It’s election time in kiwi-land, and with this comes pledges that may or may not intersect with reality as we know it in the space-time continuum.

“New Zealand's prime minister has pledged to achieve 100% renewable energy in the country by 2030 if her party wins re-election in October.
“Robert McLachlan, a professor at Massey University's School of Fundamental Sciences, told Axios Labour's decision to bring its renewable energy goal forward by five years for its COVID-19 economic recovery plans is "ambitious, but it's doable."

Currently:

“New Zealand already produces 84% of its electricity from renewable sources, but Labour has pledged NZ$70 million (U.S. $47 million) to "accelerate a potential dry year storage solution," such as a pumped hydro scheme at Lake Onslow on the South Island.”
“Energy Minister Megan Woods said in an emailed statement to Axios that Labour was investigating the pumped hydro scheme to "shift away from our reliance on expensive fossil fuels and enable the development of more renewable generation."

The idea is that in “good years” you use excess electricity to pump water back uphill to a storage facility, and keep it there to send back downhill for hydroelectric generation in a “bad year”.

This is all very well and good and admirable and bla bla bla bla bla but don’t forget that the rest of New Zealand’s economy is still massively carbon-based.

I recently started to calculate just how much more electricity you’d need in New Zealand just to switch everyone to driving Teslas.

The approximate answer is “a shitload”.

The exact answer eludes me; it’s pretty tricky to calculate this stuff.

With the potential decommissioning of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter in a few years, an absolutely massive amount of electricity would however become available to the grid.

And, based on my back-of-the-pad calculations, even that wouldn’t be enough to switch everyone to electric cars.

Not to mention all of the industrial processes in New Zealand that are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, some of which could switch to electricity (if it were available and affordable), but others where electricity simply doesn’t cut it (e.g., when you need very very high temperatures).

I guess my point is this: It’s good to dream of a low-carbon New Zealand but a bit fruitless as long as most New Zealanders are still buying second-hand petrol-powered SUVs and happy with the quality of life that directly descends from the big bucks earned from millions of belching cattle roaming the lands.

And most are.