Govt ‘ignoring best people’ in fuel hunt

Press, 8 January 1980, Page 3

Govt ‘ignoring best people’ in fuel hunt

PA Hamilton The New Zealand Government is ignoring its best people in the search for alternative fuel sources, according to a visiting American alternative energy advocate. Mr Paul Linden, of San Francisco, is a financial consultant and a leader of the movement in the United States towards alternative fuels. Mr Linden is visiting New Zealand with Mrs Linden to meet her relatives, and also to meet as many people as possible involved in the search for new ways to overcome the energy resource problem. He is a consultant for Future fuels of America and is involved in other projects. He says the New Zealand Government’s present policy is “not well thought out.” “The Government is not listening to its best people — it’s listening to the oil and petroleum companies rather than to the people who are doing research.” Mr Linden says New Zealand’s researchers are world leaders in their field. An example of the Government’s “short term” thinking of. energy is the plan to build a series of compressed natural gas stations between Wellington and Auckland, Mr Linden says. While C.N.G. is quite a

good fuel, it is still expendable and therefore does not solve the country’s long-term energy problems, he says. “New Zealand has all the resources to grow all the energy it needs.” A Christchurch researcher, Mr Brian Earl, has found a Way to take alcohol from fodder beet efficiently and economically, but this has not been possible before in the United States, Mr Linden says. He plans to take back some fodder beet seeds and inforformation to the United States.

Mr Linden is especially keen to see energy co-opera-tive set up in rural areas. He says that materials such as maize, beets, and wood waste could be used to feed an alcohol - producing plant owned by small farmers’ cooperatives. “This would mean that New Zealand labour and materials could be. used, with reduced reliance on the need for imported fuel.” Mr Linden says he can understand how oil companies are unhappy about the prospect of alternative energy sources. “But I cannot understand their fighting when it’s a matter of national importance. ' ■ ;

In the United States, Mr Linden appears on three television and radio shows in the San Francisco' Bay area.