Damning the Clutha Mata-Au 

The thing that all of us know now you generate power as close to the end use point as possible, the north island! thanks for sharing

Very interesting video, learned some info I wasn't aware of. Thanks for posting. Great choice of soundtrack too.

Great work, thanks for sharing.

Good soundtrack and enjoyed the vid very much. thank you.

Terrific! Good to to see those pics of the big rapids under Roxburgh. They should demolish Roxburgh and build a wind farm somewhere west of the river, and go for Option 5 too.

I was about 18 ..worked on site .Lived in Clyde .. Dad moved to Ozz had to follow ..Him with Bro...Will be bk b4 i die ....61 now

The Roxburgh dam is consented until 2042, but the sediment issue may require decommissioning to begin before then. As for power, there are 17000MW in the Cook Strait, according to Neptune Power, and it's more reliable than hydro. NZ only needs 12000MW. Sadly, most of our decision-makers are stuck in the hydro-era, and vested interests are pushing hard. The only hope is to educate the public ... Your footage of Sargood's and the Gap is invaluable. Thanks so much for posting!

My family come from Lowburn, Cromwell and luckily our family house built in about 1860's which has been in the family for six generations survived the flooding along with the old orchard. Was told there were beautiful orchards down the gorge.

Thanks for your positive comment. If you'd to find out more about large dams in NZ, why they are so problematic, and the alternatives, please check out my other videos "NZ, Addicted to Dams?" and "NZ Rivers Threatened By Dams".

Piggy Muldoon National party was a think Big Project I worked there on that project strikes by the workers from Zublin and Williamson GC

@finnraft. Yeah, will do. Thanks.

Fortunately, we don't need more generation. The demand rate is down to 1.2. We have sufficient new generation capacity consented, and also enough cost-effective 'negawatts' (less than half the cost of new generation), to last until 2050 or beyond. Power companies and the government are hoping that economic growth will return to pre-2008 era levels, but this will not happen because of peak oil and the debt-money collapse. Research the 'economic growth' imperative. Helmut Creutz, Steve Keen etc.

@MrZzr12 Local windfarms and distributed energy are great solutions. Even small hydro can be great on tributaries, but large hydro is hugely problematic and costly. Large dams have limited lifespans (@ 80 years in NZ) because of sediment transport. The Roxburgh reservoir has silted up. We had a major flood in 1999 in Alexandra because of that. Clyde dam is also silting up. Decommissioning can cost more than a new dam, and who pays? Answer, NOT the power companies! It will be the taxpayer. YOU!

Maybe the next “Big One” on the Alpine Fault will prove the nay-sayer were right all along.

my dream was to get a job on the dam- and them release a drum of cochineal into one of the concrete pours-leaving a great big dot in the middle of the dam.

First off, what do you do when there are no more rivers to damn, as in most of the Western world? NZ can supply the demand rate for about 20 years with new large dams alone? Then? Go nuclear? We can't afford it anyway. Maybe Cook Strait's 1200MW. The real issue is unsustainable economic growth caused by the debt-money system. The world is finite, the debt economy isn't. Research that. You will find what causes unemployment etc., and that you are being ripped off. Try 'Secrets of OZ' for a start.

Look up THORIUM, its what would have been used except the USA and the rest wanted weapons grade plutonium from the process, hence we have inefficient, waste producing uranium plants instead of safer, cleaner Thorium ones. Do this and no need for Dams or wind farms or coal. I like the idea below about generation from Cook Strait flows, there were prototype seafloor generators tested but nothing cam of it.