kgwilson

It is the evolution of electricity distribution from huge fossil fueled remote stations sent by massive power lines to massive sub stations & then to the consumer, to renewable energy produced everywhere, stored locally and used locally. The large wind and solar farms are a continuance of the centralised energy philosophy albeit with storage attached but distributed systems will supplement this massively. In my community about half the houses have solar panels and most of what is generated goes into the grid. I have a 2kW system installed 5 years ago. We use as much as possible when the sun shines (aircon, dishwasher, vacuum, washing machine, dryer etc) & still half of my power goes into the grid. My peak and shoulder usage is less than half of my off peak usage (TV, lights, fridge, freezer etc). 2kW is tiny nowadays but if the extra generation was stored & used later I would only need the grid for 4kWh per day. My average daily production is 12 kWh in Summer & 9 kWh in Winter. So if I add another 2 kW capacity to my solar system I could be self sufficient and still have excess capacity about half of the time. Most installations these days are 5-6 kW and many people are installing their own batteries. A local community battery would be charged up during the day & used at night by all of those connected. There are plenty of these systems being implemented around the world but they scare the crap out of power companies which is unsurprising. Just a few years ago it was illegal to install a stand alone system if grid power was available. The change is evolutionary and it continues with an ever quickening pace.

66% of our population reside in the metropolitan areas of our 8 capital cities and 89% live in urban areas of only a handful of cities so EVs will suit a very high percentage of the population. China has now set a new standard for fast charging stations at 900 kW. Currently here we are just starting to talk about level 3 (240 kW DC) and the fastest now is a Tesla dual charge at 22kW so development is rapid. At 900 kW a 5 minute charge will add about 500km to your cars range. The technology exists now but is new and not yet installed anywhere but in 2 years time I would suggest this will be become common. New EVs will have the DC converter on board.

The problem with the deniers is that they have the support of some of the wealthy who rely on fossil industries. As I said before the jury is no longer out. We are 100% on the steady slide into a failed earth. Support for action has been slow to get going and at an international level with the Kyoto, Copenhagen and Paris agreements being undermined by individual governments is not advancing as fast as it deserves to be. The real change though is from the people of this planet despite their leaders failures. This includes numerous businesses involved in renewable energy, the exponential growth in electric cars, battery technologies etc, the list is endless. School children know without a doubt that their future is being destroyed by current governments with their "Growth and Jobs" attitude that has only one long term disastrous result. The polls here even show that the issue that worries the majority is no longer the economy but the environment. I think we are nearly at the point of "Critical Mass" & if we can get there soon there is still hope for humanity.

Zinc Bromine has been around for 100 years. Until Prof Maschmeyer and his team at Sydney University developed a gel as the substrate, zinc bromine batteries only worked as a flow battery with liquid bromine and were large and not mobile. The gel allows them to become non flow and scalable depending upon the thickness of the gel. The theory is that they can be small enough to use in mobile phones and large enough to run buildings including being able to form part of the building structure. The good things are that the materials are cheap, they will not burn and there is very little degradation over time.

The jury is no longer out. The problem is deniers will never accept the facts and love to cherry pick specifics and when a little scrutiny is applied to their arguments those melt into oblivion as do their poorly researched "facts that are really just opinions".

Where does it hook up at the back or is there a plug? What if you are a right dresser?

That Rivian is up there with supercar performance at 0 to 100 in 3 seconds. So many innovative concepts in storage practicality. The front end styling is reminiscent of the Ford Edsel in the 60s hailed as the greatest American family car ever. Everyone hated it due to the horrible vertical grille & it bombed. It might be a signature feature of the Rivian but they may rue that decision. The development of EVs is exponential now and will only increase further. A year ago I thought I'd never get a chance (financially) to own one in my lifetime. Not so now. Charging stations are getting bigger also at an exponential rate (latest are 200kW) so if your charge is getting low you will be able to get a 5 minute top up to get home. NZ has a nationwide network of charging stations already. I find it incredulous that Australia lags so far behind when we have so much potential in renewable energy production. SCOMOs mob head in the sand attitude just seem hell bent on their own demise.

A complete clown with the intellect of a retarded amoeba but the rust belt still think he is their saviour despite failing to entice any industries that moved offshore to return or reduce the jobless rate in these states. A friend & LAME who is in IOWA working reckons they still think the sun shines out of his arce. He is of course a self proclaimed genius as we have all been told..

Clinton was ultimately acquitted. The political judiciary closed ranks. Nixon was also impeached but resigned before anything happened. Trump is so slippery nothing may ever be done even though his corrupt conduct is now legendary. The latest is that he always cheats at Golf. His caddy always gets his ball out of the woods so it mysteriously appears in the middle of the fairway and is the only one who ever checks hit tweets but that is only during the day. His lies & false or misleading statements are fast approaching 10,000 since taking office.

A great initiative. It bears some resemblance to the Mini front on. EVs other than Tesla seem to have uninspiring grilles, which of course they don't even need.

Sydney university has developed a gel version of the zinc bromine battery & now has a venture capital partner now to develop it. The company is Gelion. The technology is 100 years old and always needed a liquid reservoir to pump the liquid around as it only worked as a flow battery. The good thing about this gel technology is it is stable, non flow, is scaleable from mobile phones to huge building size, that there is hardly any deterioration over time and cost is low. See Gelion Technologies I'm glad they didn't ask the government for help. That would have been a sure fire way to bury it.

May be true but the hydrogen burnt really well. If it had been helium the result would have been much different.

Sweden used to drive on the left but decided to change to fit in with the rest of Europe. It was called Högertrafikomläggningen meaning Right-Hand Traffic Diversion and happened on the 3rd of September 1967.There was relatively little chaos & the accident rate actually decreased due to the publicity and discipline of Swedes plus the fact that half the cars were already left hand drive.. Canada changed in the 1920s. Most ex British colonies drive on the left. China drives on the right but Macau & Hong Kong now part of China drive on the left. Maybe we should all drive in the middle of the road & solve the global population explosion.

Whoever they get, it doesn't really matter the place is fotally tucked anyway.

I have been to a number of Marae & have stayed there overnight & lived 12km from the Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia the seat of the Maori King movement, for more than 25 years. I was always treated with respect and respected their culture and customs. In pre European times some were cannibals and the Maori I knew acknowledged that without any denial. An old friend and neighbour Bob Tipene died just before I left for Australia & I attended his Tangi (funeral). I was treated like family. It was a humbling experience and I felt honoured to be there among his people and to be treated as one of them. Like every culture there are the ratbags and those with an axe to grind but the Elders generally keep them in line. Too many white Kiwis have never had this experience and take their views from hearsay and their own internal white prejudices which have descended through the generations of white superiority. There are a number of Maori based gangs in NZ & they are pretty intimidating. They too have their structure and culture. One of the most fearsome is the Mongrel Mob. After the shooting in Christchurch the Mongrel Mob approached the local Muslim community and provided free security for their Mosques not just in Christchurch but around the country. Jacinda Adern is an inspirational leader who espouses kindness, empathy, love and compassion. She has held NZ together at a most difficult time. There is no-one here that comes close. At the UN she spoke of these things while holding her new baby. She got a standing ovation. Trump got up & stated that he rejects Globalism and embraces patriotism. Deadly silence. If the rest of the world follows her advice I do not fear the future.

It really doesn't matter how much factual information you have and can prove. Some people refuse to hear or be swayed from their point of view by the truth. Trump has made an entire career out of lies and misleading information and he does it both ways depending on what he wants. An example is to get loans he exaggerated his wealth by multiple millions and then reduced it by multiple millions when being asked to provide information for the US IRS. There are now well over 9000 lies or false statements he has made since taking office. All are well documented and fully referenced. Of course when it came to the government workers not being paid, it was Trump who refused to sign the order. He of course blamed Congress & the democrats (after saying on TV he would not blame them) for not giving him 2.5 billion to build a wall that he originally said Mexico would pay for. Trump supporters can't see this as wrong. The US economy was going well largely due to the policies put in place by the Obama administration but of course Trump took the credit. His promise to bring back industry to the mid west "Rust Belt" has not materialised and some manufacturers have moved more production out of the US. Now the economy is faltering with the rate of growth declining since 2017 with a sharp fall from 4% in late November to 1.96% now.

Anning is so close to being a terrorist it isn't funny. Hanson & Katter share many of his views but they are politically aware enough to know that they'd lose votes if they kept him on. How someone who gets only 19 votes & is elected through party preferences can stay in the senate when kicked out of that party & spend our money travelling around to right wing fascist rallys to expose his racist hatred is mind bogglingly pathetic. The law must be changed to prevent this in future. Good on the kid for egging him. Annings disgusting diatribe has caused far more harm than that did. Below is an excerpt from a statement given after the shootings by Dame Anne Salmond a former NZer of the year and it applies equally or even moreso here. You may not understand the Maori but will get the idea. "In the wake of this terrible tragedy, let's be honest, for once. White supremacy is a part of us, a dark power in the land. In its soft version, it looks bland and reasonable. Eminent New Zealanders assure their fellows that Māori were "lucky" to be colonised by Europeans, that te reo Māori is worthless, that tikanga Māori have nothing to teach us. Others simply assume that ancestral legacies from Europe are superior to those from the Pacific – in the law, science, social and cultural life. In its hard version, it's violent and hateful, spewing out curses, incarcerating young Māori in large numbers, denying them a decent education, homes and jobs, telling them they have no future, and are better off dead." After Māori, the indigenous people of these islands, this sense of white superiority spills out over "other" groups – Pasifika, Asian people, and now Muslims in Christchurch. Many of these people have been sworn at, punched and jostled, treated as aliens who have no place among us. Just talk with members of these groups, and they will have traumatic experiences to share. Contempt breeds contempt, and hatred can breed hatred. Sometimes they strike back, as you would expect – although more often than not, at those close at hand. The doctrine of white superiority is based on arrogance, and ignorance. Since other cultures, languages and religions are worthless, there's no need to learn about them. The "others" are dehumanised, making their misery and suffering unreal. This helps to explain our tolerance for the terrible statistics of youth suicide, incarceration, and family violence in New Zealand. Like the song of the Orcs, this kind of hatred echoes in deep, hidden caverns in our society, menacing and frightening. Every now and then it flashes out in actions that are simply terrifying, like the shootings in Christchurch. So let's be clear about this. White supremacy is a black strand woven through our history as a nation. It was deeply rooted in Europe, even before arriving here in New Zealand." Fortunately, though, it's not the only legacy we have to draw on. From the outset, ideas of justice and kindness, equality and mutual respect have provided a counterpoint to greed and colonial ambition. Interwoven with notions of tika, a and manaakitanga, this has led to moments that light up the dark. When James Cook's Endeavour arrived in New Zealand in 1769, almost 250 years ago, there were shootings. The next day, Cook and an unnamed warrior put down their weapons and exchanged a hongi on a sacred rock. Four years later, when a group of his men were sacrificed in Queen Charlotte Sound, Cook commented of Māori: "I have always found them of a Brave, Noble, Open and benevolent disposition, devoid of treachery, but they will never put up with an insult if they have an opportunity to resent it." He had come to admire Māori and understand something about mana, manaakitanga and tika, lessons that many New Zealanders have yet to learn. In 1840 when Te Tiriti was signed at Waitangi, for instance, the text describes an exchange of gifts between Queen Victoria and the rangatira, a balance of powers between her agent, the governor (kawanatanga), and the rangatira (tino rangatiratanga), and a promise of equality between Māori and the Queen's people (nga tikanga rite tahi). This promise was utterly smashed by the incoming settler government, which proclaimed and practised white supremacy. 135 years later when the Waitangi Tribunal was set up, the New Zealand government took a step away from this doctrine, although the promise of equality has yet to be amply fulfilled. In the present, let's face it. Online, on talkback, in taxis and around dinner tables, the doctrine of white superiority is still alive and well in New Zealand. Sometimes it's loud and ugly, at other times simply taken for granted, and all the more insidious and dangerous. It's absolutely right that our prime minister should take a stand for kindness and generosity, aroha and manaakitanga in the relations among different groups in our country. Like many other Kiwis, I support and admire her for that. But let's not pretend that there's not a dark underbelly in New Zealand society. It's real, and its twisted, and its been here forever. The rest of us have to name it, challenge it when it comes to light, and replace it with different, better ways of being Kiwi. The Muslim community has suffered a terrible, heart-breaking loss, and it needs all our love and support. It is not the only group who are targeted by white supremacists, however, and there are more ways of killing and maiming people than with a gun."

Baseload power is a myth used to defend the fossil fuel industry. It is peak demand that power production is required for. Coal fired power stations take a long time to start up and can not be shut down as the time and cost of starting them up is huge. They also take time to adjust to peak demand. Baseload is the minimum that can be produced to keep things running & it means that coal fired plants generally run at very low efficiency, typically at around 50%. Coal will continue to be an important part of the energy mix but as renewables and storage improves, the reliance on coal will diminish and eventually disappear. It could happen by 2023 but there is no political will to make it happen.

I put my 2kw system in, in March 2013. There are 8 x 250W panels grid connected on a Net usage basis. Cost was a bit over $4000.00. That will now get you a 6kW system. As at 1/3/19 I have produced 19,138 kWH. If I had to buy that much now at the current peak rate of 31.7c/kWH the cost would be $6,066.75. Of the kWH produced I have consumed 9595 kWH and sold 9543 kWh at around 11.1c/kWH so have been credited $1,059.27. The system paid for itself in 4 years. My electricity bills are around $200.00 each quarter. If I was going to do it now I'd put in a 6kW system & a 10kWH battery or put in the system & wait a bit as batteries are reducing in cost & getting bigger all the time. I have a 7.5 kW air conditioner that consumes a maximum of 2kW of electricity. In the hot weather I turned it on early and it usually ran on lowered consumption of 800W or less being an inverter so the aircon, fridge, freezer radio etc cost nothing to run during the day.

Pells lawyer Robert Richter trivialised the issue by calling His crimes as "no more than a plain vanilla sexual penetration case". No 13 year old kid that has been sexually abused deserves that sort of demeaning statement. He has since apologised but he said it none the less. I think it displays some of HIS (Richters) character. I think that you would have to be privy to the details of the case to be able to make judgement. Those that were did and he was found guilty. Many older devout catholics prefer to believe what they think and not the evidence presented. The problem now is that how will they find a jury capable of making an unbiased decision.

When the earth received the energy from the sun, captured it over 4 billion years & stored it as coal and oil, then humanity discovered how to release that energy, it provided the path for human expansion, innovation and exploitation. While we have been using coal for thousands of years it wasn't till the industrial revolution that the pace ramped up. In 200 years we have simply taken most of that energy that took 4 billion years to accumulate and used it releasing all the waste and by-products into our atmosphere. In that 200 years the worlds population has expanded from 1 billion to nearly 8 billion. It defies any form of logic that such a massive release of energy from within as well as the same amount coming from the source of all energy, the Sun, being received at the same time has had no effect on the earths climate. It took almost 200 years for humanity to even realise this and there are many who have a vested interest in denying it. The pace is accelerating and Governments still talk of "Growth" not sustainability. We are heading towards the tipping point where it will become irreversible. Of those alive today only the very young may be around to witness it. Humanity may survive but the cost will be complete apocalypse.

After I have cleaned up the yard and mowed the lawn late on a hot humid Saturday & I am hot & sweaty, there is nothing like sitting back on the Patio with a glass of cold craft beer made by me at home. I haven't been to a pub in years other than for a meal & I had a glass of a very nice Marlborough Savignon Blanc for my 69th birthday lunch, the first in months. I like good quality craft beers, my favourite style being India Pale Ale and my own home brewed ales. I always keep some IPA or PA in the garage for the times someone comes who won't try my home brew. That's only happened once as everyone else has said yes (some reluctantly) but everyone has been very complimentary afterwards. I have 4 bottles of Tower 10 IPA by Karl Strauss left from the 6 pack I bought last August. I probably drank excessively when I was young but hated getting drunk. The hangover just wasn't worth it. I can't stand any of the popular beers they sell at pubs and bottle shops. Totally devoid of real flavour with too much gas & little hoppy bitterness & no finish.

Absolutely correct. As soon as Coles started their $1.00 milk Woolies & Aldi were right there with the same price. Price fixing in reverse. Retailers claim it is just being competitive.

Coles, Aldi & Woolies are only a part of the problem. ASIC did a study & found all the hype was BS. The farmer sells to a milk processor. Many of these are farmer co-operatives so they own the processor. The processor then sells to Coles/Aldi/Woolies. All of the processors need to get together and set a minimum price they will sell to C/A/W. Do they do this? Nooo. That is far too sensible. They let the retailers dictate terms & bargain them down to the lowest price by promising big sales or they won't take the milk. If they all said NO, you must accept our minimum & pass that back to the Milk producers what would happen if C/A/W refused? They wouldn't get any milk would they & consumers would get rather pissed off. They might try & import Milk. Where would this come from? NZ is closest but they have a system that links the price to what they get on the world market so that wouldn't work & it would be too expensive to import from anywhere else. So Aussie Dairy Farmers and Milk Processors get together with everyone in the dairy industry nation wide & take them on. Will this happen? Not likely as they can't agree on anything except to blame the retailers.

Apparently the rate is based on the number of trees you plant, something like 1 a minute. Years ago I saw blokes planting pine trees & they had a back pack full of seedlings & a narrow spade. They made a cut in the ground with the spade, put a seedling in it, closed the cut with their boot & moved a couple of metres & did the same thing again. It took about 20-30 seconds each time. Not a lot of skill involved. They are seedlings about a foot high. See $400 a day to plant trees but no-one wants the job As for 1080 there is a lot of controversy over that in NZ. It is mainly used to control possums imported to NZ from Australia in the 1800s for the fur trade. Unfortunately they found the lush bush to their liking and when the fur trade disappeared the population exploded. Possum fur is really soft and amazingly insulating. The current population is around 80 million. It is a national sport to try to run them over when they cross the road at night. In the last 150 years they have evolved much bigger than their Australian ancestors. 1080 is only dropped in pellet form & there is sometimes collateral damage when it is eaten by domestic animals. Overall though it has had a beneficial effect with denuded native forest returning to good growth & returning bird life. NZ possums have a particular liking for birds eggs & the rarer the species the better.