Huntly power station Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Huntly power station - Essay Example The government despite of knowing about all environmental disturbances is forced to tolerate as it does not have any alternative source of energy production. 6 Resource Management Act 6 Overview of Resource Consents 6 Aquatic Resource Consent owned by Huntly Power Plant 7 Environmental Effects of Aquatic Resource Consent 7 References 8 Glossary 9 Abstract The paper is written in order to discuss environmental costs and ramifications of operationalization of Huntly Power Plant. The featured power plant is working to provide electricity to majority of people living in the country of New Zealand and therefore, government’s hands are tied when it comes to regulation of the Power Plant. Additionally, all of the source consents owned by the plant are designed to delay the inevitable of global environmental destruction. The Huntly Power Plant: An Analysis of Environmental and Societal Costs Introduction The power generation business is one of the most important work-lines in the worl d. These facilities are primarily responsible for generating and supplying electric power to industrial and residential areas. But, these power plants are running on oil and therefore, their operational costs are increasing significantly on an annual basis. The environmental and societal costs associated with the operations of these power plants are also known to creep up with a close of each and every fiscal year (Hamilton & Manne 1978). However, the power plants do not work towards restoration of green environment and nor do they participate towards benefitting the society at large. They only focus on generation of power and maximization monetary returns. These facilities follow an avoidance strategy towards managerial ethics and therefore, hold on to the point that their purpose is to do the business and ethics and societal benefit is none of their concern (Logue, 1996). Additionally, governments feel reluctant towards imposition of increased taxation on private power plants beca use in this way, they risk escalating already increasing power prices. The major stakeholder in the business of power generation is the local government and due to this reason, the governmental offices have to make tradeoff between low energy prices and growing environmental concerns (Holtz, 2008). The economic mindset of the government forces it to choose lower energy prices over environmental concerns every time. The problem of global warming and increasing international temperatures has received a great level of attention lately and supporters of green living are of the view that alternative energy projects can save the planet. But, the industrialists think otherwise because switching the whole world economy from oil to alternative energy sources is a big deal and it requires major investments (Whitmarsh & O’Neill, 2010). The alternative energy sources such as wind and solar energy are predicted to produce less amount of energy than the traditional methods. The world econo mic system is not ready to use alternative energy sources because nobody trusts them right now. But, in a few years major oil producers’ output levels are going to decrease notably and this futuristic possibility may lead to more price related difficulties for electricity consumers. The oil producing companies are consuming more oil than their production levels and therefore, the level of oil available for domestic