3 February 2009 – LawFuel.co.nz – Legal Jobs & Newswire Service – New Zealand needs to keep up with the opportunities as the rest of the world develops renewable sources of energy, or risk being left behind.
That’s according to Bryan Gundersen, partner at Kensington and leader of the firm’s energy and climate change workgroups.
Mr Gundersen has just returned from the 2nd annual World Future Energy Summit held in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Summit, attended by over 16,000 people from 79 countries including international leaders and experts in climate change, focused primarily on possible solutions to global energy security, with a particular emphasis on renewable energy.
Mr Gundersen says an overarching theme was the future position of renewable energy generation, namely solar, wind, ocean and tidal, and biofuels.
“The pros and cons of wind and ocean / tidal energy technologies were discussed, as were
likely timelines when ocean and tidal resources could start providing wide-spread, commercial, and affordable energy generation.
“Another hot topic was the commercial viability of carbon capture and storage (CCS), with many believing it could one day be the ‘silver bullet’ in solving the problem of how to keep approximately 20% of the world’s greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
“Of particular interest to New Zealand was to see the global energy sector moving in a big way towards renewables, with even the oil-producing UAE pledging to set a renewable energy target.
“New Zealand has an obvious interest in developing its own renewables but business should also be awake to the opportunities to sell its technology and ‘know-how’ in the development of renewables.
“We can not risk being left behind in this area,” says Mr Gundersen.
