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They have effectively outlawed all new fossil fule power cgeneration schemes.

But does that mean new wind, wave turbines or loads of new nuclear power stations?

wind and hydro 1st and foremost, geothermal then other (wave etc.) NZ is STRONGLY and determindly anti-nuke and nuke free. we dont even let nuke ships and subs pass through our waters - pisses off the yanks no end!

Well in that case...

WOOPEE!

Lets hope that other countries follow suit.

Excellent - good for them.

Yep. im amazed that they actualy did something to be perfectly honeset. they spend sooo long sitting around with thumbs up asses doing sweet FA im a little shocked.
It is almost a tacit aknowledgement of peak oil!
Sent an email to our green party about the enevibability of climate change and that they would do better to focus on an energy desent plan and got a reply from the personal assistant to its co-leader basicaly saying shut up and wait. Maybe this is what they have been working for - hasnt been any media leading up to it, but then thats not entirely surprising . . .

now if they just cancell all new roading projects and put it into public transport i might have to become and optimist dang!

Y'see, I should be celebrating, but this kind of thing depresses me.

Mostly because we're just so very, very, very far behind. Also, because despite being so very far behind, there seems to be so little enthusiasm to try to catch up.

Ugh.

Still, Yay NZ! If you weren't so very far away from everyone I hold dear I'd probably be applying to emigrate... ;)

Gidday

Well if your green party carrys on stopping any hydro because it will ruin our rivers, and stops any up grades of power lines so even the wind power can't be transmitted to where it's needed, what other choice is there to nuclear power apart from horses.

Jack wrote:Gidday

Well if your green party carrys on stopping any hydro because it will ruin our rivers, and stops any up grades of power lines so even the wind power can't be transmitted to where it's needed, what other choice is there to nuclear power apart from horses.

I'm aming to end up in the greens and rip all the shit our of them and give them a healthy injection of common sense.

failing that they will be forced, one way or another to accede to hydro.
as to the second part of your statement, im inclined to see renewables as being a decentralised form or energy creation and thus massively huge powerlines arent needed to pipe in electricity from some distant part of the country.
smaller and safer lines (relatively speaking) from the local generation to local substation and local areas. the grid remains national but generation is primarily local.
yes. i am an idealist.

i also expect the govt. to end up fast tracking/overthrowing resource managemtn act to implement both new hydro and geothermal scheames as well as easing requirements for windfarms.
Whether this is, on ballance, a "good thing" i remain agnostic about. though i fully support the idea behind a country run on 90% renewables.

Gidday

Hey mate, what we need is a bloody great nuclear power station to be built at Western Springs in Auckland. It will make much less noise than the speedway Eh!

Each to their own. personaly im against nuklear power for a whole host of reasons, i concede that not everyone sees it that way tho

Here in the UK we are going through the painful process of dismantling our first generation of nuclear power stations. The time scales and costs are astounding - most will take around 25 - 40 years to decommission, though for some types of power station the estimate is over 100 years (but this is now being 'fast-tracked', an idea that fills me with absolutely no confidence whatsoever). The cost will run into billions of pounds - currently estimated at £73bn - and it seems to rise with depression regularity.

And we still don't know what to do with all the contaminated materials and radioactive waste that will be left over.

It has just been announced (and not before time) that millions more will be spent trying to clean up the seabed at Dounreay in Scotland that became contaminated with an unknown quantity of radioactive particles. This is not just a leak of contaminated waste, but actual fragments of fuel rod, some several millimetres in size, and which regularly get washed up on the beaches.

This is the source of energy which we were once told was going to be so cheap as to be not worth metering. It is neither economically nor environmentally tenable (but we can show you a lovely range of bombs as a result).

Muddy paws, right behind what you say there. A recent post on TOD has also pointed out that the average working life of european reactors is approximately 40 years and that over 1/2 will drop offline in the same period of time with new generators being built at less that 1/3 the decommisiong rate.
this, combined with the length of time to make them opperationall, and the HUGE fossil fuel energy investment in building them and their component parts indicates that it is unlikely many new one will be built bast 2060?(i think, need to re-read). then the energy needed to build them and their parts, as well as the supporting infrastructure simply wont be there.

which makes the idea of deComming them then even scaryer