Blowing in the wind - the future of electricity generation in New Zealand

For those looking to a nuclear solution for New Zealands power generation salvation, the news is both good and bad. On the upside, they will no longer have to don asbestos shin-pads to debate their greenie friends.

On the other hand, it is simply not going to happen: not for a while, anyway. And that has nothing  to do with enviro-morality and everything to do with practicality. As Professor Sims puts it  the nuclear option does not match New Zealand. [Sims is professor of Sustainable Energy and director, Centre for Energy Research at Massey University, three-term board member of the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority and an author  subject: energy-supply  of the next influential Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due out this year.]

If that has you thinking that his answer was almost predictable, then you will be surprised to learn he thinks that, in the longer term, ocean energy(tidal power) has a real chance in making it. But lets start at the beginning.

Feasibility of nuclear power

It is one of those myths you have to knock off right at the outset when looking at our electricity generation options, says the professor. The scale of plant that is commercially viable nowadays, the infrastructure required to import the uranium, and export the waste for a single nuclear plant is just too large to make it warranted here.

But that could all change with the latest developments in China where three much smaller 650 Mw plants are being developed right now. Many see those as the forerunners of making nuclear power far more accessible in the not too distant future.

There again, it could take another 20 years to verify the efficiency and safety factors in those plants to make them acceptable for consideration  let alone acceptance  here.

According to the latest estimates from the International Energy Agency, at the end of 2006 China overtook the US as the biggest emitter of CO2, nearly a decade earlier than expected. The country added a years worth of electricity generation capacity of the UK in a year, in 2006. The Japanese economy, which is three times the current size of Chinas, and makes use of gas-fired and nuclear electricity generation, only produced two-thirds of Chinas emissions.

It is no small irony that the CO2 emission crisis that is being spearheaded by former US vice-president, Al Gore, is giving huge impetus to nuclear power, with our neighbours, Australia, currently digesting a 200-page recommendation on the subject. Professor Sims sees it as a far more logical solution for them with their larger population, existing uranium infrastructure and their massive, uninhabited interior for storage and disposal.

Clean, green, coal

Clean coal, minus the soot, sulphates and sulphur and nitrous oxides, still produces greenhouse gases, while the technology to capture those gases and sequester them is being furiously studied and tested by the US, Australian, European and Japanese coal industries. Options include liquefaction and underground storage, a costly and energy-intensive activity in itself.

There is no guarantee that they will be successful, but we need to hope they are, because we need all the help we can get when it comes to preventing climate change, cautions Professor Sims.

The first carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) plant, linked to a commercial power generation plant is unlikely to go-ahead before 2015, according to local and overseas experts. There is an element of countries not wanting to be the first to take on a costly procedure if their competitors simply go ahead and undercut them on the price of their goods.

If we could build a CCS plant tomorrow, it could capture about 90 per cent of the CO2 emissions, but use about a third of the electricity generated; a form of cannibalism, if you like, Sims notes. CCS is also effective with gas-fired generators.

Claims by local power bosses, like Don Elder, that a plant like this could be built in three to four years should be greeted with total scepticism; they are more focused on the investment than the scientific community, says Sims.

Other viable options

That is starting to seriously limit our options. Can we do better with our current conventional options, including hydro-electric, gas and geo-thermal power? Sims again: Definitely. The current system serves us well, although we do have constraints on the transmission lines, at a time of high growth. So costs will go up because of upgrading and maintenance. Right now we are wasting up to 20 percent of electricity, with motors running and lights left on unnecessarily, inefficient appliances and standby power, simply for convenience.

If we got our act together, as a nation in World War Two mode, we wouldnt really have to go without what electricity provides and we could save perhaps even up to a third, simply with a positive attitude, a change in behaviour and using it more efficiently, Sims observes, although he does concede that that would be the hard part.

So, given that it is not likely to happen, are there any blue bird solutions that could drop into our laps? The hydrogen loop of Detroit-based, 84-year old, Stanford Ovshinsky  is generating a good deal of attention around the world. He claims that the hydrogen economy is happening already and hes in a position to know. He is already a proven inventor of the quadruplex, a device which increased the capacity of telegraph lines; the nickel-metal hydride (Nimh) battery; and has patents on thin-film solar cells  which dont need the expensive silicon used in standard solar panels  rewriteable optical disks; a new form of non-volatile memory; and flat-panel displays.

And if that is not enough, the new science of disordered or amorphous metals (the basis of many of his inventions used for energy generation and storage) has been named Ovonics in his honour.

Despite Ovshinskys optimism, hydrogen probably still has to be regarded as tomorrows world. That leaves us in New Zealand with renewable energy. Sims, along with most other industry experts, believes it is the only viable option. Even there, we face constraints with hydro-electric power options being severely limited by the Resource Management Act and the very real possibility that global warming will reduce the annual snowfalls which feed our rivers and dams.

Wind energy

Wind is on a roll. We have excellent wind resources in New Zealand  amongst the best in the world  which is why we are one of the few countries where wind-driven power is growing without any government subsidies, says the professor. He points out that there are three wind farms where he lives in Palmerston North; two more are at the planning stage, and extensions to the first one are into phase three.

Denmark and Germany disprove the myth that wind-generation can make a national grid unstable and an intermittent supplier. New Zealand is currently deriving less than one percent from wind and the experts believe that could rise to 30 percent before that would become a concern.

Meridian Energy CEO, Keith Turner, who is closely supportive of the governments draft energy policy released late last year, points to another more serious problem: people do not want them nearby. His company has been waiting nearly two years for the go-ahead on a large wind farm on Wellingtons south-west coast, at Makara.

Bio-energy is the oft-forgotten renewable energy source, although the recent oil price surge has seen companies like Chevron committing to growing that sector of their fuel mix. Our forestry industry has a number of so-called co-generation plants making use of timber chips, mainly for heating. Landfill-gas and sewage treatment plants are being used to drive turbines and could grow as a power source. Their major issues are the cost of collecting the materials and getting them to the site.

Renewable geo-thermal power

The latest technology means that more power is obtained from the same amount of heat, potentially leading to a longer life and some cost savings. The ownership of the land and the resource itself could be an obstacle to it growing to about 10 percent of our needs.

Solar water-heaters and heat pumps are the local end of that spectrum, not as a producer of electricity, but as a substitute. Wood-burning stoves, using sustainable timber resources, are also gaining champions, subject to the units being efficient and low-polluters.

In the longer term, can we look to wave power in the Cook Strait and other suitable places to generate power to meet our growing needs?

Over the years, hundreds of these devices have been built  most of which have disappeared overnight when a really big storm comes through  including a 12-million pound one which lasted only three days, chuckles Sims. He notes that there is a small successful commercial plant operating off the coast of Portugal, but personally would not invest in one right now, given its stage of development.

It seems wave technology is in its infancy; in fact where wind technology was 30 years ago. It is further complicated by there being three types: tidal ranges, as in France, where incoming tidal water is captured behind a wall to create a form of hydro-electric power (no good for us because of our relatively small tidal differences); surface or sub-surface floating wave power capture which creates energy from wave movement (but is vulnerable to large-wave Cook Strait type storms); and thirdly, underwater turbine devices. The latest version of these is currently being tested off the Devonshire coast in the UK and Sims believes they have potential.

Dr Anthony Bellv, whose Crest Energy has an application for a resource consent before the Northland Regional Council to set up 200 x 20 metre-plus turbines, five metres below the surface of the Kaipara Harbour mouth, each generating 1Mw of power as they complete six-second rotations, clearly supports that concept too. His proposal to provide power to more than 200,000 nearby homes is to be heard in mid-February.

The sad fact is that there is no benign power station. Everybody wants electricity; but no one wants power stations, is a favourite Sims comment.