A bold approach to create both an energy superpower and a more appealing place to live, with Pattrick Smellie.

A perfect storm hovers over New Zealand. The vulnerability of our energy supply to faraway conflicts has been laid bare by the choking of the Strait of Hormuz. Climate change is materialising in literal storms. And a sluggish, low-productivity economy is eroding incentives for younger generations to stick around. 

Pattrick Smellie, a seasoned analyst of the New Zealand political economy, has a vision to tackle all of that in one go. The Smellie Plan, which draws on a report by the Sustainable Business Council, urges a bold decarbonisation strategy, dramatically reducing exposure to fossil fuels and stimulating the economy. The Smellie manifesto also calls for a “moon shot” on super-critical geothermal energy.

Smellie’s hope is that “we don’t waste the opportunity created by the war in Iran to recognise that there’s a long-term problem with being so dependent on fossil fuels for energy supplies”, he said in an interview from heatwave-stricken France for the Spinoff podcast At Large with Toby Manhire. 

To his mind, it seemed that “people who are concerned about climate change, of whom I would count myself one, are losing the argument because they’re basically behaving like a bunch of scolds who are telling everybody to stop doing all the things they’re doing now and to reorganise human existence as we know it in ways that people are just not interested in”. 

Smellie, founder of and columnist for BusinessDesk, continued: “They’re worried about the cost of living. They’re worried about whether they can fill the car. If you talk to any of those people about whether they are worried about New Zealand’s energy security, they will all agree that they are, almost to a man or a woman. The argument that I see as a way to unite these disparate and otherwise disagreeing groups is to say, if you can’t accept that climate change is an issue that needs to be dealt with, what about energy security? And, in a way, energy security is the new climate change, and the opportunity for New Zealand is to get much more serious about using its indigenous energy resources to make itself much less dependent on these international supply chains.” 

Twin all that with an embrace of new digital technologies and you could turbocharge growth, said Smellie. A decarbonisation strategy, by the Sustainable Business Council’s estimate, envisages $22bn in economic activity every year to 2035, which would amount a doubling of GDP within a decade. 

The Smellie clarion call is this: “We can get off fossil fuels, we can grow the economy faster, we can make this a country that New Zealanders want to stay in, because there’s a future in the place. And we can achieve this in a way which has cross-parliamentary support, and which, to the very greatest possible extent, uses the resources that we have ourselves to fuel our energy future.”

While New Zealand was justifiuably proud of its renewable resources, that was only half the story, said Smellie.

“I think one of the big problems that we have in the debate in New Zealand is about whether or not we’re sufficiently renewable. We talk a lot about 100% renewable electricity. We’re very, very close to that, but electricity is only about 40% of total energy use in New Zealand. We need to be talking about getting electrification of the whole economy to more like 70%, 75%. It’s doable. There’s massive investment required. But there’s massive growth opportunity in that investment and, in the process, a hugely reduced reliance on fossil fuels and much greater energy independence.”

The approach would lean on solar – as advanced in various forms in recent weeks by National, Labour, Green and Opportunity parties – as well as wind. But there’s also potential in the earth, Smellie suggested; that’s the geothermal moonshot. “If that can be tapped, we could be a renewable energy superpower,” he said. The engineering challenges might be formidable as of today, but, “call me a technological optimist, but I do think that they will probably find a way to do it. And as time goes on, it’ll become a viable resource which will basically replace fossil fuels.”

But can the Smellie Plan win popular and political traction? “My naive view is that voters want [vision] at the moment, that part of the problem in New Zealand politics is that all they see is division and lacklustre leadership from the major parties, and a lot of sniping from the from the minors. A bit of common ground would actually lift all boats and be good for democracy. That’s my utopian view.”

And what might the Pattrick Smellie of the 80s, then working in the office of Roger Douglas and sworn against the Think Big projects of the recently vanquished Muldoon government, make of it all? 

“I think that for its sins, the Smellie Plan believes in markets,” he said of a blueprint that would emphasise incentives, assurances and bridging finance rather than wholesale state funding. “The price signals to go renewable rather than fossil fuel are all there. It’s an act of political leadership, and then commercial following, to go down this route. So the Pattrick Smellie of 1983, or whenever it was that I worked for Roger, would probably say, that’s fine. The other thing is that, in a Douglasian way, it’s a package. Roger was a big man for a package. You put enough things together that make sense, and it becomes difficult to assail the logic.”

As for the politicians of today, with leaders of the two main parties hardly loved by the electorate, how might they sell this?

“Don’t call it a vision,” is Smellie’s advice. “Call it a story. A story about a New Zealand that is independent for its energy, uses its own resources for its energy future, a New Zealand which becomes an energy superpower, a renewable energy superpower that deals with climate change at the same time as dealing with energy security. And a country that will grow. People will stop thinking they need to leave to have a future here. They will welcome cross-parliamentary support and action for something [like] that, even though there will be areas of disagreement, and not everybody will be happy with everything that comes out of it. That theme of energy security and independence, mixed up with climate change and economic growth, is, I think, compelling.”

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