#lakeonslow — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #lakeonslow, aggregated by home.social.
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CW: NZ - Lake Onslow battery back on again?
The Lake Onslow pumped storage project which the Luxon government killed in 2023 may be back on the cards. A consortium led by former Meridian CEO Dr. Keith Turner has had the project accepted for the fast-track process.
Remember the scary costs which were bandied about before National canned the project? Turner says the MBIE estimated costs ballooned because they included items such as life-time operation costs and life-time financing costs.
"The costings have been pretty widely represented in the public arena as sort of $15b-$17b, but those numbers are not correct. If you go to the MBIE project files, the capital cost of the project is somewhere between $8.5b and $10b, depending on how big a bottom pond you have. Those $15b to $17b numbers were not the capital cost at all."
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CW: Lake Onslow pumped hydro
Let us see how this pans out.
As Winston Churchill famously said once.
“Never, never, never give up.”#LakeOnslow
#battery
#pumpedhydro
#electricity
#NZPolGroup to lodge fast track consent bid for axed Lake Onslow hydro project https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/576852/group-to-lodge-fast-track-consent-bid-for-axed-lake-onslow-hydro-project
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Is there life left in the Lake Onslow project? While Luxon's lot kiboshed the scheme, a private consortium is sniffing about and seeking investor interest.
The property owner, Richard Hore of Beaumont Station, says "Hopefully, the new fast-track legislation would help get any proposed project under way quickly."
Fast track... the developer's magic salve for those pesky environmental concerns.
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Once up a time, Lake Onslow was called Dismal Swamp. In 1890 they dammed the Teviot River which feeds it and built a dam. In 1982 a new dam raised the water level by another 5m.
The government is continuing down the path of pumped hydro despite its estimated $16b price tag.
Is it a good idea? Are there workable alternatives? Because $16b would buy a lot of wind & solar, reducing the overall load on the grid.