This week I keep looking at the MBIE’s very useful Energy in New Zealand 2013, focusing on oil.
As I’m sure we’re all aware, NZ imports oil, and significantly more than we produce. In 2012, our oil “self-sufficiency” was 31%. This is the ratio of how much energy we produce in New Zealand to how much we consume. By comparison, averaged across all energy sources, our total energy self-sufficiency was 84% in 2012. We’ve fluctuated between 74% and 91% in the last 23 years. 84% isn’t a terrible place to be, but it’d be good to be doing better.
The figure below breaks our energy self-sufficiency down by fuel – we’re consistently above 100% for coal, since we export a fair bit of it, and for many years we were above 100% for LPG too. Our renewables are always at 100%, since we’re an island nation and can’t import or export electricity like other countries do. Oil is the poor cousin, and we are far from self-sufficient for that.
Countries around the world are trying to improve their energy self-sufficiency. This ties in with the issue of “energy security”, which is having a reliable energy supply. Oil is the main issue: relatively few countries export it, and some of those countries are a bit (or very) unstable, and there are very few viable alternatives to oil. Countries which import, like NZ, are vulnerable to any price rises, which would be bad for the country’s balance sheet. There’s even the risk of an outright supply shortage – e.g. due to things getting messy in the Middle East. NZ’s membership of the International Energy Agency requires us to maintain a 90 day supply of oil in storage at all times, although we keep some of this offshore.
Petrol Prices
Many readers will be familiar with this, but NZ’s petrol prices are among the lowest in the OECD. There’s very little difference in how much it costs to get petrol into a country, so the vast majority of the price difference is due to the levels of tax. I’ve taken this graph from the earlier Energy Data File 2011, since the graph in Energy in New Zealand 2013 has been mislabelled.
Other Transport Snippets
There are plenty of other interesting points raised by the MBIE:
- “New Zealand sits about the middle of the pack for per capita transport emissions”, in terms of Annex 1 (developed) countries.
- “Freight transport in New Zealand has moved away from rail and coastal shipping, and is now predominantly moved by road truck, which is a more energy (and emissions) intensive mode. The growth in New Zealand’s per capita transport emissions since 1990 is related to changes in the way freight is moved… and the influx of inexpensive Japanese SUVs into the NZ market in the mid- to late 1990s”.
- “New Zealand has the second highest private car ownership in the OECD at 592 cars per thousand people in 2011. It is second only to the USA on this statistic”… I actually thought we were behind Australia too, but would need to check.
- “New Zealand also has a relatively old private vehicle fleet, the average age of a New Zealand car was 13.0 years in 2011, compared with the USA at 11.1 years and Australia at 10.0 years in 2011”
On that last point, I think it’s interesting that, although we’ve always had quite an ‘old fleet’ (thanks to our imports of used cars, typically already eight years old by the time they get here), the age difference is actually quite small between us, the US and Australia. I suspect that the average age of US cars has jumped up a lot in the last decade, courtesy of the recession and big rises in gasoline prices.
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Thanks John. Your posts consistently raise big questions that seem off the radar for our politicians (here: energy self-sufficiency, per capita transport emissions).
Any ideas how we change that?
Thanks for the kind words, NCD. The thing is, I’m almost entirely relying on government statistics when I put these kinds of posts together. The government have the data, and various departments put together all sorts of insightful reports. But not much of it seems to filter through to the very top.
As to how to change it? I thought Peter Gluckman’s suggestion the other week was a great one.
Government departments have an important role in critiquing policy. Even if it’s just an internal process, and at the end of the day they have to go with what is decided by elected officals, there should be a vigorous internal debate and not just rubber-stamping ministerial whims. I don’t have any firsthand experience of the inner workings of government, but I would hope this is an ongoing process.
I also feel that the media could make more use of graphs like the ones above – showing trends over time, and doing a bit of analysis. It’s quite rare to see a Herald graph looking back more than five years, or to see any kind of graph at all on the news.
There’s a role for blogs like this to put out information, and there’s a role for readers to spread it around, advocate for the changes they want to see happen, and contribute to the discussion! Because at the end of the day, we’re the public, and the government are accountable to us.
Anyway the thoughts you’ve prompted are probably worth a post in their own right sometime… cheers!
Government departments are staffed by civil servants.Their job is to implement government policy. Not critique it. In a democracy that is the job of the opposition.
You are confusing “critique” with “criticise”. They are two different things.
Critique: “evaluate (a theory or practice) in a detailed and analytical way”. That is most definitely the job of the public service.
Criticise: “indicate the faults of (someone or something) in a disapproving way.” That is the job of the opposition.
The problem is that this government sees any critique of its policies to be criticism. Maybe you could both do with a dictionary?
Good point harrymc.
Great post John! As competent money managers the present government should be seeking ways to to save overseas funds by reducing our dependency on imported petroleum products. One way to increase our self sufficiency is to prioritise projects like the City Rail LInk ahead ahead of the RoNS programme, replacing to some extent, oil with electricity.
Most importantly the government needs to remove the dictate that all fuel taxes must be spent on roads.This is unacceptably selective. The government agency is, after all, the’ NZ Transport Agency’, not the ‘NZ Roads Agency’.
In brief, the government must make the best decision for NZ and with their fixation with mono-modal roads they are just not doing it.
Reminder: There is a chance to dump the present Govt in a year’s time. I think this is our best hope for getting the above issues addressed and the inappropriate RoNS programme halted.
Very good summary that cuts through the industry ‘Business As Usual’ boosterism:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-19/peak-oil-demand-peak-oil