ENERGY

Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) welcomes a report released today by the New Zealand Initiative stating why the resource rich parts of rural New Zealand need to tap into the wealth beneath their feet. The report, titled Poverty of wealth – why minerals need to be part of the rural economy, observes that regional parts of New Zealand experiencing economic and population decline may have significant opportunities in mineral wealth. LGNZ President Lawrence Yule says the report outlines the shift between the growth of urban New Zealand and the challenges of rural New Zealand – and looks at ways to lift the economies of rural areas through mineral extraction. “This report supports the need to address regional growth across all of New Zealand and with the work LGNZ is doing to advocate for the case that local communities share in mining royalties in the region where extraction occurs,” says Mr Yule. In September, LGNZ ran a seminar – Royalty payments: the case for a local share – seeking a policy change for the distribution of a share of royalties from mineral, oil and gas extraction to the communities where the activity takes place. “Every year the Government receives hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments for oil, gas, coal and mineral extraction in New Zealand. These payments are, in part, made possible by the regions which provide much of the infrastructure and housing needed to support these industries.” This point is reiterated in the New Zealand Initiative’s report which states since all royalties and taxes from mineral projects accrue to central government, there is little means for local government to defray local borne costs – hardly an incentive to embrace mining development. The report also states that a strong barrier to rural mining lies in the unintended consequences of […]

 If electric vehicles were widely available, New Zealanders would buy enough of them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector by one-fifth over the next 18 years, new research from Victoria University of Wellington shows.  PhD researcher Doug Clover says there are currently only a couple of hundred electric vehicles on the road in New Zealand, but his study into the preferences of potential car buyers shows people are keen to purchase them. “I surveyed people intending to buy a car in the next five years and found that if electric vehicles were easy to buy now, 20 percent of those surveyed would choose them.” Doug then used a type of behavioural modelling known as discrete choice to estimate demand for electric vehicles up until 2030. His projections used the information gathered in his survey and scenarios of different levels of government support and different rates of improvement in electric vehicle (EV) technology.  “In all the scenarios,” says Doug, “plug-in hybrid cars (which can be switched to fuel when battery life runs out) are the most popular option, followed by city EVs, or small electric vehicles, with a range of around 100 kilometres.” Family car replacements – larger EVs which can seat five to seven people, tow a trailer and have a range of around 300 kilometres – were consistently the least popular option due to the high cost of batteries says Doug, never making up more than 12 percent of the EV fleet by 2030. But while Doug’s research found that EVs have potential to make a significant dent in the greenhouse gas emissions produced by cars and light vehicles in New Zealand, the gains would be wiped out by continued use of coal-fired electricity generation.  “Under current conditions, with a low price on carbon, it still […]