The National Party has just released its energy policy. Electricity being fundamental to modern life, National considers insecurity of supply to be intolerable. It is intolerable that we semi-regularly escape critical supply shortages by the skin of our teeth. National will therefore abandon Labour's 10-year moratorium on building fossil fuel power plants for "baseload generation". There will be planning for future demand. The Resource Management Act will be amended. National still supports an emissions trading scheme and a target of generating 90 per cent of power by renewable means, but will not allow that target to impede security of supply.
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The Press (press.co.nz), August 28, 2008