Barbara, Ben and Simeon

Yesterday Simeon Brown made a ministerial statement in parliament with a couple of key messages in mind.

One was that low gas production was dire and the reason for this was the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration permits therefore - National was reversing the ban as Oil and Gas companies rubbed their hands and BIG Oil Investors licked their lips.

The second key message was "Less natural gas will mean more coal being used to firm our electricity grid, as Genesis confirmed this morning. If it is not gas that keeps the lights on, then it must be coal."

As you may be aware, because I posted the ministerial exchange a number of key weaknesses in Simeon's reasoning were quickly identified by Megan Woods.

Firstly Simeon had talked about how much Gas was produced and how projections for production were higher than what was actually produced but he never mentioned demand and what we actually need to keep the lights on. He also never mentioned what was causing the decline in production.

Megan Wood pointed out the context that Gas production had been falling since 2012-2013 well before the ban on oil and and gas permitting - and how New Zealand must plan to move away from gas.

Megan asked Simeon how much gas in petajoules is in use and Simeon failed to answer this - instead using the "baffle them by talking for long enough till they forget the question" technique.

Megan knew that in 2022 there were 145 petajoules used which is pretty close to what was produced - a fact that got Jude the Ripper shouting out "Why did you ask if you knew?" while Megan fired back, "Because I thought the minister might have an update but clearly he does not know" - something like that lol.

Anyway Simeon's case to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration based on low gas production now looked very weak - and Megan asked him - how many petajoules are in storage?

One again - like Luxon and Mitchell, Simeon had absolutely no clue and was a fact vacuum - so Megan suggested maybe Simeon could put the answers into written form in responses to written questions ha ha ha.

After Megan had spoken Gerry forgot Green Party MP Scott Willis' name despite hanging out with him last week ( OMG ) and Scott had to tell Gerry his name.

Scott said we have 1,551 MegaWatts of consented wind energy sitting around - and hundred of Megawatts of consented solar - and this can be built tomorrow - so when is the Minister ( Simeon the fact vacuum ) going to look at the broken electricity market to make it more attractive to build consented renewables.

Cos of instead of less gas meaning more coal - it should be less gas means more renewables.

Something was in the way...

Stop Right there !!!

That's right crap is going down that keeps us in this coal fired Huntly Power Station mode for year after year and - Scott said Electricity is dominated by 4 gentailers who control generation capacity and they are making "huge profits from fossil fuel components"

Okay here's a quote from John Blyde a G News reader :

"The spot price for electricity supply is set by the least efficient provider. So its most profitable when you have a hydro generation dam to restrict your water flow to force Huntly online to top up. Thats the reason for so many wind farms being consented but as yet not built. If we still had a state owned energy sector we would now have 100% renewable energy because there would be no reason to starve the network to maximise profits"

Plus John also says :

"If we had a state owned energy provider we would be palletizing all that forestry slash that destroyed communities and using it to power Huntly, it has been trialed on wood pellets with great success, but there is no private profit in that."

Right - so I looked up the fact that Genesis Energy purchased 4,000 tonnes of black pellets around 28 February 2022 and they were going to use these in a trial of their three big 250MW coal and gas Rankine Turbine Units at Huntly.

Marc England CE of Genesis at that time reckoned they hoped to extend the life of Huntly till 2040 - 10 years more than previously guaranteed and in all scenarios NZ will reach 98% of renewable energy without Lake Onslow. He said there was a trial coming later that year.

The trial was delayed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine so they say.

However the trial ended up being in February 2023 and it was successful according to interim CE Tracey Hickman. Yep they burned black torrefied biomass for several hours in the Rankines.

Over a year has passed since the trial and all I found was Genesis making excuses about a whole new industry of pellet making being needed in New Zealand ...something like that as they sit around buying coal.

So why had Simeon failed to address any of these matters in his Ministerial Statement? Maybe because he is a fact vacuum or maybe because it's best to just repeat the message - like Luxon does regardless of all the surrounding facts that weaken his case.

As you know the NZ Initiative is a big supporter of BIg Oil and Gas - and many of the players are members of the Think Tank - paying their annual dues - dear Barbara Chapman is one of them.

Barbara is Chair of Genesis and deputy Chair of The NZ Initiative as well as being Chair of NZME the home of Hosking ( petrol cars forever ) , Audrey, Claire and Thomas the turd polisher.

Ben Craven left the NZ Initiative to spend time in the energy sector - working in Gas for over a year - before becoming Simeon's Press Secretary - and doubtless the key messages Simeon had were shaped by Ben as Barbara watched on from afar.

"This shortfall has a significant impact on our country's industries and on our energy security as a nation. It highlights the critical importance of the work this Government is doing to repeal the ban on oil and gas exploration, and to ensure that we are achieving the investment we need .." - ranted Simeon.

That is how the Nats roll and how the grip of Atlas Network NZ initiative shapes our politics and keeps it's members rich while the climate emergency becomes ever more dire.

They just refuse to answer questions and hope nobody is reporting about that.

Barbara, Ben and Simeon

G