New Zealand to ban new gas or coal fired generators

[jpak]

http://media.cleantech.com/1918/new-zealand-to-ban-new-gas-or-coal-fired-generators

The country is moving forward with its plan to produce 90 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025.

The New Zealand government announced plans to introduce a ban on new gas or coal fired generators. The move is part of the country's target to produce 90 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025.

"We don’t believe there should be any need for new fossil fuel plants to be built for baseload generation for at least ten years," said David Parker, New Zealand's energy minister.

New Zealand already produces 70 percent of its electricity from wind, hydro and geothermal plants.

<moe>

[AlecBGreen]

1. good news

[NNadir]

2. Why not be a little misleading?

New Zealand's hydroelectric generation is found here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table15.xls

New Zealand's "wind, solar, and geothermal" is found here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

New Zealand's total electrical consumption is found here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/RecentTotalElectricGeneration.xls

The "wind and solar and geothermal" part has not kept pace with rises in consumption. In fact, New Zealand produced <em>less</em> wind and solar in 2005 than it did in 2000.

This is probably one of those "window dressing" bills. It will last twenty minutes longer than the first black out.