Wellington Carbon Neutral by 2012?

The Dominion Post has finally tweaked to the potential costs of Wellington City Council's plan to become carbon neutral by 2012. An article today explores the implications of decisions taken last Wednesday by the Council Strategy Committee. The Hive team remain concerned that decisions are being taken before the full costs of these policies are known. We think this poor policy. That said we welcome the fact that, in the short term, the council agreed to focus on actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to buying carbon credits from other organisations. We think such moves are far more meaningful than simply buying credits or planting trees. We also welcome the ideas about exploring alternative energy options at the southern landfill. At present the Council is flaring the gas that is being generated from this landfill. Can't a better use be found? Why not, for example, use this gas to generate electricity which can in turn be used to produce hydrogen? And why not use this hydrogen to run the Council's rubbish collection fleet. these vehicles have to visit the landfill every day. This means that the technological barrier to widespread use of hydrogen (making hydrogen is easy - you just need electricity and water, unfortunately it is difficult to reticulate and store economically). This would be potential very powerful policy from Wellington city's leaders. It would achieve a good environmental outcome and show technological leadership. Longer term, once all its wind farms are up and running, Wellington will be producing more electricity than it needs most of the time (when the wind is blowing). Instead of "exporting" this to the national grid, why don't we use this to generate lots of hydrogen? This in turn can be used to power big buildings and run an expanded fleet of hydrogen run vehicles.