Electricity Crisis?
On Thursday, 17 July 2003, the Auckland Branch held a joint meeting with ESR (Engineers for Social Responsibility) at Auckland University Engineering School. Seventy seven members and other interested people heard a panel of three experts present their views on
The Electricity Crisis, The Market and the Future
Chairman: Doug Dell
Panel: Bryan Leyland, John Blakeley and Doug Heffernan
Widely differing views supported by lots of statistics reinforced the view that statistics can be made to prove opposing "facts":
"There was no crisis."
"The crisis was a fuel crisis, not a generating crisis."
"The so-called Electricity Market is not a market and cannot work."
"The market worked perfectly to control demand."
The preferred engineering solutions, recommended to government, are clearly not the preferred political "solutions". As engineers with differing accountabilities, we have not been able to (and probably never will) present an agreed unified view on the engineering analysis of the issue.
The audience went away much better informed on some of the facts and issues involved.
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