isn't blowing) carbon taxes would have to be over $60 per tonne. This would drive up the cost of domestic electricity from about 20 cents to about 35 cents and drive many of our efficient and productive industries overseas. The electricity generators would reap windfall profits of $1.2 billion per year - adding nearly 50% to their income,” Leyland continued.

“There would be 10 times as many wind turbines littering our landscapes - and every time the wind dropped consumers would be hit by extremely high prices and, often, massive blackouts. Hundreds of miles of new transmission lines would be required - all paid for by the hapless consumer.

“The fundamental flaw in their whole policy is their dogged refusal to accept the obvious: global warming stopped in 2002, the world is cooling and recent research has shown, beyond all reasonable doubt, that man-made greenhouse gases have no significant effect on the climate. If they had studied the recent paper by Chris de Freitas and two Australians* that demonstrated that the Southern Oscillation Index (the El Niño effect) is the dominant driver of the world's climate and many other recent peer-reviewed papers that show that man-made greenhouse gases have no measurable effect on the climate, they would have saved themselves the time and effort of dreaming up a policy that, if implemented, could increase world emissions of greenhouse gases and, for certain, make absolutely no difference to the climate.

“In the Green party's dream, consumers would be forced to scrap perfectly good appliances and replace them with more expensive new ones. Those with young children and large families would be at a huge disadvantage because large cars would become as scarce as hens’ teeth and the cost of fuel would probably double.

“It is time that the Green Party woke up to the fact that the big climate risk to New Zealand and the world is that of a continuation of the cooling that started in 2002. Destroying our economy, increasing unemployment and reducing our standard of living in the name of man-made global warming will only exacerbate the shortages of food and fuel and other necessities of life that will be inevitable if the world continues to cool at its present rate.

“How much longer do we have to wait for the Green Party and their friends to wake up to the obvious: their emperor of global warming has no clothes?” concluded Leyland.

* http://www.nzclimatescience. net/index

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