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Now NZers are being told that, for some strange reason, the power grid feeding the top half of the South Island has become unable to carry peak loads reliably.

So what happened there? Did someone build an aluminium smelter in Nelson without telling anyone or something?

"Let them use generators" say those (ir)responsible for this botch-up -- but that leaves people with the problem that fuel prices have now hit a 20-year high so even if you've got a generator you probably can't afford to run it.

And we're still waiting to see exactly how the country is going to generate enough power to meet the demands of those "once in a hundred year" dry periods that now occur at least twice a decade.

If we're going to continue pushing the "Knowledge Economy" wheelbarrow as a way to minimise our geographical remoteness then may be we should forget about the problems of NZ's expensive/slow broadband and focus on the fact that we're still running out of electricity.

So how are we going to solve this troubling problem?

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We could build more gas-powered generators right?

Oops, damn! I forgot... our primary gas field is already nearly empty and we've found nothing to replace it yet. What's worse -- the planet already seems to be feeling the savage effects of global warming and we don't really want to contribute to that any more than we have to.

We can't build more hydro schemes in a reasonable timeframe due to the idiotic procedures and bureaucracy associated with obtaining resource consent and cultural approval.

Windpower might work -- but what happens when we get long dry *and* calm spell -- besides which the capital cost of wind-power is horrendous when compared to other generation methods.

It's starting to look increasingly as if we're either going to have to bite the bullet and go nuclear or face a massive increase in power prices combined with ongoing shortages for the foreseeable future.

If you were faced with paying three times as much as you currently do for your power -- or accepting the introduction of nuclear power to NZ, which would you prefer?

And exactly why is nuclear power so bad anyway?

Okay, so there's a nuclear waste problem -- but let's not forget that in building a nuclear plant we're not actually *making* radioactivity, we're simply concentrating the energy of a huge amount of uranium ore into a much smaller amount of near-pure metal. We haven't changed the balance of the total radioactivity of the planet at all.

What's your preferred future?

1. Nuclear power
2. Fossil-fuel power with resulting global warming
3. Hydro-power with resulting loss of landscape
4. Alternative energies (wind/solar) at four or five times the price

Just look at how quickly this grid-capacity crisis has hit and you'll realise that this is not something we can sit around and think about or debate for another five years.

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