An opinion from Owen McShane on the gas leak:

This is the best thing to happen in NZ this year.

People had no idea how dependent we all are on gas and how much benefit it provides.
The only long term answer to this problem, caused by a leak in a single pipeline, is to find several gas wells distributed around the country (most likely to be off shore) and create a gas grid like the electric grid that means every location has alternative supplies of gas.

Gas is the fuel of the future. We are now finding massive wells of gas wells evenly distributed all around the world. They have even found a shale gas well in England of trillions of cubic metres.

The Middle East dominance of fuel supplies is over and Peak Oil is no longer an issue. Gas generates electricity and the electricity can power our cars and buses. GAs is the starting point for a whole new petrochemical industry.

We will need some form of liquid fuels for our aircraft but we would get enough of that as an offshoot from some of the wells.

But a number of Political parties and Green lobbyists and Coastal Iwi say we should ban exploration for gas and oil offshore.

I wonder if they are having second thoughts.

For some reason we have been persuaded that the only alternative to oil is windpower and tidal power and other expensive and undependable supplies. Hence the importance of gas has been down played.

Now that the world is losing interest in AGW and longing to tell the Middle East to go jump - we should come to our senses and start seriously searching for gas to bake our bread, wash our clothes and warm our buildings and of course power up the electrical grid.

Nothing like a jolt to bring us to our senses.

And maybe winning the RWC has opened our minds to this opportunity to be a powerful energy driven economy, instead of longing to retreat to the caves.

- Owen McShane