Science Media Centre

The government’s Developing our Energy Potential – Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy and Draft New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy document has been open to public submissions for the last three months, with submissions due to close by tomorrow.

The strategy document fits energy within government’s stated goal of growing New Zealand’s economy.  It sets out how government intends to do this (both with renewable and fossil fuel-generated energy) while still being environmentally responsible, and looks at supply, delivery and use of energy.

Among the priorities mentioned are the development of New Zealand’s petroleum and mineral resources, and the target that 90% of New Zealand’s electricity be generated renewably by 2025 (currently, 73% is generated from hydro, geothermal and wind resources).

But to what extent are the strategies realistic and achievable and have the correct energy priorities been identified?

The SMC gathered a panel to run the ruler over the document, and to see to what extent they’re realistic.

The document can be accessed on the MED website, here.

The speakers’ audio can be listened to below, and the slides are available to registered journalists in the SMC Resource Library.

Paul Gorman writes in The Press about a west Coast tree stump which suggests that the Alpine Fault is moving faster than previously thought. Calculations based on when the tree died show that, rather than the Alpine Fault's slip rate being 10 mm a year, it may in fact be moving some 13.6 mm a year (on average). An excerpt: (read in full here)...

Overnight in New York, an independent report was released which recommended a major overhaul of procedures and management of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report, undertaken by a 12 person team from the InterAcademy Council which represents the world's major science academies, outlines some sweeping changes, such as the inst...

As if we don't have enough stress in our lives, now there's a new one - food stress. But what's the cause and who is suffering from it? One of the key topics for discussion at a national conference being held in Dunedin next week (1-3 September) by Dietitians New Zealand will be food security. Professor John Coveney, Associate Dean at Flind...

Sam Fisher, in an opinion piece in the NZ Herald, looks at the legal action being threatened against NIWA by the CSC, making the case that courts aren't the proper place to test science. He also writes that denying anthropogenic climate change is a fool's bet. An excerpt: (read in full here) "Courts aren't the best place to test science - ...

Annual reports for all eight Crown Research Institutes were tabled in parliament yesterday. Here are links to the reports that have been published online so far: Scion annual report 2009 AgResearch annual report 2009 Industrial Research Ltd. annual report 2009 NIWA annual report 2009 Plant & Food Research annual report 2009

Wrangling over water issues
Polluted rivers, dirty dairying, greening the MacKenzie Country, dams for hydro-power and water allocation — these are just some of the big water issues that have been in the headlines in recent months.
Although freshwater is relatively abundant in New Zealand, uneven distribution of water resources and increasingly intensive use have led to [...]