Much of our national infrastructure that we all take for granted – could never be built today against Green opposition.
I was reminded of this when reading the Mighty River Power www site with illustration of the hydro-electric dams on the Waikato River – the majority built more than 50 years ago.
And built in the main
- by people with lower life expectancies than us –
- by people whose earnings had less purchasing power than us –
- working hours were often greater and many conditions & entitlements we enjoy were not thought of.
Imagine the green screams today if this chain of dams was proposed. In Australia we could never build the Murray Darling Basin dams today – to propose anything resembling the Snowy Mountains Scheme would be a waste of time – utilities have a struggle against green dogmas to augment city water supplies.
They (NZ Electricity) had plans to build another dam between Taupo Control Gates and Aratiatia and one between Aratiatia and Ohakuri. The first would have replaced Huka Falls (Google the images as the mean flow over the 12m drop is about 160cumecs)
but there was too much mudstone there to build the foundations. The one below Aratiatia at Fulljames ( or Nga Awa Purua ) rapids was just going to be too small (30MW) and had no storage so was seen as low priority when there was high growth in demand. Now there are a couple of geothermal stations next to the site.
The Green lobby never rests. There are some luddites that complain about scenic features in the Waikato that were flooded and they seriously want the dams removed.