it was revealed<\/a> that several of New Zealand\u2019s electricity industry leaders have been meeting with Huntly owner Genesis Energy in an attempt to subvert an earlier decision to close the last two coal fired electricity generating units in 2018.<\/p>\n\u201cThese companies claim they\u2019re concerned killing coal could result in a shortage of power during dry periods, but I don\u2019t buy it,\u201d says Norman.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven New Zealand\u2019s Electricity Authority has come forward and said closing Huntly won\u2019t result in a shortage of power, dry year or not. And if there are ever any real issues around supply of electricity, then innovation and forward-thinking when it comes to renewables is something we expect of our electricity providers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous that\u00a0 just one month after nations of the world met together in Paris and agreed to cut emissions, we\u2019re still debating whether or not to use\u00a0 climate destroying coal fired power here.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely disgraceful that companies like Meridian, which is sold on a clean energy image, are supporting dirty coal. They, along with other electricity companies, have a duty to their customers to look for cleaner solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The electricity companies conducting a behind-the-scenes fight to keep New Zealand\u2019s last coal-fired power plant at Huntly alive are an \u201cabsolute disgrace\u201d, says Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[17,16],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-coal","tag-climate","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n
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