Addressing Wellington Rotary, Dr Turner, chief executive of Meridian Energy, said importing LNG would "place this country at the mercy of overseas forces over which we have no control".

It presented a "huge strategic, economic and mostly importantly social risk to New Zealand".

Dr Turner was commenting on a proposal by sister state power company Genesis Power and listed company Contact Energy to keep the option open and seek resource consents for that early next year, after two studies showed importing LNG was economically viable.

Dr Turner said if New Zealand imported LNG it would be a tiny player in a market dominated by the US, China and Japan.

Contact's "quirky advertising spin" masquerading as debate on energy options was softening New Zealanders up for LNG and suggesting LNG and coal were cheaper than renewable forms of energy such as wind and hydro.

He committed Meridian only to developing renewable power such as wind farms and hydro stations.

"I know there is enough wind and hydro power to provide secure supply for the next 15 years at a price well below coal or LNG," Dr Turner said.

He said LNG "could take us potentially down a path to economic and social disaster".

New Zealand did not have to rush into coal-fired power stations.

He dismissed competitors' comments that wind was expensive and people objected to the visual pollution.

Meridian had built the biggest wind farm in Australasia at Te Apiti in the Manawatu Gorge. It could produce electricity profitably for less than 6c a kilowatt hour. Meridian was seeking resource consents for a 70MW wind farm in Southland.

"The way Meridian was developing wind it was probably the cheapest option on our horizon," he said. "Of the research we have done our wind programme beats new coal and new gas-fired stations by a comfortable margin."

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