Of course, there is Auckland’s ongoing water crisis. Not as bad as Cape Town’s emergency in 2018 when it so nearly ran out of water, which saw a drastic reduction in demand through intensive campaigns and finally some rains in their catchments to just squeak through. A city completely running out of water is unimaginable and would cause chaos.
Auckland’s 10 dams currently have just under 50% of capacity, whereas they would be at 77% in an average year. Regular updates on storage levels and encouragements and inducements to use water judiciously is giving our urban cousins a greater understanding of the preciousness of water and that water storage is such an excellent idea, only narrowly beaten by the invention of the wheel.
Auckland is a large part of this country’s economy and restrictions on water usage, if this water shortage gets worse, will not be good for anyone.
The Auckland Council has finally realised that one helpful idea would be to stop disincentivising folk to install rainwater tanks for collection off their roofs, and has at last stopped charging resource consent fees to install a tank. They should be requiring all new builds to install tanks to reduce the increasing demand on their dwindling water supplies.
The tanks will assist with their runoff problems as well, by creating a buffering effect in heavy rain events.
However, there is a bigger problem for all of us after these two dry years, and that is electricity generation.
We are naturally proud of our hydropower, which contributes about 60% of our electrical needs. Geothermal is contributing 15% and now wind generation has grown to 5%, meaning that our 80% generation from renewable sources is one of the highest in the world. Our target is 100%, but we will come to that.
New Zealand has very little storage compared to its yearly generation, so relies upon constant small weather events to keep the dams topped up, but in recent times these events have been less frequent and smaller in scale than in a normal year, which is why our national storage levels are at 67% of where they would usually be. This is the lowest in 25 years. This combined with a shortage of natural gas has seen wholesale power prices rise by eight-fold.
Transpower and the generation companies are not panicking yet, but there are already reductions in usage, such as the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter which has agreed to cut its demand by 10% for now. Tiwai consumes 13% of the country’s power and the ‘will they shut or will they not?’ discussion over many years has meant the generation companies have not been building any new capacity as they could get caught with a lemon.
And, despite the fact that we are wanting to decarbonise our economy and get to 100% renewable energy sources, guess what is picking up the load? Yep, gas and coal at Huntly. Imagine Auckland without water and power. But blackouts are not expected this winter, providing the greenies who want to keep their families warm hold their noses each time they turn on the heat pump fuelled somewhat by burning coal.
There are several new wind farms being built to lift wind’s generation contribution. Ironically, these two drought years here have seen as little wind as I can remember compared to our usual howling El Nino generated gales. But it will blow again, as it will rain again.
I like the windmills and enjoy the view of them when travelling over the Saddle Road. The problem with windmills is that it takes an exceptionally large amount of energy and carbon emissions to get them up and running.
The energy required to make these things and get them onto site and running is repaid within a year which is a good payback.
However, the carbon footprint is large. About 240 tonnes of carbon is released into the atmosphere for an average windmill. This is from the iron ore extraction, the coking coal used to produce steel, the energy required to get the blast furnace up to 1600degC, the diesel burnt to ship and cart the parts to site, the cement production for the concrete foundation and so on.
But wind power along with solar farms, and perhaps some increased geothermal capacity, will help reduce our reliance on coal, gas, and the hydro component of our electricity generation.
Let’s not think too much of the many poor birds killed by these scythes as they languidly rotate.
Let’s hope the grip of this dry La Nina abates and we get some decent rain events to restore the soil moisture and lake levels before next spring.
