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Reversing the Irreversible Attention: News Editor 17 August 2008
Save Central, an Otago-based environmental group dedicated to protecting Otago’s outstanding natural landscapes and heritage from inappropriate development, applauds the Government’s recognition of irreversible impact as a key detraction of Renewables development, as observed in its recently released Renewables Policy statement. Save Central acknowledges that Climate Change is a 21st-century issue of singular importance, yet does not agree with assertions to the effect that all Renewable Energy is necessarily ‘greener’, or more economic. Commenting on the National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation, Save Central coordinator, Graye Shattky, said that the new requirement to have ‘particular regard’ to the reversibility of adverse environmental effects is likely to rule out future consideration of outstanding natural and heritage landscapes as sites for major wind farms. ’In theory it may be feasible to remove turbines and pylons, but the network of roads, access tracks and laydown areas will remain as scars on the landscape for hundreds, if not thousands of years.’, said Mr Shattky. While motivated by commendable ambitions, the Government’s Renewables strategy also lacks a solution for extended still periods of low rainfall, such as occurred in the 2008 drought, when wind notably underperformed, winter demand rose, and the nation was heavily reliant on thermal generation. <Read More.....>
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GOVERNMENT SHOWING NO LEADERSHIP OVER WIND FARMS
Attention: News Editor
13 June 2008
The Government, moving at snail’s pace to develop a national wind strategy based on solid research, is exposing New Zealand to power shortages and price hikes.
Transpower system operations manager Kieran Devine has revealed that three major farms, located around the Manawatu Gorge, supplied less than 1% of their capacity during peak load periods during each of the past three winters.
The three farms generating from wind around the Manawatu Gorge are: Trustpower's Tararua (134 turbines), NZ Wind Farms' Te Rere Hau (104), Meridian Energy's Te Apiti (55).
"Either there was insufficient wind at that time, or the current farms are all in the wrong locations and there's not enough wind system diversity," Mr Devine said in an interview with the Taranaki News. <Read More....>
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“SPOUT HARD DATA, NOT HOT AIR”
Attention: News Editor
09 June 2008
Save Central says TrustPower is hiding the inefficency of its wind farm plans even as the country lurches into a power crisis.
Energy corporations must front up with hard data if the public is to believe their heady claims about wind power.
“Instead we are seeing companies like TrustPower fudge and stall on providing meaningful wind monitoring data at controversial sites – lest the public and Environment Court see through their claims that they will be ‘powering thousands of homes’ with oft-becalmed turbines,” says Save Central spokesperson Grahame Sydney.
<Read More....>
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Acclaimed Artist and Poet to Advocate on Behalf of Heritage Backcountry Landscape
Early this week — either Monday 25 June or Tuesday depending on the Court schedule presided over by Judge Jon Jackson — artist Grahame Sydney and poet Brian Turner will give evidence on Meridian Energy’s Project Hayes. If given consent, the 176-turbine proposal will be the largest onshore wind farm in the world.
Internationally respected in their fields, Sydney and Turner embody in their art and views iconic Otago values of twilight, space and thought. Sydney was awarded the Order of New Zealand Merit for Services to Art in 2003, the same year in which Turner served the first of his two-year term as Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate. Their advocacy of the virtues of southern landscape have in recent years made them known well beyond their fields, with the Minister of Lands, Energy and Climate Change, David Parker, paradoxically pledging his support both for Project Hayes and protection of ‘Grahame Sydney landscapes’. <Read More.....>
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Public Rebuke for Historic Places Trust Chief
A public meeting in Alexandra last night (21.05.08) called on the NZ Historic Places Trust Board to censure the Trust’s senior management for ignoring local concerns regarding significant heritage issues in Central Otago, most contentiously Meridian Energy’s proposal to build Project Hayes on the Old Dunstan Road.
NZHPT Trust Chief Executive, Bruce Chapman, was invited to explain to Central Otago branch members and supporters the changing nature of the Trust’s organisation and role. Mr Chapman explained that despite having 26,000 members, the Trust is a Crown Agency and derives 80% of its funding from the Government. Limited resources means however that the Trust is forced to establish priorities and make hard choices as to where those resources will be focused. <Read More....>
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RELIANCE ON GIANT WIND “FOOLISHNESS”
Attention: News Editor
06 June 2008
The failure of the 400 megawatt Otahuhu B gas-fired power station today has highlighted the foolishness of looking to industrial-scale wind farms for backstop solutions, says Save Central spokesperson Grahame Sydney.
A boiler tube fault means Otahuhu B will be out of action for at least four days, just as hydro storage levels reach lows not seen since 1992 and winter begins to bite.
The Government backs Meridian’s 176-turbine Project Hayes as a solution to such energy shortages, having made an All-Of-Government submission in support of the Central Otago wind farm proposal currently before the Environment Court.
“Yet we are being provided with a graphic illustration here and now that reliance on wind power doesn’t work,” said Sydney, speaking from a becalmed Central Otago. <Read More....>
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Before the Environment Court:
David v. Goliath Energy (Art v. the Philistines)
This week Grahame Sydney and Brian Turner, among other expert witnesses, will testify as to the cultural significance of the Lammermoor landscape, traversed by the historic Old Dunstan Road, that Meridian Energy proposes as the site and route for Project Hayes wind farm.
Sydney was awarded the Order of New Zealand Merit in 2003 for Services to Art; Turner is a recent New Zealand poet laureate, celebrated for his meditations on land, stream and sky. Together they are arguably the foremost contemporary cultural icons of Otago. A Sydney masterpiece, ‘Hinterland III’, which captures the flowing landscape character typified by the Lammermoor Range, in replica form now widely adorns the living rooms of Otago romantics. The poet and artist’s submissions to the Court will attest the centrality of Otago landscape in New Zealand culture, from wind-chapped colonial fossickers to Colin McCahon. <Read More....>
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100% Pure Vandalism:
Meridian Energy’s plan to destroy Central Otago for profit.
MEDIA RELEASE
Attention: News Editor
30 May 2008
New Zealanders are being hoodwinked into sacrificing their iconic landscapes to self-interested energy corporations, said leading landscape artist Grahame Sydney today.
Sydney is spokesperson for the Save Central campaign, set to be launched nationwide with a full-page advertisement in the Sunday Star Times this weekend. The campaign will alert New Zealanders all over the country to the “environmental vandalism” Meridian Energy plans to exact on Central Otago - renowned for its spacious scenery - should its contentious Project Hayes wind farm be permitted.
“Meridian is building the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest wind factory in what is commonly one of New Zealand’s least windy locations, purely to serve its corporate interests,” said Sydney, adding that the proposed site had been windless for extended periods of time throughout the year. <Read More.....>
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