Meridian smart metering

here.
Arc Innovations. 7000 homes are already part of the trial. Smart metering, in some cases, allow you to control demand for non-critical things. Imagine being able to turn off everyone's hot water heater for that crucial 1/2 hour, it may not sound like much but it can make the difference between business-as-usual and panic.

First Navigator Network review published

here.
and at 45 pages long you'd expect to tuck in over a nice hot cup of coffee and find lots of inspirational stuff extolling high value niche R&D opportunities for NZ. well... not so much.

i guess if you don't think about 'science' on a regular basis, most of this might seem interesting or novel. i would recommend reading Scientific American however, the articles are longer and have illustrations. this report seems to highlight the current round of buzzwords (to its credit, it mentions this risk in passing), but doesn't really come to grips with anything.
'Carbon nanotubes and nanodots are looking promising...' - ya think?
'energy outlook uncertain...' - really?
'biofuels are hot property given the current climate change and oil prices...' - no kidding.
'biology and food are important...' - uhhh

sorry guys, this looks like science by govt committee (check out p 44 on Karen Cronin, who heads the NN) which is by definition derivative and risk averse. a lot of the comments also seem to show academic FUD about corporate based research (it must be bad and untrustworthy since money is involved) and that most hackneyed of assumptions 'peer review may be flawed but it's the best thing we have'.

i just don't get what this is supposed to do unless you count 'talking about science' as equivalent to 'doing science'. the cynic in me suspects that talking about science counts as make work these days and that NZ will drift along for the next decade at the remedial pace its done for the last 10 years.

Richard Dawkins and Religion: The Root of All Evil?

If you haven't seen these, it's well worth the time. They played on UK's Channel 4 a couple of months ago.
Pt I - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6193866746249268230
P II - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8239331458224461127

Will Farrel as Dubya on Climate Change

Methusalah's children?

Aim for your 1000th birthday.

Printable solar cells

a start-up in California is aiming to mass produce solar cells using print technology. fingers crossed.

Cullen's solution to NZers emmigrating?

Yet another sustainable power source

from Stuff here.
Don't let the debate degenerate into coal vs nuclear. There's plenty of other choices, the only limiting factor is the lack of imagination.

Interesting tablet desktop

NZ's Carbon Tax 2.0

Labour tries to revive the carbon tax. Next year. Just before the leadup to the election. Why oh why am i unimpressed?
Hmm, i wonder if talking about something, next year, that's really a no-brainer is going to deflect debate for a while? Maybe we'll go for our internationally recognised 'talk green and then back track' strategy that's worked so well for us so far.
Ye gods. It'd be funny if it weren't so depressing.

J Howard and the socceroos

he's so fair dinkum it's scary. and what's with the G&G traky-dacs?

Colin James on next winter

here.
Seems pretty accurate to me...

Evolution Schmevolution

The Daily Show special report on YouTube

Potential for Geothermal

Over here at Damn Interesting, there's an article on the deepest hole ever. It's something like 12.5 km deep and there's all sorts of interesting stuff that they found out. What i found interesting however was that this was a Russion effort that started at the same time as the space race and it's still the best effort to date!
Next time someone bugs you about "it's CO2 or nuclear - make a decision", feel free to point out that we haven't even begun to get serious about extracting energy from sustainable sources - i mean, for crying out loud, you'd think in the 21st century we could dig a 10 km hole with a fair chance of success, chuck in a working fluid and hey presto, it's turbine time. Plenty of technological problems of course, but come on, it's not nuclear physics (which is literally the alternative!).

UCSD discussion on climate change and energy

This is actually quite a good video for an intro to the energy debate.
ooohh, nice carbon balance at 11:50 min
tech gap analysis at 15:00 min
biohydrogen at 20:30 min
fuel cells at 23:00 min but only thinks they should be in cars
Joseph Romm hydrogen hype debunked 35:00 min (i like this guy! ;-)

From the blurb on Google Vid:
UCSD Division of Physical Sciences presents a discussion on global warming and the prospects of a hydrogen economy. The featured speakers ... all » are: Joseph J. Romm, executive director of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions and author of The Hype About Hydrogen - Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate; and Franklin M. (Lynn) Orr, Jr. professor of petroleum engineering and project director of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University. Series: "Frontiers of Knowledge"

Stock footage of the Nth Sea Oil Rigs

That's some freaky stuff...

The Oil Factor: Behind the War On Terror

late, bored and nothing on tv so i'm looking for documentaries on Google Video (am i the only one who thinks the picture quality is getting really good lately?) and found this.
Not sure how it's gonna pan out, it's probably a bit Michael Moore for my liking but i love the fact that i can find things like this to watch, on an old mac with a 1MB connection. it's pretty amazing - oh yeah, for those of you in Australia and NZ, that's a megabit connection, 2 MB is standard nowadays. Note the complete lack of a KB speed when using the term 'broadband', it's important...

NZ Herald back into the 21st Century?

RB discusses plans afoot for the herald to get back into the digital age.
About time! that 'premium' content move was a really bad idea. for all it's warts, the herald is often the first place you look for a bit of kiwi-ana and local flavour. the op-ed's are the best place to start if you want an on-the-ground perspective and created a forum to interact with, you know, your potential customers/demographic via blog links etc.

i'm still partial to the idea of a temporal value when it comes to the news (for complete lack of a better word, or the inclination to think of one):

1. get it out there (free), create the discussion, make your web site the one people check as the authoritative first port of call (loads of $$ from eyeballs is possible this way - link through to trademe for crying out loud...)
   
2. keep it free for a long time, say a year or two.
3. then archive it. chances are if someone is interested in news from the 80's (lets say Bastion Pt being occupied) then you could charge them an historical research fee (and do a little more for your money than open the digital vault).
   

might create an interesting business model. at the end of the day, printing words and asking people to buy them is a dated concept. we're all DROWNING in words, give me a reason to read yours...

for all that, i hope they get it right, i for one will be a rather niggly little bugger when it comes to their appalling science reporting.
on the same note, i'm still waiting vainly (vanely? hhmm maybe the first one was right ;-) for brian rudman's references on the dangers of sitting near HV power lines... now why aren't i surprised about that?

NZ Herald back into the 21st Century?

RB discusses plans afoot for the herald to get back into the digital age.
About time! that 'premium' content move was a really bad idea. for all it's warts, the herald is often the first place you look for a bit of kiwi-ana and local flavour. the op-ed's are the best place to start if you want an on-the-ground perspective and created a forum to interact with, you know, your potential customers/demographic via blog links etc.

i'm still partial to the idea of a temporal value when it comes to the news (for complete lack of a better word, or the inclination to think of one):

1. get it out there (free), create the discussion, make your web site the one people check as the authoritative first port of call (loads of $$ from eyeballs is possible this way - link through to trademe for crying out loud...)
   
2. keep it free for a long time, say a year or two.
3. then archive it. chances are if someone is interested in news from the 80's (lets say Bastion Pt being occupied) then you could charge them an historical research fee (and do a little more for your money than open the digital vault).
   

might create an interesting business model. at the end of the day, printing words and asking people to buy them is a dated concept. we're all DROWNING in words, give me a reason to read yours...

for all that, i hope they get it right, i for one will be a rather niggly little bugger when it comes to their appalling science reporting.
on the same note, i'm still waiting vainly (vanely? hhmm maybe the first one was right ;-) for brian rudman's references on the dangers of sitting near HV power lines... now why aren't i surprised about that?

Dairy R&D funding...

is $4 million a year extra. woopdedoo.
And the hoped for big win by the pastoral lobby group?

One major research task would be to find ways to improve feed for cows so that more milk could be produced. The goal was to lift the "metabolisable energy" of feed by 50 per cent. "Now it's going to cost a lot of money because this is a hard question to solve." But Fraser said they had to lift the productivity of current acreage under dairying "by a significant factor".

A second target was lifting animal production from 60kg of milk solids per tonne of feed consumed to 80kg. A third was getting adoption rates of current technologies lifted so at least half of dairy farms were achieving 90 per cent of known theoretical capacity.

Wow. that's certainly an audacious goal gentlemen. Do you know the difference between innovation and iteration??
On an intriguing side note, it would be interesting to know what the 'research' levies are that the farmers pay and where it ends up. What have those boffins been doing for the last 20 years? One might, if one were so inclined, ponder if you would be better off increasing the amount of money and praying for different results, or start giving it to better qualified people...

SOE's on the NZX

here.
and about £"$"£$ time...

God's Next Army

Fascinating documentary from Channel 4 a couple weeks ago has just turned up on Google Video. A university is set up with the sole purpose of getting fundamental christians into the white house, with some success to date. They are big on debating skills and political process but (literally) backwards when it comes to having any skills of relevence (their 'science' professor is a flood/creationism proponent).

Seriously an excellent 50 mins over lunch.

This is never a good look

Chem professor in the states is retracting 3 (maybe 4) papers from the literature after independant researchers failed to reproduce the results. Hattip The Chem Blog.

An example of the system working? I suspect far more are dribbling through than being caught - especially those mindbogglingly boring 37 step synthesis of garden-weed extract 304. Who's gonna bother checking that obscure acylation at step 28?? I'm with Corante on this one, most synthetic chemistry is professional make-work.

More reasons to love fresh veges...

Veges aren't just good for your body, they may actually be your body... hattip How advertising spoiled me

Valuing a power outage

or, how much am i willing to pay to make sure i'm not affected by a power outage?

(and no, i don't rate the $100 million estimate plucked out the arse of the manufacturer's association guy. I mean really, don't reporters bother challenging these sorts of off the cuff remarks?)

This is really the crux of the issue. Auckland had a half-day power outage on Monday due to an earth line falling across the 220 kV line at Otahuhu. Yep, pretty freaky but not entirely unforeseeable.

Now personally, i'd rate a big outage and power back in half a dozen hours as pretty good, last time i looked, the number of down hours in NZ is measured as a handful per year. That's pretty impressive considering all the stuff that has to go on day to day.
So therefore, our question changes to: How much am i willing to pay to make sure i'm not affected by a power outage for more than say, 2 hours?
If you plot the frequency (number) of outages for a period of time x, you'll get a frequency distribution that will have a very long tail i.e. you may get a half dozen outages a year for 10 min, but only 1 for an hour and then fractions of an event for times longer than that.
So therefore, our question now changes to: How much am i willing to pay to make sure i'm not affected by a power outage for more than say, 2 hours, which has a 0.01% chance of happening in any particular year?
If this sounds like a question that you're more likely to hear from a booky or an insurance salesmand... it's because they're the sort of people that make a living answering questions like this.

So let's throw some back of the envelope numbers around. Hard News had some feedback on generator prices. Let's say $10,000 gets you installed (with a cafe sized unit, obviously the more stuff you have the bigger the generator) with all the bells and whistles, is it money well spent? I'd say if you're running a cafe, no. You'd have to schedule maintenance (it's pointless having the false security of diesel genset if you don't maintain it) and have it sit somewhere, all for the benefit of a handful of hours of custom, maybe, once every couple of years. Of course, you could argue that you'd make a bucketful of cash being the only CBD cafe pumping out the caffeine and that may tip the balance of your calculation ;-) go you entrepenuer...

So who would want one? Companies that absolutely MUST NOT STOP what they're doing. People like hospitals, Telecom, Sky casino, Visa, Eftpos, and you'd hope police/fire/ambulance - stuff like that. They're calculation however, involves more esoteric variables such as brand impact, common good benefits (police/ambulance units able to respond), and for hospitals...lives.

So that's the main problem with insuring yourself against these events (yep, it's a self-insurance question at the end of the day), it just doesn't make sense. I won't even start on the problems of having loads of dirty, crappy diesel gensets running for hours on end in the CBD and how you'd run foul of the RMA if you used them in anything but an emergency; the noise and smog alone would drive you insane or the implications for the local network in having anybody and everybody pumping into the local network (are you positive you're islanded properly? who checked?).

And this is from someone who is trying to develop distributed generation products. I'd love to see a network that encouraged small scale generation at point of use but changing a 100 year old system is an uphill battle. Of course, having some distributed generation products that weren't ludicrously expensive wouldn't hurt the cause...

So all up, a nice reminder to everyone on how electricity is a fundamental commodity in a modern country, it's almost, and i cringe to say it... strategic.

Competitive Enterprise Institute

This is hilarious. If only they were joking...

hhhmm, new profile photo??

Fran O'Sullivan on the Auckland Power Outage

here.
Might be readable for a week.
Good opinion piece.

Lord Browne on oil futures

here.
He's plumping for USD$30-40 over the long term. I hope he's wrong (and it seems everyone else thinks he is, but he's a smart man...), oil at $70-100 opens the way for people to start caring about not using it. We drop back down to $30 a barrel and it's hummers and SUV's for China...
I love the energy debate. It's so easy to focus on a single dimension. The question is not whether we can get oil out of the ground for the next 100 years (almost certainly), or whether it will come out at a reasonable price (such a vacuous definition), it hinges on whether we want to continue using oil in the 21st century like we did in the 20th.
I say we don't, and it has nothing to do with being able to pump the stuff out of the ground...

Auckland's power outage

is sparking all sorts of tit-for-tat 'debate'.
Gotta love this quote though;

Parliament held a snap debate on the blackout, and National MPs accused the Government of failing to invest in energy infrastructure while taking billions of dollars in earnings from state-owned power companies.

Yes, a very interesting question indeed...
And i for one vote that govt doesn't get to blame the previous administration while in its THIRD term, i mean for crying out loud, how many years do you need?

State-owned Enterprises Minister Trevor Mallard said yesterday's blackout was the first grid-related outage in Auckland since 1998, when National was in office and power was cut for 35 days.

Rationalising textile research in NZ

AgResearch to buy out the little guy.
Can you spell CRI?
I guess we've finally come full circle, we'll start hoovering up the little spin-offs so we can all get synergistic.

Another great non-sequiter

Scary R&D trends from industry

It's called 'internationalisation' but let's be honest, thinking is the most transferable skill there is. The only thing holding you back is the price of this years 'machine that goes biinnng'.

Here's a report from Sweden on the topic. At 327 pages, you'll need more than a coffee break...

The Netherlands wants to double its R&D funding

from 423 million Euros to ( 423 + 433 ) million Euros.
That's a lot of euros. Check out this quote;

Nijkamp realises that the extra 433 millions euros per year requested is a considerable sum. 'Yet it is a vital investment, if we believe that our future is linked to the success of the Netherlands as a knowledge based country.'

Now that's someone that wants to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to Economic Transformation. Puts in perspective NZ's shuffling of the deck chairs while it tries to transform itself.
Not sure if they'll get their funding but it's an impressive target to be aiming for.

Centre for Software Innovation at Auckland Uni

here.
It's a fine line between consulting about something and doing something. I hope they get it right.

Hot Science in NZ

here.
Sorry, but the website is lame, i couldn't even get their free flash player to work. Probably best viewed in IE6 1047x950...
Seriously, if you aren't at the YouTube-like in browser player stage, you're too far behind. This is the accepted minimum nowadays. Lot of column inches today though, funny how none of the reporters bothered to review it.

Google maps - Australia and NZ

here.
I wish i knew how to use the API...

More on Oz nuclear

it's coming. With the flimsiest of excuses. I hope the shafting comes with KY.
If they guaranteed a billion dollar a year program in renewables research, i'd probably buy in. Let's be honest, in 25 years time, the baby boomers will be dead and Gen X will be stuck with the cost overruns and waste treatment costs.
I'm starting a political party called FTB (you figure it out) and it's entire reason d'etre is to wrest power from the BB's in politics so that they're kids don't end up paying for their party.
Wanna join my cult?

Never trust scientists

they're just a bunch of lying weasels.
Don't ask for better scientists (i heard somewhere that half of all scientists are below average!), just ignore all predictions and keep doing whatever you've been doing for the last 200 years. It's certainly easier and a hell of a lot cheaper.
Also works well on those dodgy climate change pansies, now there's a bunch of green-o hippies that could do with a bit of hard yakka in the glorious historic sugar cane fields of Qld doing an honest days work digging for subsidies and diverting runoff to the barrier reef. As for fish!, hoover 'em up i say. Good for the economy and a real jobs boost for the bush. That's what we need, jobs. Jobs. Jobs and growth... and drift nets. Innovation is the backbone of the regional economy in the 21st century blah blah blah

Emmissions? What emmissions?

It's easier to ignore GHG's if you don't know what you've been doing...
Oz environment minister slams crazy decision to ask mining companies what their emmissions are.
Who knows where this kind of willy nilly data gathering could lead? before you know it, you're having a debate using real numbers! and that's the last thing the battla's of Ostrayah need at this time of the year...

Colin James on the SOE's branching out

here.
A well written opinion piece. Sums it up nicely actually.

Fuel cell technology in NZ

here.
Nice. and a relatively novel fuel cell type. good use of liquid feed for the automotive application. i hope it gets there...

It's not easy being green

when you're farming cows.
But it's definitely easier to hide the fact you're not if you've got a big, sparsley populated island that is well suited for growing grass.

Yet another technology park...

in Hamilton.
Funny how the only thing getting money is for projects that don't make anything, they're facilitating the innovation lifecycle... good grief, give me a break.
Here's a crazy idea: give the freakin' money to someone trying to develop something they want to sell (preferably something someone wants to buy!).
If they end up over time needing a place to live, let them build it themselves. Chances are it'll serve their needs better than something someone else dreamed up.
Technology hubs grow, they're not ordered up like Big Macs.

BioJoule in Taupo

here.

Oh, and someone tell Andrea Fox that 1 billion = 1000 million.

At 10 per cent, the amount of ethanol needed to support last year's petrol consumption would be 340,000 million litres, according to the Government. At 3 per cent, it would be 102,000 million litres.

is a lot of ethanol...

There are no stupid questions...

but there are dumbass degrees... ;-)

More on the SOE R&D acronym encouragement drive

here.
I'm biased, but i think it's a good idea if done well. Any billion dollar company should be throwing a % point or three at innovation and looking for new revenue schemes. I reiterate my concern that these skills aren't exactly think on the ground however.
I suspect much iterative and derivative work will be done with a couple of PhD scholorships held up as examples of their new innovation drive. Hope i'm wrong.

A Better Summary of the 'Rakon Affair'

by Rod Oram here in Stuff.
This was such a non-issue, next thing you know we'll be investigating Glenbrook Steel Mill because undercover reporters have discovered that steel made in NZ may have been used in the staple used on the contract that GE signed to build a nuclear reactor in China! shock horror! cue the Greens stage left....
I applaud Rakon, making quartz timers is bloody difficult and to be a world leader at it is commendable in the extreme. I think they did more than enough to comply with NZ's export rules.

Defend the Commons!

here.
When the fishery industry is asking you to let them manage their own quotas and just 'trust them', maybe you're doing something right.
As for valuing kahawai in the by-catch, i believe it's called 'pricing the externality' and is an emminantly Good Thing.
The fishing industry would strip mine the ocean if we left it to them, NZ is no different from every other country.
To the barricades! defend the commons!

Letter to Brian Rudman re: health effects of HV lines

Dear Brian,

This is the second opinion piece (Herald 2 June 2006) in a couple of months where you refer to the health effects of high voltage power lines. What evidence do you have that allows you to state that there is a massive debate on the issue?
As far as I'm aware, the 'debate' is similar to that created by intelligent design proponents in their rant against evolution theory or climate change skeptics, and that no study to date has definitively concluded that there is any significant increase in risk. Just because you can find an opinion to the contrary doesn't mean the opinion is valid or representative of the consensus view. As a newspaper columnist, I'm sure you can appreciate the role that reporters have had in the atrocious tit-for-tat reporting of science.

So, please let me know your original references for health problems resulting from the proximity of high voltage power lines. I'm very interested in reviewing them.

Brian Rudman on Pylons through Auckland

or rather, the poorer parts of Auckland. here.
I agree with the tunnel idea. It'll be an asset for Auckland for the next 100 years. Who knows what we'll want to whack in it if the space is there - fibre optics or the Next Big Thing...
I'm still wondering WTF brian thinks power lines do to people's health. He never backs it up. I wonder if he'll answer an email?...

Rod Oram on demand management

here.
Earth shatteringly obvious and reasonable statements. The only real question is why haven't we been doing this since the 80's? I wonder if you can connect the whimpish carbon tax pullout with our complete inablitiy to do anything that doesn't smack of a silver bullet? No phot ops perhaps?
Energy security and supply will consist of 1000 different solutions all having a minimal impact individually but adding up to a significant effect.
Oh, and geothermal would be a siliver bullet, but it's really hard and NZ doesn't really do hard.

SOE's to invest in innovation?

here.
Would the person who knows what the SOE's are supposed to do please stand up?
After being primed for sale ala Contact, they have been sitting around earning bucketloads of cash that are then funnelled back to the govt. I only know a little about the electricity SOE's and I'm not convinced they have many skills in innovating and spinning off little company's.
Mind you, it is interesting that none of these billion$ businesses have any sort of R&D division, so you could argue that this is a viable way for the govt to influence the market to start valuing knowledge and start investing in developing new products/expertise (i'm assuming overseas markets would be preferable and then you open a whole new can o' worms...)

Snowy Hydro deal falls through

here.
Strange how they seem to have the debate after it is seemingly all over. I'm still not convinced they had a real debate, the reasons for scuppering the project seem more concerned with everyone getting their fair lick o' the ice cream rather than wondering what the snowy can actually provide sustainably.

IRL fuel cells update

here.
One of the problems with FC research is that it never seems to get beyond the demo stage before someone moves the goal posts and decides that This Is the Next Breakthrough Fuel. Seems ethanol is the current band wagon and in true R&D tradition, IRL is getting on board.
I still don't know why anyone would want to waste half their ethanol running a steam reformer so they can then use a fuel cell... much smarter to just use it straight away... you know, like Brazil does.
But then, why would we need the fuel cell? and that question cuts straight to the crux of the issue. When you've decided on the answer, you must rephrase the question at all times. Maybe they should change their group name to something relevent like 'Low carbon technologies' or 'Oil independent energy research' and then they wouldn't be having these tortuous problems with logic.

FRST continues to shuffle the deck chairs

with new and improved... funding guidelines! yay!
i'm too depressed to comment further on this.

NZ Hydro situation

Seems NZ is well placed to slide in for a home run on this year's blackout wheel-of-fortune. It's almost ironic (symbolic?) that 'average' is the best outcome we hope for these days.
I admit that back in April I thought we were doomed and I was looking forward to the blamestorm. Ah well, maybe it'll happen during the next election?

Nature editorial on the coming nuclear debate

Just got back from my holidays so this is a bit of housecleaning on some links i had saved. The nuclear issue is hotting up as the current generation of plants are in their sunset years. This is an editorial from Nature that seems pretty well written.
I suspect the spin and misinformation campaigns, on both sides, are likely to drown out any reasoned debate. This would perhaps be the saddest outcome of all.