Fitzsimons Jeanette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:616;Page:12050] 
9.  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy 
: What additional steps will he be taking to promote energy efficiency energy conservation and renewable energy following the cancellation of Project Aqua? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Energy) 
: 
 Several steps. The National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy is being ramped up and further details will be announced in the Budget. Second the climate change projects mechanism has been highly successful in bringing on cleaner and renewable energy projects and I will announce results equal to a little over a third of those of the Project Aqua later this week. Thirdly details of a second larger tender for projects to reduce emissions will be in the next Budget. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Why does electricity consumption need to rise at all over the next decade or two when numerous assessments show that at least 20 percent of current electricity use could be avoided with the use of cost-effective energy-efficiency technology? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I am sure it is true that we could improve our energy efficiency across the economy by about 20 percent; that is precisely the target that the Government sets. However under the auspices of this Government and particularly the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance the economy has been consistently growing at greater than 2 percent and is likely to continue to do so. 
Mark Peck 
: Is the cancellation of Project Aqua a set-back in the development of renewable energy in New Zealand? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: At this stage it does not seem that the cancellation of Project Aqua will make it more difficult to achieve the Government’s renewables target as most of the alternatives to it between now and about 2012 are renewables—namely geothermal wind and small hydro. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Does the Minister think it will be easier for wind turbines to obtain the necessary resource consents given that the company Windflow Technology with Mrs Fitzsimons as a shareholder is facing objections from environmentalists to its Christchurch wind turbines on the basis that they are too noisy? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I draw the member’s attention to the largest wind project undertaken in New Zealand a 90-megawatt programme behind Palmerston North. The application was lodged on a Monday the hearings were on the Tuesday the cross-examinations were on the Wednesday—all of this last year—and the consent was awarded on the Thursday. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that there are billions of tonnes of coal in New Zealand and that clean-coal technologies being developed here in the USA and in other places make coal much more environmentally friendly; if so why does he not encourage greater use of coal to generate electricity and put New Zealanders’ minds at rest? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The answers are yes yes and because on average it is more expensive than alternatives. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister prepared to explore the possibility of a win-win situation for both conservation and energy at the Dobson hydro project in an area of high rainfall and forecast high electricity demand? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I invite the member to give up his preoccupation with favoured sites and favoured technologies and to look at the fact that if that project were to proceed it would give us an increase in our electricity sufficient for about 5 months. What would he do after that? 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Will the Minister tell the country clearly that claims of clean coal are still a myth because no proven technology exists to reduce let alone eliminate the accelerated climate-change effects of burning coal? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Clean coal tends to mean two things depending on which sort of audience one has. The clean coal that some people speak of is to do with sulphur nitrous oxide and particulates and we do have clean coal - burning technologies available to us. However the member is right that no one has even begun to invent how to get carbon dioxide out of coal combustion. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister prepared to cut some slack to line companies to enable them to invest in local generation plants and schemes without limit and to sell that electricity directly to customers in their own areas thus providing some much-needed competition for the large electricity generators? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I draw the member’s attention to a bill before a select committee at the moment in which existing thresholds for lines companies have been increased fivefold. If the select committee thinks that is a bit limited then it may want to make it tenfold. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What is the total expected time frame for Meridian Energy’s Te Apiti wind farm to be built and commissioned now that it has received its resource consent—in just 4 days—and how many such wind farms could be built and operating by the time Project Aqua would have generated its first unit? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I think that a little less than 15 months is the correct answer to the member’s first question and that a good deal is the correct answer to the second.