The Little Country With Big Plans

The Kiwis seem to be ahead of the rest of us already, and continue to push themselves in the race to becoming carbon neutral and environmentally friendly.

Prime Minister Helen Clark announced that she wants the country to be powered by 90 percent renewable energy by 2025. The small Pacific country is already running on 70 percent renewables - such as hydroelectric dams, which aren't prefect because they can cause habit problems, and geothermal - so it shouldn't be too big a stretch.

Plus Air New Zealand is tailing Virgin Atlantic's plans to fly a plane on biofuels. Air New Zealand hopes to run one of the 747's four engines on a mixture of kerosene and biofuel, and should take off sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.

New Zealand also plans to rely on wind power, and purchased an order of 62 wind turbines from Siemens Wind Power to install the country's largest wind farm just west of the capital, Wellington.

Perhaps it's easier to make changes in a small country, and maybe it seems like more is happening because the country is so tiny. But no matter the distortions due to proportions, New Zealand is on the right track.