THE PRESS MONDAY, MAY 29, 1978. Towards an energy policy

Press, 29 May 1978, Page 16

THE PRESS MONDAY, MAY 29, 1978. Towards an energy policy

Five years after the oil embargo first forced the question of energy supplies to the forefront of public concern, the New Zealand Government is still only at the beginning of the difficult task of framing a comprehensive, long-term energy policy. Momentous social and economic consequences are likely to follow from even minor decisions in this area, and the major decisions will set the course of New Zealand life for decades. They are not decisions to be rushed and not decisions to be taken without giving members of the public full opportunity to express their opinions about the various alternatives The recently issued “Goals and Guidelines. An Energy Strategy for New Zealand” is welcome for its earnest solicitation of public comment on the plans the Government recognises it must make to ensure supplies of energy adequate to meet the needs of New Zealanders in future. But it comes rather late in the day and fails to spell out precisely enough what the alternatives are to satisfy those who feel that the Government has not accorded decisions about energy the urgency which they deserve.

A naper which presented clearer alternatives and provided more precise descriptions of the consequences of following different energy “strategies” would not have precluded an open, informed debate about energy questions. It would have dispelled an uncomfortable impression that the Government is shrinking from facing the question squarely as a serious problem. As it is, the paper is a peculiar mixture of facts about the present situation, of sometimes tentative suggestions that the country “should . . or “might .. ”

and of assertions that a certain course “will” be followed, although it is far from clear to many New Zealanders that some of these courses would be desirable parts of any “final” energy policy, the paper’s form suggests that the next years’ debate about energy will be no more pointed or conclusive than the debate has been so far.

To the paper’s credit, it spells out clearly that the nub of the problem is that the form of energy which we use most, but have least—oil—is likely to become increasingly expensive in the not-too-distant future The paper claims that the public is now generally aware that there is an “energy problem,” but there is scant evidence that many members of the public are aware of the need for great changes in life style or for a serious commitment to find replacements for and alternatives to oil. The paper should at least serve the useful purpose of driving this message home. The paper also contains a timely warning that a major off-shore discovery of oil would be no panacea for the country’s economic and energy problems, largely because difficult conditions will mean very high development costs.

The paper suggests, optimistically, that New Zealand has adequate indigenous resources of energy—coal, natural gas, hydro-power, and geothermal energy —to be able to reduce, in the short

and medium-term, the country’s dependence on imported oil. The assumption is that gas and coal will carry us through the difficult years in the immediate future. But the paper may have dismissed rather too casually the social, economic, and environmental problems of exploiting these resources. And while there may be considerable potential for using indigenous fuels or forms of energy instead of oil in commerce, industry and the country’s homes, the problems of meeting the country’s needs for liquid fuel for transport at a reasonable cost and without a continuing, crippling dependence on expensive imported oil are rather more serious than the paper suggests. Research is proceeding on the production of methanol or ethanol from natural gas or biomass for use as a transport fuel. But like research into many of the other “alternative” sources of energy, this research has not been invested with the urgency-—or the funds—which it deserves. The more generous funding of such research and the more vigorous investigation of the feasibility and cost of meeting part of New Zealand’s energy requirements from them would be fully in accord with the paper’s suggestion that investment required to harness renewable forms of energy be given a higher priority than short-run cost considerations would suggest. To suggest this is not to deny that in the immediate future decisions to encourage the conservation of energy and the use of indigenous “conventional” sources of energy may be enough to enable the country to have an adequate supply of energy without paying a ruinous bill to import oil. It is to urge that this policy of conservation and conversion, where possible, to indigenous conventional fuels should be backed up by serious investigation of alternatives which “official” thinking is inclined to slight.

Those who complain that the country has no energy policy often mean simply that such policy decisions as have been made are not to their liking, particularly in failing to advance their favourite, usually unconventional, sources of energy. The Government has already, of course, and the paper insists on this, made a number of decisions in the energy field. But these decisions have almost all been to advance the idea that encouraging conservation and a turn to coal, natural gas, and to a lesser extent, electricity, will see New Zealand through. All of these decisions have been sound and welcome, although in many fields, particularly the pricing of energy, there is still a long way to go. The danger of “Goals and Guidelines” is that it leaves a distinct impression that the Government will be happiest if the public response is to affirm that “more of the same” will add up to an energy policy. But it will not. Most particularly it will fail to ensure either that the country has adequate supplies of a liquid fuel for transport or that it is willing to face up to a considerable change in the highly mobile style of life most New Zealanders enjoy today.