Back of the Envelope

Haldo Topsoe does it again...

2008-07-28T13:53:00.001Z

Imagining methanol Cu/ZnO catalysts under 1 atm H2 and 500 dC here.
Very cool.

DFT points the way to new catalysts

2008-06-12T08:16:00.002Z

as outlined here.
A very nice piece of work. It's amazing to see how quantum theory is starting to see practical applications even in the messiest of research areas - catalysis. Back in the early 90's you were lucky to get an absorption line out of the computer, now you can get hints for better heterogeneous catalysts! With computing power doubling every 18 months or so, my field will disappear completely in what, 20 years?

Farming and oil

2008-06-06T09:14:00.003Z

Farmer's start to see how oil intensive their industry is here.

This seems to highlight that NewsTalk ZB doesn't get it either:

To add to the woes, there does not appear to be any relief on fuel costs in the near future.

These things aren't two seperate events - they are the same root cause and two symptoms - better get used to it, oil isn't going back to $30 a barrel.

fun with sodium acetate

2008-05-19T09:14:00.000Z

2008-03-19T10:04:00.002Z

now this is just plain weird coming from a scientist:

Getting this suit to court might be the best that could happen, since the scientific foundation of the global warming scares would be tested in court and independent scientist would be heard as experts.

Since when has a court of law been used to justify the physical laws of nature? i would guess all those death row inmates released by DNA evidence might have a thing or two to say about the infallibility of our legal systems to decide 'truth'.

This screams out like a 12 year old appealing to Mum & Dad over the injustice of their big brother getting the last scoop of ice cream.

Dr de Freitas - you've just jumped the shark. I hope you took a photo.

Funny thing happened on the way to work today...

2008-01-23T13:21:00.000Z

Brigit had a strange "there's a bus in the middle of the field" drive to work the other day. I see your bus crash and raise you a jumbo jet.
Yep, i drive to work along the road that the pilot just managed to not land on. well done.

London, keeping you on your toes since 200 BCE.

Garth George on Global Warming

2008-01-10T09:29:00.001Z

As stupid regarding climate change as he is with smoking...

...global warming is to environmentalists these days what smoking is to health professionals - a convenient vehicle for extracting large sums from Governments (taxpayers) and industry, and a convenient scapegoat to blame for a raft of perceived problems.

Classic.

Why was John Howard not re-elected?

2007-12-10T10:05:00.000Z

Reason 13248b: Ending the 'Pacific Solution'

This horrid little piece of white Australia apartheid deserves to follow him and its architects to their grave.
Rudd is getting full marks for knocking off the easy stuff ASAP.

Product plug

2007-11-13T16:57:00.000Z

I can be bought, oh yes, and i stay bought...
BangleBangle - for all your bangling needs.

Shameless plug for a mate's on-line business? done.

Ertl gets the 2007 nobel in Chemistry

2007-10-22T13:29:00.000Z

woohoo! catalysis gets a nobel ;-)
In the Pipeline has a good roundup here.

The only thing i can add is that Ertl demonstrated his genius early to me by not replying to my post-doc application. In his defence, i may have actually destroyed his lab's ability to produce results.

moebius transformations and the sphere

2007-09-30T17:42:00.000Z

just beautiful.

NZ Herald editorial on SOE sales

2007-09-25T12:02:00.000Z

here.

For the most part... meh. Personally, keep the ones that are natural monopolies, like Transpower or the rail network and flog off either end to competitive interests. I'm also a fan of govt providing a resource of last resort e.g. Kiwibank. Vanilla mortgages, minimum interest and services and run to break even. That gives us a good benchmark for what the others provide and means we can't be held for ransom in a oligopoly.
But this:

National could, and should, sell the state's three airports, its educational publications company, its law firm the Public Trust, its pest-control manufacturer, Landcare's farms, its coalmines, timber company, and maybe its science laboratories. But none should be sold simply to pay for Government projects or provide a convenient investment for savings funds. They should be sold because they will perform to their full value in competition under owners that have to make hard-headed decisions that pay off, or else they fail. [my emphasis]

beggars belief. ummmm, science is not quite the same as a timber logging company. Yes, science often contributes to the bottom line but it's a very diffuse chain of events. It falls more naturally under a govt mandate, like, oh i don't know, education and long term investment in the economy perhaps?
If you want to commercialise science, i suggest you spin the research out into a start-up company, but then, when looking for funding in NZ who you gonna call?

RSNZ on open access

2007-09-13T11:54:00.001Z

such a good statement, i'm releasing it into the wild. go forth statement of clarity and multiply...

Royal Society Alert - Issue 489

1. WHO COULD ARGUE WITH OPEN ACCESS?
Comment by Royal Society Evaluation Officer, Dr Jason Gush jason.gush@rsnz.org

The bulk of published research is funded directly through taxes, as are the
majority of researchers. Peer review is largely performed as a public
service. Thus it seems perverse that to gain access to the content they
produce, researchers and institutions have to pay, with the taxpayer
largely locked out altogether.

There is an alternative - Open Access models where there is a fee for
publication, in return for content being freely accessible. OA was proposed
in various forms prior to the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative, but
technology and a supportive research community have only recently reached
the point where OA can take off, e.g., the Directory of Open Access
Journals currently covers over 2800 peer-reviewed journals and is growing
at more than a title a day.

Advocacy for OA publishing in New Zealand is a sensible proposition on
purely economic grounds. New Zealand produces less than half a percent of
the world’s publishing output, and with widespread adoption of OA, we would
stand to gain far more than the cost. Add in growing evidence that open
access articles attract higher citation rates than comparable closed access
publications, and it appears that OA should be a winning proposition.
Funding agents are starting to agree, with many having the expectation that
the work they fund be provided through some form of free access, and
offering the funds to support it.

This success makes the recent rear-guard action by the PRISM Coalition (a
lobby group established on behalf of ~300 publishers, including all the
largest journal publishers), disappointing. Astonishingly, they argue that:
OA will result in the destruction of peer-review; OA amounts to a large
scale plan to steal publisher’s intellectual property; and, only slightly
paraphrased, OA is the forefront of an Orwellian conspiracy by which
government may censor the past.

In fact, for what is simply a new publishing business model, OA carries a
fair amount of moral weight – it promises to make research findings
available to anyone with both internet access and interest. Simply put,
taxpayers should be able to read the results of the research that their
taxes fund. This is surely a positive step towards a research-literate
public. Open Access for publicly funded research is an idea whose time has
come.

brian fallow on GHG emmission policy

2007-09-13T10:12:00.000Z

here.

and it's quite a good high level look at the problem.
it's downright alarming for me to actually agree with anything Jeanette Fitzsimons says so let me quote it here before i go and have lie down to recover:

But the Greens want to ring-fence the auction revenue and use it for climate-friendly projects.

"It's absolutely vital for public acceptance of this scheme that people can see where the money is going," says Fitzsimons.

"If we can say we get the money back in low-carbon infrastructure and warmer homes and renewables, people will buy it. I think it's the single greatest reason the public didn't support the 2002 policy package - the money just disappeared into a black hole."

nuclear op-ed in nzherald

2007-09-13T09:52:00.000Z

here.

wow, the herald might be starting to realise that energy systems are complex and can't be dictated by fiat. what's next? reasoned debate and informed journalism?
to give proper credit, they've recoginised two of the biggies:

nuclear scale alone makes it unfeasible in NZ unless we can get them down to sub-GW scales
while nz is blessed with natural energy resources, we haven't backed that potential with development.

basically, we are price takers for whatever technology other countries have developed and most of them aren't piling loads of cash into the resources we have e.g. geothermal and marine. coincidently, aussie isn't exactly throwing wads of cash at solar and that just seems bizarre.

Fran O'Sullivan on nuclear

2007-09-11T08:28:00.000Z

here.

Am i the only person that doesn't understand that nuclear automatically means bombs? nuclear power is pretty dirty but not as dirty as coal. nuclear medicine saves lives. nuclear research unlocks the secrets of the universe itself.
i mean really people, get a grip, it would be a disaster for nz to be anti-nuclear since it means being anti-science. once you start down the slippery slope of ignoring all applications of knowledge because of a single application you're in la-la land and soon enough we'll be wandering through 'museums' showing dinosaurs with saddles on their backs.

nuclear is the right answer to the right question to the right people. it's probably not the answer for nz's electricity problems.

Rinse and repeat with GM food research.
Rinse and repeat with human genetics research.

nz herald op-ed on nuclear power

2007-09-11T08:18:00.000Z

here.

After waxing about how wonderful nuclear power is (and there are real pros to nuclear power, i'm a huge advocate for large scale deployment worldwide) ,you have to get to the last paragraph before you finally read:

It may well be that nuclear power is not viable here on practical or political grounds...

ummm, yes that would be an accurate statement.

and even then, it finishes with the bizarre:

When the biosphere collapses, it won't spare this country just because we remained philosophically pure.

ummm, WTF?! perhaps when your knowledge of climate change comes from watching movies like The Day After Tomorrow you'd think this was a reasonable sentence. For the rest of us, the biosphere will be just fine - it just might not include as many homo sapiens. That's not to say it's a good thing, it's just that when discussing something as complex as energy policy and climate change, you should use words that are precise and meaningful, not emotionally laden wails of doom.

I'm not entirely sure the writer of this editorial even understands the problem. In the immortal words of Fermi, it's not even wrong.

The Assumed Role of Religion and Ethics

2007-08-23T10:36:00.000Z

is raised once again in the NZ Herald.
Here are some quotes:

I'm not a scientist. I'm not a geneticist.

I hate it when people start an op-ed like that. You just know the rest of the text is going to be full of absolute crap. Replace the nouns "i'm not a mechanic, but yeah, i'll work on your car for $80/hr" or "i'm no brain surgeon but i'll have a crack at it, how hard can it be?".
Why do people believe that expertise is a dirty word? Science doesn't tell you what you should do, it lets you know what you can do. Communities and governments do the 'shoulds'.
It's all about framing the argument and setting up your strawmen as early as possible. It's straight out of debating tricks 101.

And the angle I always start from is my belief that God is the Creator and the source of life.

That is "I am diametrically opposed to the fundamental assumption of science: things have natural causes that can be measured and potentially predicted". We wouldn't have genetics if this attitude was universal and i suspect that isn't a coincidence.

The opportunity to help people avoid bearing disabled children could easily begin to imply that our society would be better off if they weren't there.

That didn't stop us wiping out smallpox and almost ridding the planet of polio. Almost certainly the single greatest achievement of medicine in history. Would this guy be waxing lyrical in 1880 about the worthiness of smallpox in the greater scheme of things?

The church, with a particular concern for the sanctity of each life as one created by God, and as a result the value of every human, has a role to play in helping that discussion to take place.

That is, I believe, technically an assertion not a conclusion. Another could be: The church has absolutely no role to play in this discussion.
Personally, I would like my ethics/society decided by people that believe that this world, and this life, are worth more than the invisible and unsubstantiated next one.

Religion is having a hard time with science and how people are using it. The problem's root cause is that science is giving people choices and people aren't choosing what they're supposed to choose. The last thing religion needs is people making decisions about their own lives all willy-nilly - heaven's knows where that will lead to.

Ross Bay - You've got nothing to contribute to this discussion. In fact, your contributions may actually slow down actual progress due to pointless rambling tangents.

Fun with embeddable Google Maps

2007-08-22T12:33:00.000Z

View Larger Map

Power line voodoo science pops up again in the NZ Herald

2007-08-21T11:00:00.000Z

here. (note to nzherald: repeating the webpage twice doesn't make something wrong a bit more right).

Simon O'Rourke has tremendous ability to switch effortlessly between the complexities of EM radiation absorption effects on DNA and breathlessly reporting "Women saw friend fly 'head first' through bus window". Besides, it's well known that you can't make a statement so preposterously stupid that you can't find at least one PhD who'll support it. Try it, it's called Google.

But these cheap ad hominum attacks, while amusing, are hardly productive.

My main grief with Simon is that he's showing poor science reporting skills. While attempting to show 'both sides' of the story, he doesn't seem to want to go to the bother of looking at whether the studies cited are any good, what other scientists say about them, is significance in 2 relatively subjective parameters significant?, what was the control group? did the study start out by assuming there would be a difference?, was it a single or double blind?, how was the field strength in each house measured?, was it inferred somehow?...

Makes you wonder if Simon has any training whatsoever in science.

"Power lines cause cancer" is a pithy headline and par for the course in the NZ Herald's science reporting.

The Orstrayan

2007-08-20T11:46:00.000Z

This is a joke right? did i accidentally click through onto the onion again?
In case you don't have time, take this, the last paragraph, as representative:

Bush, for once, has made a good and fair decision and ought to be applauded for it because jails are for bad people, not those like Scooter Libby.

it just defies belief.
the other op-ed i skimmed is discussing the shades of grey involved with your PM-in-waiting hanging around strip clubs while simultaneously courting the happy clapper fractions of Queensland.
i mean seriously, why stop with apples? take 'em to the WTO on being a deputy-sheriff freakshow is harming our tourism industry.

Gravity manipulated

2007-08-17T08:16:00.000Z

i don't often post from work but this is the most amazing thing i've read in weeks.

artificial gravity! think of electro-magnets. control the current, control the magnetism. most of the technogidgets you can poke a stick at these days are using this principle somewhere along the chain.
these guys have done the analogous (and much "£%$ harder) equivalent with gravity.

holy crap.

so cool.

wish i was a physicist.

i really am a geek.

broadband's ok - yeah right

2007-08-07T11:53:00.000Z

here.
And can you believe this?

He believes that New Zealand's telecommunications infrastructure is still suffering from problems created by the previous Government.

How many freakin' years do you have to be in charge before you realise it's your £$%"%^$%% fault.
BTW wasn't Labour the majority coalition party int he previous Government?

cool tune by Gabin

2007-07-06T17:52:00.001Z

George Monbiot on business influences in Britain

2007-07-05T15:30:00.000Z

here.
sigh.

sigh.

Climate naysayers in The Age

2007-06-18T12:57:00.001Z

Naysayer numero uno.

William Kinimonth is now a consulting climatologist. He previously worked at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for 38 years, the last 12 as head of the National Climate Centre, and was Australian delegate to the World Meteorological Organisation's Commission for Climatology for 18 years. He is the author of a book, Climate Change: A Natural Hazard (2004)

hhmmm, sounds like someone who knows what he's talking about. How does one figure out if i should regard his opinion as worthwhile?

Google Scholar. Surely 38 years has generated something (anything) that his peers regard as novel and worthy of publication. It would seem not. Nada. Not a single hit.
RealClimate? nope, nothing there either. He's obviously in stealth mode.

how can you trust someone that doesn't seem to have anything to contribute? Granted, i'll put Mr Monbiot in the same bucket. Why trust him either?
My $0.02? make your decision based on what scientists actually say. Don't have an informed opinion on a complex scientific topic?

Demand your political representatives do
never trust anyone that says its solved one way or the other
ponder deeply the ratio of fully trained scientists that are convinced something is going on to those that don't (100's/1000's to 1) and how you would interpret that ratio on something like, oh i don't know... say a surgeon's opinion on your better half after a car crash or your oncologist's advice on chemo drugs etc

What real scientists worry about

2007-06-18T08:06:00.001Z

Experiment design.
A nice article from Peter Norvig on common problems with expt design. Even trained scientists make most of these mistakes most of the time. Yep, re-read that sentence - most of them, most of the time.
Science is hard. Good science is really hard.
Never trust anyone that says they're positive that they know the one true solution...

Rod Oram on NZ's CEO's

2007-06-15T15:40:00.000Z

ouch.
dysfunction, unambitious, illogical, ill-informed and inconsistent.

I guess we can safely say that RO isn't getting a great mood from the boardroom.

tech support - old school, really old school

2007-05-10T17:57:00.001Z

Rod Oram on NZ as a carbon trading hub

2007-05-09T17:46:00.000Z

here.
I agree. Get cracking. The perfect weightless export that fits brilliantly with our natural strengths.
Better hurry though, Sydney's probably thought about it too.

Bruce McKay on Lines Companies

2007-05-09T17:19:00.000Z

This guy proves the old cliche of try try again.
Of course, you could go the despair.com route and argue that true incompetence is the ability to think that doubling your efforts can overcome any lack of talent.
Here he is waxing lyrical on lines companies and why they shouldn't be interested in energy generation.
Vector is a lines company and as such is not meant to buy into electricity generation and retailing.
Well that's obviously rubbish. There are plenty of reasons why Vector might want to put some generation at strategic points in it's network. It's subtle but it's worth millions in stranded asset risk.

It's galling but he's right about the wind part though. There's not much point for Vector to want wind generation since they can't turn it on and off as it's needed to streamline the energy flows. Right answer through faulty reasoning.

Bruce McKay on Global Warming

2007-05-02T18:18:00.000Z

here.
Warning - you may actually be less smart after reading this than before you clicked on the link. Even seeing the link may have knocked a point or two off your IQ.

Step 1: denial - check
Step 2: grudging acceptance - check
Step 3: fix - .....
Step 4: adjustment - check

Hey hang on, what the £$%£$ happened to step 3??
oh and by the way, an agrarian economy may just have more to lose than most countries hmmm? and in case you haven't heard it elsewhere, nz is fine, the countries that get hammered and the people that die or are displaced are the ones that are poor today. business as usual is fine - yeah right.

and one other thing, if you've ever studied a dynamic chaotic system you may be aware of the fact that small changes don't always result in small responses. sometimes the response blows a big @£%£$ hole in your lab.

and yet another thing: it's emmissions per person that's important, not the country (you know emmissions = emmissions per person x persons, doing your bit means changing the first part).

and.... ah forget it.

Garth v Brian on CC

2007-05-02T18:14:00.000Z

Garth George isn't exactly sharp as a pin. I love reading his column if only to remind myself what the '50s must have felt like to anyone that wasn't male, white and middle class.
I also remember his column where he wasn't too convinced about this whole smoking and lung cancer theory. He's been smoking for years and when he stopped felt awful - so he started again.

NZ Herald summaries on CC in NZ - 1 of 4

2007-05-02T18:07:00.000Z

Haven't had much time lately and i can't blog at work anymore...

Brian Fallow on what the business groups are looking for in CC policy.

First, New Zealand is a tiny contributor to global warming. Where doing our bit for the planet ends and futile self-sacrifice begins depends on what the big emitting nations do.

I love this. I wish I could do this for everything: I'm a tiny contributer to littering and skewering fluffy kittens, not killing kittens is pointless unless the large killers get on board. You don't set your character by what the worst offenders do...

Secondly, relying on price signals is better than prescriptive regulation. And price-based measures should apply across the economy. Singling out the electricity sector for early action while exempting major emitting sectors - transport and agriculture - for political reasons would be distortionary, inefficient and unjust.

Agree. Although you could make an argument that the electricity sector is easier to get started with but the principle is sound.

Climate change explained - it's all NZ's fault!

2007-04-10T17:43:00.000Z

The super secret sheep albedo effect exploded onto the scene last week here.
It's a tight relationship between NZ's declining sheep population and global warming. Why oh why doesn't the MSM report the important stuff?

MSM science reporting

2007-04-06T07:53:00.000Z

Ben Goldacre in The Guardian on why MSM science reporting is so bad. It's what i'd have written if i was more, like, eloquent and stuff.
Case in point, yesterday's solar cell breakthrough at Massey. Interesting result, but it's a long way from lab to the The Warehouse. By the way, what percentage of the population knows what a porphyrin ring is hhmm??
An interesting side note to that, Massey had a great fuel cell development team in the mid-90's. they were so starved of cash and support they were bought lock stock and barrel and shipped to the US to develop their stuff (they didn't get anywhere and last i heard one of his students got done for making E, but that's beside the point...). Wouldn't it be interesting if NZ media started investigating how bad our priorities are when it comes to science and commercialisation of said science. It's assumed, bluntly, that all you need is a good result and hey presto! we're launched into the top half of the OECD.
NZ Herald doesn't even do science reporting anymore, it's just technology, and aside from the two commentators done just as badly. I still remember trying to study the science press releases from the last election and couldn't even find one for the main parties - yeah, a real priority in NZ.
Oh, and by the way, our GNP dropped 0.4% last year. No worries, she'll be right....

Transpower's profit take this year

2007-03-23T11:47:00.000Z

up 30%.
It must be a great business to be in when you are a mandated monopoly on an essential service and your only shareholder is the govt who get oodles of cash through a murky back-engineered tax.
here's a question, why don't you upgrade the freakin' network and drop your 'profits' back to inflation + 5%? how about treating people with respect during the consultation process? how about showing some pride and professionalism in your product and minimising constraints on the line? well, then again, 20 years of planning does seem to fly by when you're earning @£$£ loads.
the last 2 crucial pieces of infrastructure the govt flogged off in the early 90's was Telecom and the rail system. We all know how wonderfully those two were run to benefit NZ Inc.
Fixing the latest thing that broke is not a planned investment strategy...

Paul Holmes gets nailed by Gordon Ramsey

2007-03-22T16:54:00.000Z

say what you like about GR, he's a great chef and he takes what he does seriously, and he's Glaswegian. Add PH, a pretentious little prat and it's not surprising what happens.

NZ's first test of pricing carbon

2007-03-22T13:39:00.001Z

here.
and it aint going so well...

more informed induhvidual opinions on climate change at the herald

2007-03-22T12:30:00.000Z

here.
man, some of these guys aint so bright.

oh, and to the guy that thinks co2 and methane sink - yes to co2 (it weighs 44 g/mol v air at about 28ish) until diffusion kicks in, and no to methane (16 g/mol). haven't you ever wondered how puddles evaporate?

for every skeptic out there, choose 5 equally qualified scientists that say they're wrong (and can back it up technically). now discard all of them. the scientific consensus is what remains. doesn't mean it's right, it's a consensus. the process has error correction built in. thats the role of the skeptic and it is an honest, lonely calling in the science profession.
however, when the consensus is telling you that you are literally screwing up the ability for 100's of millions of people to live, you should probably start thinking about some prudent risk reduction strategies. it's the job of govt. they're the ones with a mandate for running your society. science is just an input.
25 years ago, that would have been increased funding for the basic science.
10 years ago, increased R&D in oil alternatives, price for the right to pollute (at a relatively trivial level) and change your building/auto standards to promote maximum efficiency.
current: aim for worldwide commitments.
these actions would not hurt your economy, can easily be scaled up or down and would result in a strong solid base for acceleration if the science started coming down the wrong way. contrast this with actual: dissemblence for 20 years and accusations of 'junk science' and manipulation of the media to create an apparant controversy. ye gods, the 1950's tobacco strategic handbook with a find&replace change of topic. and they won.

nobody believed einstein to start with and complete change in under 20 years. nobel prize (for different theory, oh to have your own annus marabilis...)
no-one believed stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria, 20 years to change opinion. nobel prize.

the blunt fact is that the scientific method, in general, and over suitable timeframes... works.

how many of you go to an oncologist and start dissing their chemotherapy advice? how many of you give your car to a mechanic and instruct them that they can't look at the carburator regardless of the symptoms? (do cars still have carburetors?).

good grief, blind ignorant vested interests are disturbing. as for the research gravy train? oh please, have you ever met a scientist? gravy train of funding is not a term i think you'll hear.

NZ in the news today

2007-03-21T11:21:00.000Z

had a strange deja vu morning today. was having a coffee and flicking through The Times (v right wing paper here in the uk) and NZ had 3 colour photos on 3 consecutive pages of the sports section (it's an A3 folder one so i tend to flick through consecutively rather than turf out the sports section instantly).
comment by ben ainslie on NZL in Valencia with a beautiful spinnaker shot of ETNZ, next was Tana getting slammed by the english but with a bold outcaption stating 'NZ can play 4 different ways and win at all of them' and then the Black Caps whacking a cricket ball during a solid 'professional' display of cricket against, i think, Kenya.
i'd link to them but the fact is, you don't get the same experience on-line as off. it was all about the juxtaposition and consistency of page after page.
it's pretty bizarre to think that our country which is already greatly outnumbered by the world of warcraft population (currently at 4.5 million which i found trying to find the sailing comment piece above) is featured so heavily for it's sporting prowess.
if only we can fully translate that attitude of excellence to premium-priced export business focus - it's so close you can almost taste it...

Rod Oram on Forestry's complexities on carbon trading

2007-03-20T17:25:00.000Z

here.
sounds like a pretty good summary to me. build a carbon market and let the money flows figure out the solutions, it's bound to be more efficient that letting politicians and lobby groups horse-trade for special lenience.
oh, and BTW a hydrocarbon free economy is a stupid thing to aim for, carbon neutral is just fine - it encompasses electrical systems, biofuels, nuclear and, blech, hydrogen without dictating the solution.
Repeat after me people "hydrogen is great if we can solve 3 eeny weeny little problems: how to make it, how to distribute it and how to use it while simultaneously dismantling a 100 year old system of hydrocarbon distribution and use"

Op-ed by Rod Oram on agriculture's pollution footprint

2007-03-20T17:15:00.000Z

here.
I'm starting to like this guy more and more.

edit: can't find his contact email though - even Unitec doesn't say he exists. if anyone knows it, please let me know, i'd like to drop him a line

Owning a home NZ style

2007-03-20T16:41:00.000Z

here.
summary: go overseas to earn cash and then buy your house in nz. works well for the foreign exchange i guess.
nz, it's not just for christmas, it's for your retirement too.

climate change views in nz

2007-03-20T16:00:00.000Z

ahh the quality of debate over climate change.
some of these are obvious spam posts but the ones that seem genuine are showing an appalling lack of judgement of cause, effect and risk management.
As one guy said, it's no big deal for the big/rich countries, we'll just roll with the punches. It's the poor countries that are going to get hammered.
Oh yeah:

no-one denies it's been hotter/colder in the past. the big difference is that we weren't around then. changes to our relatively benign climate are serious because they will affect people. bugs were, are and will always be the big winners in life's marathon. doesn't mean we should exit stage left before our time...
the sun is big. real scientists noticed it and have still concluded that not all the effects of the last 100 years are attributable. the maths is hard (and i'm not talking 'balance your cheque book hard, if PDE's and non-linear feedback systems are not part of your day to day vocabulary you need about 2-4 years tertiary maths just to understand what they on about).
non-scientists should look toward the consensus view to try and gauge the opinion of complicated scientific problems. i can find a crackpot on groups.physics or groups.biology that deny relativity and evolution are credible, it doesn't make it true and i certainly wouldn't bet the world on it.
if you are going to point to complicated sounding denials, quote the literature. last i read, of 928 papers on climate change reviewed in quality journals (impact factor >= 1), 0 showed evidence to contradict the thesis (Mooney, The Rebublican War on Science - excellent piece of pol reporting by the way **caution:refs quoted from memory are highly suspect - check http://www.realclimate.org/ for definitive references and objective reporting from actual climate scientists). It doesn't get much stronger than this.
global 'cooling' was a media beatup. they are crap at doing science reporting. the herald is generally crap at science reporting.
never underestimate the resources and dedication of vested interests. Big Tobacco is alive and well (ironically) despite the most concerted effort ever to ban their product.

Instacalc

2007-03-20T12:08:00.000Z

just found a live, bite sized, embeddable spreadsheet-ish applet (here, i had to use the html version). The embedded applet is even user-adjustable. This looks pretty cool, specially if you're doing a back of the envelope calculation.
How many piano tuners live in Auckland? First order guesstimate might be:

a quick look at the nz yellow pages for piano tuners in auckland gives 19 - not bad!

Govt R&D Expenditure in NZ

2007-03-10T13:05:00.000Z

here.
$500 million sounds like a lot, but that's only 0.5% odd of GDP, it'd have to be well over a billion to even be OECD average (and business would need to do the same).
Not sure if i agree with the focus on 18 month ROI's, i still think bulk funding of specialised areas with detailed dispersement left to them would be a clearer way of funding.
Let's see if Helen walks the walk with her sustainability drive by doubling R&D into a single centre of excellence (preferably somewhere that people want to live) focused on the multi-discipline skills needed to tackle the problem.

MRP says no to the Marsden B option

2007-03-07T19:12:00.000Z

here.
Fair enough, it's all about options.
It's interesting to see that DG is saying wind and geothermal are both competitive on price and have a strong outlook for the 2020 timeframe. $2 billion investment from the 4th largest generator is not a trivial amount of cash...

Brian Fallow on green electricity generation

2007-03-07T18:52:00.000Z

here.
1-2 c/kWh subsidy to make them better than gas fired huh? Man, that sounds like a reasonable insurance policy type cost.
Do you think NZ as a whole could benefit from a 1-2 c/kWh investment in electricity production? I sure do. Repeat after me people: sad as it is, people don't value things they don't have to pay for. If our electricity is cheap, we'll make and sell things that need cheap electricity (can you say aluminium?). If it's more expensive, we'll make and sell things that earn more money. I think that betting _against_ NZ ingenuity is a crazier bet than thinking we'll be doing exactly the same thing in 2020 as we did in 1980 (i can't believe that typing 1980 feels like the dark ages, i was at college in the 80's...).

NZH Editorial on Biofuels

2007-03-05T17:27:00.000Z

here.
The summary? Biofuels may be a good option but it's a complex problem. Maybe the best option is to not do anything for a few years and see how it plays out.
Ah, the kiwi spirit in all its glory. In fact, it's quite close to the core on this one. Biofuels taken out of context is irrational. What's the point in substituting one fuel for another when a lot of the problems are car-oriented not just fuel-oriented? Without considering land use patterns and letting people get to work in a reasonable time via public transport, all you're doing is exacerbating the congestion problem.
If you were serious about car pollution, double the cost of petrol over the next 5 years and re-distribute the income into biofuel subsidies, R&D and public transport. Petrol price will do more to change car use behaviour and urban sprawl than any of the think tank white papers.
Repeat. By 2025 you'd see some serious behavioural change. But maybe the AA, NZR and NZOG wouldn't like that?

Public Transport in Auckland

2007-03-05T13:39:00.000Z

hattip to RB at Public Address, this series about the roading lobby in Auckland says it all.

The only idea i ever had for PT in Auckland was to build a bicycle lift in the CBD but build it for height, not distance - say up Queen St to K Rd. You could get to Parnell, Ponsonby, Ak Uni on Symonds St etc all from the intersection of K Rd and Queen St. If it went straight from Britomart how cool would that be? Cycling downhill is just plain pleasant... Mind you, it'd only work at capacity when it wasn't raining, this IS Auckland after all. There is already one built somewhere (JGFI) so it's not crazy.

Carbon trading for Meridian's C-neutral

2007-03-01T13:23:00.001Z

here.
And fair enough too.

Meridian is carbon neutral

2007-03-01T13:13:00.000Z

here.
Nice work!
Now if you're a NZ exporter (heck producer period), buy your energy from Meridian and paint in big bright letters on your product 'carbon neutral, made in NZ' and sell it for a whopping premium overseas.
Use profits from said transaction to fund higher priced electricity purchases and strangely eccentric hobbies...
Rinse and repeat.

NZ's hydrogen bandwagon just keeps on rolling...

2007-03-01T13:01:00.000Z

here.
OMFG. There's nothing scarier than a technocrat with the answer. Carbon dioxide a problem? This'll fix it.
Repeat after me people "hydrogen may be the answer, but it's not guaranteed" and my $0.02 thinks it is definitely NOT the answer. I have yet to see a compelling case for it's use that isn't selectively blind to the elephant in the room (let's use electricity to make hydrogen that we can then use later to make electricity).
If you are going to release govt funding, make sure it's tied directly to something useful and measureable i.e. tonnes of carbon avoided for instance, then let the crazies out of the box (i really need to track down that old Genesis ad where the mad scientist concedes that, of course, he'll need more pigs... brilliant) and let the market figure out what is best for the individual. Oh yeah, stop funding studies of things you might want to do in 5 years and start actually doing something - learning by doing is an acceptable route to IP. If CRL can figure out a way to get the energy out of coal without the CO2, it's got a world-wide licence to print money - get cracking, you don't need a study to know it's a good idea.
Ye gods, it's like asking AT&T in 1970 what the internet was going to look like 2007. Looking back on their predictions shows it's more, less and completely different to what they imagined. It's going to be exactly the same with our energy gen/use patterns.

Rod Oram on Navman's recent history

2007-02-28T18:00:00.000Z

here.
I have to agree that selling your company for huge profits and trying to make a world wide name for yourself is both challenging and a smart business move for NZ niche players. Also, the experience they have gained (combined with some angel investment cash) should enable a few second generation companies to have a bash at another niche. If we haven't got a decent sized company by the 5th generation or so i'd start to worry about something structural but for the first couple? nah, it was the right decision at the time.

Sustainable NZ issues

2007-02-28T17:55:00.000Z

in the electricity sector.
Reasonable enough requests from Contact. Don't mention the farming sector though...

Brian Fallow on Climate Change policies

2007-02-28T14:44:00.000Z

here.
BF is doing a good job at trying to keep things in perspective. I'm still sceptical of the economics not justifying any action 'because it could cost the world billions' (feel free to place little finger on corner of mouth).
i don't know about you but i think there's a few hundred billion being squandered on all sorts of stupid things (i won't even mention the trillions wasted on stupid wars). a slight bit of pressure or emphasis on climate science and energy research within the budgets already in existence is a tangible and proportional response. the fact that 10 years has slipped past is bringing home the cost of inaction - every year delayed in some sort of response means that it needs to be a little bigger when you do actually get around to it.
also, never forget who pays the majority of the bills when it comes to climate research - that schizophrenic society we all have a love/hate relationship with, the US.
oh yeah - if you need some canarys-in-mine to see if your govt is actually doing anything, look for: banning the incandescent lightbulb (or taxing), mandating fuel mileage increases (or taxing) for cars, updating insulation/building practices on new home builds and increasing the % of zero-carbon for your electricity network.

Deborah Coddington on Climate Change

2007-02-28T14:14:00.000Z

here.
DC doesn't buy into all this stuff. She's found 2 sources that say exactly what she sees around her every day - things are pretty much the same as when i grew up! Climate change? what climate change. I say let's attack the messengers and accuse them of drinking wine...
DC could be forgiven for not trying to understand the issue. it's complicated, extremely specialised and likely to result in change of the status quo. i mean, she'd have to 'google' for some 'webpages' that try and outline what the real issues are. for this to be meaningful, you'd have to like, you know, evaluate 'things' and try and figure out what the consensus opinion is.
oh man! that'd take, like, days! i'm sure DC whips out these herald fluff pieces over a coffee once a week.
i guess if i had to try and get her to understand one thing it'd be 'little changes don't always result in little effects'. understand that and you're halfway toward understanding half the uncertainty in climate change predictions.
not to worry, i'm sure she'll be up in arms about something else by next week.

arrgghh - Aussie beat us to it

2007-02-20T15:54:00.000Z

here.
by banning incandescent lightbulbs. this is such a no-brainer, i can't believe NZ didn't do it years ago.
now if only we could see a steady rise if petrol prices with the proceeds devoted to R&D and public transport subsidies, a polluter pays tax...
hurry up helen, put your money where your mouth is.

Rod Oram on Helen's sustainability pledge

2007-02-19T11:29:00.000Z

here.
Pretty much spot on commentary actually...

Helen ties Sustainability to NZ-ness

2007-02-13T10:52:00.000Z

here. Speech here.

Sustainable NZ = Nuclear-free NZ?

Nice speech.
Remember, the actual revolution begins when incandescent light bulbs are banned outright or taxed into irrelevence, much like smoking...

Fran O'Sullivan looks at both sides of the GHG debate

2007-02-07T11:15:00.000Z

here.
What does this statement for instance mean?

Other coalition members who have delved into the underlying science claim New Zealand has had negligible warming over the past 50 years and that last year was 0.7C below the figure for 2005.

Nobody suggests that the whole world is going to lock-step itself 0.5 dC warmer. Some places are going to get a whole lot warmer and some are going to get very cold. It's an average. You could also argue that saying 'i'm alright, what's the problem' is exactly the kind of attitude that got us into this mess.
Let's not forget, regardless of climate change's effects over the next 50 years, it is poor countries that will suffer and it will be mostly poor people who die. morality justification is left as an exercise for the reader.
Is climate change real? how the heck would i know? do vaccines work? the MMR debate would imply that people don't like to be told things that conflict with their world-view. the only thing you can do is to ask the experts for their best guess and compile more and more evidence. over time it becomes easier to accept the underlying hypothesis than it is to not accept it.
If you want point-by-point debate on climate change 'stallers' then go to realclimate.org - they'll give you the other 99.9% of climate scientists response to the technoFUD of the stallers far better than i could.
note to FS: if you are going to argue for perspective, dig a little deeper into the issues, the maths is a little more complicated than compound interest or ROI so it's not going to be easy...

Traditional science publishers hire PR firms to scuttle open access

2007-01-28T10:55:00.000Z

here.
Doesn't surprise me - this industry has descended into blatant rent-seeking behaviour over the last couple decades. It's gotten to the point in my field (heterogeneous catalysis) that all (pretty much) the journals dedicated to the subject are owned by Elsevier. No prizes for guessing what happens when you own all the journals...
I also suspect that a lot of lecturers (the reveiwers, how many businesses let their employees take a day of 3-5 times per month to review articles for another business?) are tacitly pulled into the system since they can aspire to become 'editors' of the journals and thus pump up the ol' resume.
Add in these ridiculous 'impact factor' calculations and you have the makings of a ludicrous Kafkaesque like rabbit warren of being seen to publish in journals not because it's good work but because the journals themselves define good work. Madness!
Publish or perish: you reap what you sow.

US Energy Flows

2007-01-27T12:00:00.000Z

Cool diagram. Check out the losses from the transport sector.

More Biofuel research in NZ

2007-01-23T10:57:00.000Z

cool.
We could lead the world in this technology if we wanted to.
It's a very cross-discipline science and technology application and goes right through the spectrum from blue-sky to nuts'n'bolts engineering and fits seamlessly with our image and our historical pastoral economy. You'd think we'd be further down the path by now huh?

Security in Australia

2007-01-16T15:38:00.000Z

why oh why doesn't govt get security? It's not that difficult, therefore i suspect that they don't wish to get it. The best summary of computer security and databases built by govt is still 'Yes, Minister' made in the early 80's and still disturbingly current!
Aussie seems to be going through the motions and all the same stupid assurances are thrown out. They all boil down to 'Trust Me'. Not bloody likely given the ham fisted efforts of govt so far with large IT budgets.

Get these:

Only those who need to see your files will be allowed access, and even then they will only have access to the information they need

Sensitive information will be accessible only by agency readers.

One of the greatest fears people have is having their identity stolen. Existing cards and vouchers make that all too easy.

Minister: your biggest security concern isn't the masses, it is the minimum paid data clerk that you've outsourced your IT dept to working out of Connabarabran. They'll input or delete any data you want for $200 and a free slab of stubbies (and that includes switching names! oh the horror!).
The sole saving grace of a paper record is that it's "£$£"$ hard to gain access to it!!

I'm all for using technology wisely but please, if this is the best you can come up with - the big 'ol database - then you need to go back and double the 12 mins you spent thinking this through.
As for the slimy IT advisors licking their lips at all that taxpayer trough money - you're disgusting.
Bring back a competent civil service!!

I'm not the only one who's pi$$ed off with baby boomers...

2007-01-16T13:32:00.000Z

here.
It seems that someone else has been wondering what happens if older people don't move over and let the younger ones have a go...

Don't mention the war...

2007-01-09T11:03:00.000Z

h/t to signs of the times.org

this would be hilarious if it weren't so damned alarming. The Tube police: ever watchful for Brazilian electricians.

Angel investment in NZ

2007-01-08T13:01:00.000Z

story in today's herald here.
Angel investment is typically seed funding from a single individual personal wealth. It's the next step up the ladder from friends, families and fools...
NZ doesn't really have an institutional VC community (i'm not counting govt, that's called a subsidy or kick-back...) or serious efforts to find international VC's. It's one of those vicious cycles where successful people fund start-ups but with the start-ups, there's fewer successful people...

One thing that jumped out at me was this:

ICEAngel Investments
* Biomatters, biotech software $988,000
* Nexus6, drug delivery and health information technology $500,000
* Calcium, e-marketing software development $200,000
* Optima Corporation, software $1.2 million
* Go Virtual, medical software $930,000
* Data Brake, intelligent brake light system $500,000
* Total ICEAngel investments $4.23 million

They're mostly IT funding. This may reflect on where the investors made their money and I agree that if you're going to invest, invest in something you have a credible opinion on. My question is: what makes NZ think it can succeed in software? or are they targeting one particular niche like medical software? targeting a niche makes a lot of sense but as you can see from the figures (and in the story), it's just not much money. About the only thing you can do with $250,000 NZD is buy a half dozen workstations, a server and 3-4 bodies for 2 years.
Are we focusing on software because we think we can be competitive in a couple of niche areas or... are we doing software because it's the only thing we can afford to invest in?

For instance, if you wanted to do some serious genetic work (or anything phys sci) $250,000 NZD is about what you'd budget for equipment. Where does NZ make it's foreign exchange? Dead animals, animal products and tourists. You can't do any serious research with a half-mil on the DNA of our animal products (and farmers seem to think the govt should pay for it anyway) and I haven't noticed any software specifically targeting tourism - maybe it's out there and is just busy getting on with it...
Just my opinion but if I was picking something that NZ is truley world class in already (nz wide, you need an ecosystem of businesses to hedge your entrepeneur risk) and looking to make software that i'd sell/lease around the world, tourism would have to be high on the list. So where are they? am i missing something here?

Peter Garrett on nuclear power in Aus

2007-01-04T11:01:00.000Z

here.
If this is what passes for environmental debate in Australia, it's not just screwed, it's super-screwed.
My $0.02, taxpayer subsidies to protect the commons are exactly what a responsible government should consider with something as difficult as energy policy. It's a slippery slope towards back-handers but if we can seperate the Reserve Banks from the politicians, I don't see it as insurmountable.

Feather and hammer drop on the moon

2006-12-23T14:03:00.000Z

yet another insightful experiment based on manned spaceflight. still, very cute.

Rod Oram on the draft energy strategy

2006-12-21T13:07:00.000Z

here.
The only thing i'm surprised about is how these columnists remain upbeat about our govt's approach to climate change and complex problems. They've kicked for touch on every single issue that has long term obvious-ness with short term pain (and that's localised voter pain, not NZ Inc. pain i.e. a functioning first world electricity sector *cough*Vector/Transpower*cough*).
Until proven otherwise, HC and Co. are just talking. Again. Why would you assume anything else based on past behaviour?

The original article describing the structure of DNA in Nature

2006-12-18T16:39:00.000Z

here.
What a classic! check out the understatement in the last paragraph, a contender for the all time understatement in science.

BAE/Saudi in the UK

2006-12-15T10:31:00.000Z

If you ever needed more proof that big business and politics are joined at the hip, today's revelation that a bribery investigation by the UK SFO into BAE and Saudi Arabia has been called off should be the last bit you'll ever need - again.
Westminster bought and paid for. I guess that's one good thing you can say for all those Eton and Oxbridge civil servants, they stay bought. I've been surprised since moving over here just how common it is for a front bencher to also sit on the board of a huge company. I'm just soooo convinced that there's no conflict of interest there... One of them is even British Tobacco. I mean, how seriously are you taking public health when your MP's are paid money by those guys?

Check this out from today's Guardian:

The UK made overseas bribery illegal in 2002, under US pressure. Labour ministers subsequently claimed they were determined to stamp out corruption, but in practice no prosecutions have taken place under the new law.

2002! Remember people, BAE makes guns and things designed to seriously crimp your dancefloor moves. What on earth do you think they were doing during the '90s? Any wars floating to the top of your consiousness that needed a few guns or landmines? I can think of a couple...

I had already heard of this by reading 'As used on the famous Nelson Mandela' a book by a British activist/comedian (now there's a job that needs a few more bodies!). He dregs up some seriously smelly goo from BAE's backroom. Don't read it if you're of a delicate persuasion, it'll make a rescue ship engine room mechanic sick to their stomach.
Great to see BAE and Rolls Royce share price has bounced up on the news. Nothing crimps your profits like being exposed as disgusting shameful pieces of human scum.

The CIA is watching... and asking your permission?

2006-12-15T08:49:00.000Z

Tried to click through to a link for a Peter Norvig programming article and i have to confirm a certificate from cia.gov?? WTF??!!
the website seems to be legit, why do i get certificates from the cia? there's a chinese flag on the page, maybe they're webcrawling for all those pesky terrawrists?

EtOH Google Tech Talk

2006-12-14T21:23:00.000Z

with Vinod Khosla

Brian Fallow on energy

2006-12-14T10:32:00.000Z

here.
and he does a good job and pointing out the promise and spend approach. I think people forgot how the Labour govt squandered 1% of NZ's GDP based on bad analysis over the Kyoto credits. Wonder where that column was on the cost-benefit spreadsheet...

As always with complex problems, a measured and sustained approach needs to be adopted. If you want to know about energy and climate change and its impacts on NZ Inc. who do you call? The issue really does need some focused and dedicated brainpower providing some trusted and non-partisan analysis.

ups to the NZ Herald's makeover. seems to take a little longer to load but it is a lot 'cleaner' on the look and feel. I knew something was up when the little '[p]' s dissapeared a couple days ago...
Publish

Investing for idiots

2006-12-13T10:42:00.000Z

this guy at Stuff.co.nz is an investment advisor?
All of us that can handle the advanced concept of percentages can see the logic in his approach but if he thinks anyone in the real world is going to pass up a million in the hand today (and potentially tomorrow) on the vague promise of bucketloads more later on is an idiot - i mean, he even mentions the uncle is a bit scatterbrained.
I think the eco-fundy term is 'front loading vs back loading'. If you are risk averse (and by adverse here, you're talking only a few measly millions rather than stonkingly large amounts) you would place a premium on liquidity and the ability to diversify constantly. If you are a returns junky, you'd double up every day hoping that the house of cards holds up long enough for you to pull out just before it goes belly up.
Seriously, you have to wonder why anyone over the age of 50 is telling you to pour every cent of your worth into the stockmarket on the assumption that the world will behave the same for the next 50 years as it has (selectively speaking) for the last 50. Could the baby boomers be pulling yet another free ride? Not content with spending their inherited assets, they're trying to borrow from the next generation?
Compare and contrast the analogy to house prices, mutual funds and govt policy is left as an excercise for the reader.
FTB - wanna join my cult?

NZ Herald editorial on the energy policy

2006-12-13T09:23:00.000Z

here.
ye gods. If you think this is balanced, you don't understand the issues.
I love this:

Equally, it is recognised that New Zealand's response to climate change should not outpace progress in other parts of the world.

too right! last thing you would want is some point of difference in a globalised world of freer markets. "smart manufacturing energy rich country with low carbon footprint requires rich planet-concious consumers" - yeah, you're probably right, never work in the real world. we should scream from our beautiful mountain tops "we're no more crap than anyone else!"
the horror. the horror.

Don't need any clean-green markup in your prices. don't need to inspire your fellow countrymen with an audacious scary goal that puts a glow in your heart. if we do what everyone else is doing, and at the same rate, she'll be right. after all, look at how we're doing in the OECD and against Australia... err, well anyway, hows that stadium coming along?

Colin James on Labour's energy 'strategy'

2006-12-13T08:56:00.000Z

here.
he's the only NZ commentator that i think is bringing all the right viewpoints to bear on the subject - political, economic and technical - and understands the challenges. Having said that, i think he's far too polite....

John Armstrong sums up Labour's 'Carbon Neutral' aims

2006-12-12T13:21:00.000Z

here.
and he gets to the nub of the issue directly.
Labour talks the talk and pretty much sits on its @rse...

and some more on electricity

2006-12-12T09:22:00.000Z

ah, i love a good NZ Herald talk fest...
here.

Brian Leyland vs the rest

2006-12-12T09:14:00.000Z

more on the energy policy here.

I'm going with Meridian's boss on this one - we honestly have no idea what the long term cost-benefit of going renewables is. You can make a case that it will cost 20% more just as easily as saying that it becomes a comparative advantage and will save 25% over the long term. The house of cards stacks either way.
Just remember, the cost of oil has pretty much tripled over the last 3-4 years and the world hasn't ended (not to mention the US decided to spend a trillion dollars on a stupid war - how do you include costs like that on your economy projections?).
People are very smart when it comes to minimising cost - if energy starts to cost more, we'll figure out how to make it cheaper or use it better. It's probably the one thing you can actually count on.

The Labour Energy Strategy

2006-12-12T08:56:00.000Z

mentioned in the Herald today.
But i'm not convinced you can call something a strategy when it's just 'aspirational'. I mean seriously, what does that mean? Can the Reserve Bank get away with 5% inflation and reply that it thought the 1-3% targets were... aspirational?

Here's the press release.
You gotta love this bit:

Creating a pathway for internalisation of fossil fuel emissions in the electricity sector so costs are met by those who create them

isn't that called a tax? and what happens when you tax something at the bottom of the food chain? costs are simply transferred to customers. Great, extra revenue for the trough-dwellers and no practical change in behaviour for the electricity sector - i mean honestly, is this the best they can come up with?

what happened last time the govt tried to tax a sector of the economy for their GHG emmissions... oh yeah, it got dubbed 'the fart tax' and after driving a tractor up the steps of parliament and some lobbying by the climate sceptic Farmer's Federation, it got quickly scrapped. A true sign of the Labour party commitment to any potentially difficult issue.

check out the bullet points on the press release - you see any indication of the major emmission sectors of the NZ economy? you'd be forgiven for thinking it's all transport and coal power stations and they forgot the elephant in the room - ruminants.

And don't forget, the % change in emmissions from fossil fuel electricity is a stupid statistic (from the doyen of stupid statistics - the green party). this is an economy wide metric, it makes no sense to punish coal burning power stations if we are able to more than offset the emmissions with reduced transport emmissions (for example).

Energy policy is complicated enough, stir in the uncertain long term effects of climate change and it becomes downright insane. That's no reason to bury your head in the sand though - come on NZ Inc., we're gonna get clobbered if we don't start walking the clean-green walk, the 'food miles' battle was just the beginning.

NZ's R&D tax breaks

2006-12-07T13:16:00.000Z

described by Brian Fallow here.
Sounds like a fairly modest proposal that will maintain our status quo position.
Let's face it, 3 hours away there's a big country that pays more and invests more in these areas. It takes a pretty special kind of person to refuse to go where the work is.
I'm cynical but i think we're going to see a lot of QA and QC procedures qualifying as 'innovative developments' and hence more misallocation of resources.
Mind you, to be fair, you don't get to be in the bottom half of the OECD rankings by accident. It takes years of cummulative effort for that kind of result.

Kansas outlaws evolution

2006-12-01T13:27:00.001Z

here.

NZ Herald advetisement accidentally labelled story

2006-12-01T13:05:00.000Z

here.
This rivals even their magnet 'therapy' copout of earlier this year.
Their science reporting is truely embarrassing.

Royal Society Alert 451

2006-11-30T15:43:00.000Z

Comment this week:

1. CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICISM MEMES
Comment by Royal Society Policy Analyst, Dr Jez Weston
Scepticism is an intrinsic requirement for science to progress. It helps us
ask the right questions to test our theories. However, many questions
continually arise in scepticism about climate change. To some extent, these
arguments qualify as memes, in that they propagate and proliferate and as
memes, they resist disposal by answers. So what are some examples?

"The effect of human-produced greenhouse gases is tiny in comparison to the
warming effect of water vapour". This is true, but irrelevant. The amount
of water vapour in the atmosphere changes on a daily basis and is not
within our ability to influence. Water vapour multiplies the effects of our
own changes to the climate.

Another meme is the uncertainty of our predictions. Uncertainty is inherent
when studying a complex system like climate. The scale of response to
increases in greenhouse gases is governed by a host of feedback mechanisms,
some of which interact with each other. Hence the IPCC's 2001 warming
predictions of somewhere between 1.4 and 5.8 C. This uncertainty makes it
difficult to work out the optimum response to minimise climate change, but
it is not an excuse to pretend it isn't happening.

Other memes lie outside the bounds of scientific debate. The oft-repeated
claim that "global warming stopped in 1998" is an example of cherry-picking
of the data. 1998 was the warmest year on record. By definition,
temperatures have been cooler since the record-setting year. The global
temperature record has fluctuations because the climate has fluctuations
but the long term trend is upwards and it is long term trends that matter.

The meme that "climate change prediction depends upon obscure computer
modelling" is just plain wrong. I advise everyone to read Svante Arrhenius'
1896 paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the
Temperature of the Ground". Made with a pencil and paper, his predictions
are within a factor of two of the IPCC predictions, on a global scale. What
computers are needed for are the detailed calculations of impacts on a
local scale.

A final meme runs "scientific truth is not determined by consensus so the
fact that most scientists agree on climate change doesn't mean that climate
change is happening". It is true to say that science does not depend upon
consensus. I'd go beyond that to say that scientists hate consensus. It is
boring. We scientists are trained to argue with each other, over every tiny
little point. We love a good bust up. When we start agreeing it's because
we understand what's going on.

Hard to disagree with that...
The dabate has moved on from 'if' to 'what' i.e. what, if anything, should we do about our influence on climate? A viable option (albeit one i don't subscribe to) is to do absolutely nothing and let our children figure it out.
Putting your options on the table though assumes a reasonable debate and as JW's meme's comment points out - climate change 'debate' more closely resembles the "cute little baby seals" emotive campaigns of Greenpeace in yesteryear than a hard-headed political, financial and technological risk analysis.
NB please note that i think Greenpeace will be on the right side of history on that campaign, even though i disagree with everything they've stood for since the late 80's

I need this!!

2006-11-27T13:36:00.001Z

this is quite possibly the best chair ever....

Second Life experiments with copyright

2006-11-27T13:32:00.000Z

in Wired.
This response is far more interesting than the original one i linked to before. A norms based approach to copyright can be just as effective (think recipes and fashion vs movies and widgets). Regardless of how it turns out, this is an expt of huge proportions - it's going to be fascinating watching it evolve.

Methane clathrates off NZ coast

2006-11-24T13:29:00.000Z

NIWA has just finished an expedition off the coast apparantly and tracked some indigenous methane clathrate deposits off the east coast of the Nth Island while studying the biology of the local inhabitants (which run entirely off the methane energy - no sunlight required. That's pretty cool all by itself).
The article is mistaken by referring to the deposits as 'frozen methane' although it's a pretty understandable mistake (for a journo major). A clathrate is a far more interesting beastie than plain old frozen methane (which freezes at -182.5 degrees Celcius -uumm did the reporter wonder why the water was still liquid...).
Clathrates get a good Wiki write-up here, complete with a very cool 'burning ice' photo. The methane molecule is literally trapped in a cage of water molecules. I'm not sure of the details (and i'm not sure the details are particularly clear to anyone) but some structures become more stable when they're built around scaffolding - to a chemist replace structure with 'hydrogen bonded water molecules' and scaffold with 'molecule'. Unlike say, a stone arch where you can remove the scaffolding after construction and still retain the structure, clathrates will collapse without both ingrediants.
The ice is trying to freeze which would normally create 'normal' ice (last time i checked there were at least a dozen structures for ice and an acquaintance at Oxford just made a name for himself by finding a brand new one) but in the presence of the methane, it self-assembles into a cage. As the ice starts to melt (by bringing it to the surface of the ocean) the methane is released. How cool is that?

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if NZ's methane clathrate reserves made Maui look like a puddle...

There plenty of energy sloshing around, we just haven't bothered to look for it.

PV panel payback time

2006-11-23T16:02:00.000Z

h/t to Jez Weston on a question i posed a while back on PV payback times.
Here.

Economic transformation the tech-o-no-logical way

2006-11-23T15:35:00.000Z

As proposed by Jez Weston in this week's RSNZ Alert No. 450

1. IS OUR INNOVATION SYSTEM GOING TO DELIVER ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION?
Comment by Royal Society Policy Analyst, Dr Jez Weston
We have been hearing about economic transformation for about five years
now, at least since the first Knowledge Wave conference in 2001. But what
does economic transformation mean and how would we know if we had one? The
Ministry of Economic Development (MED) and Cabinet have released some work
about just that. The cabinet papers say all the right things about creating
"a high value, innovative and creative economy"; through higher
productivity, a more skilled workforce, smarter resource use, stronger
international connections, a vibrant primary sector and a diversified economy.

Given that our innovation system is supposed to be the engine of this new
car, is it going to be able to provide enough push? Many of the recent
changes to the system have been to improve the efficiency of our RS&T
setup. However, a more effective innovation system, in the first instance,
means simply a larger system. The big gap is in the private sector,
especially as private R&D produces more patents than public R&D, per
dollar. So it\'s pleasing to see our private R&D spending growing faster
than the OECD average rate (6.0% against 3.7%). The business tax review is
looking closely at R&D support and this would be most welcome. MED research
suggests that, dollar for dollar, tax incentives are more effective at
promoting private R&D than grant-based schemes such as the current
Technology for Business Growth and Grants for Private Sector R&D. Given
finite resources, tax reforms might offer greater bang for the buck.

So it seems as if we are heading towards the best policy for addressing the
major problem with our innovation system. However, business R&D might be
growing fast but it\'s starting from a tiny base, with investment less than
a third of the OECD average. Further MED research suggests that our RS&T
system is just the size you would expect, given our disadvantages of
distance from markets, firm size and industrial structure. So how much of a
push are we going to get? Given that we\'re only shelling out for a Civic,
we can\'t expect it to perform like a Porsche.

2. SEMINAR, 1 DECEMBER, ON PRICING GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, WELLINGTON
Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies in the School of
Government and the School of Earth Sciences will be running a discussion
"So you want a Price on Carbon?" with Assoc Professor Ralph Chapman, Simon
Terry and Murray Ward to be Chaired by Professor Jonathan Boston on Friday
1 December in Room 312, Level 3 Railway Building, Bunny Street, Victoria
University from 12.30 p.m. – 1.45 p.m.
The consensus increasingly favours significant action to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. The question is how and when - in particular, how and when
setup. However, a more effective innovation system, in the first instance,
means simply a larger system. The big gap is in the private sector,
especially as private R&D produces more patents than public R&D, per
dollar. So it's pleasing to see our private R&D spending growing faster
than the OECD average rate (6.0% against 3.7%). The business tax review is
looking closely at R&D support and this would be most welcome. MED research
suggests that, dollar for dollar, tax incentives are more effective at
promoting private R&D than grant-based schemes such as the current
Technology for Business Growth and Grants for Private Sector R&D. Given
finite resources, tax reforms might offer greater bang for the buck.

So it seems as if we are heading towards the best policy for addressing the
major problem with our innovation system. However, business R&D might be
growing fast but it's starting from a tiny base, with investment less than
a third of the OECD average. Further MED research suggests that our RS&T
system is just the size you would expect, given our disadvantages of
distance from markets, firm size and industrial structure. So how much of a
push are we going to get? Given that we're only shelling out for a Civic,
we can't expect it to perform like a Porsche.

ummm, from the number of negative items i throw out on this blog based on RS Alerts you'd think i tend to disagree with Jez a lot but on this, i don't think anyone could argue that NZ has exactly the research infrastructure it paid for.

But to belabour the point - we've heard all the talk ad nauseum for a decade. I'm inclined to think if I started working in the mid-80's rather than the mid-90's, i'd be able to say that we've been hearing this for 2 decades...
Here some measurable goals:

The NZ Centre for Biotechnology - a $100 million dollar institute devoted to creating a centre of excellence in applied biotechnology to our pastoral industry. It's either in Auckland or Hamilton since if you want to attract int'l talent, you should be pitching the closest thing NZ has to a global/regional city
Give it a decent wad of funding each year to distribute as it sees fit - scientists are the best judge of science not Wellington beuracrats. Back up the funding with some clear deliverables and fire the CEO if they're not met.
Increase public sector funding to 2x the OECD average and legislate for a 25 year timeframe.
Allow public sector funding applications to include capex and opex for both salaries and equipment. Not funding for salaries is a sop to university/CRI research and hinders one of the most important parts of the tech development cycle - the entrepenuer angle (Q is this still true? what % of contestable funding allows complete independence of a govt organisation?)
Public sector R&D gets a 125% tax write-off. Go on, make it attractive to develop your IP

You get what you pay for...

More on climate change opportunities

2006-11-23T13:35:00.000Z

Brian Fallow in the Herald today.
This:

In the face of this it is easy to say that while New Zealand's per capita emissions might be high and growing, we are still only four-tenths of 1 per cent of the problem and the inertia of the big boys lets us off the hook.

is never an excuse. Your actions should be guided by what you think should be done. It's a decidedly craven attitude to let someone else's base instincts guide your behaviour. It might be the nuggest of truth you need to decide whether you're 'leading' or following.

"If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you?" is a parent cliche precisely 'cause it's true!

Oh, and by the way - 0.4% of the emmissions from 0.06% of the world's population is about a 7-fold more than our fair share...

Helen Clark discusses sustainability

2006-11-19T16:06:00.000Z

blogger was down when i wrote this a few days ago. then i forgot about it. thought i'd chuck it in just to throw it out there.

Helen Clark's sustainibility speech at the Labour conference seems to be stirring up some comment. I don't won't to be a kill joy but we've all seen the govt & The NZ Herald up in arms about some or other issue, it lasts for a few months and then dissapears without a trace. Off the top of my head we have an electricity crises or near crisis every winter, we had a knowledge wave that turned into a damp squib, a fart tax that got canned and next year is NZ Export Year (which says a lot about the priorities of a trading nation that we need to be reminded every now and again to hunt in bigger pastures). Will climate change be a stayer?
I'm thinking it might be, there is a lot of international awareness, especially in countries we're trying to sell stuff to. We've been caught on the back foot with respect to food miles in Europe and politically, i think there's a fair amount of community support for some kiwi ingenuity in shaping how we impact the planet.
The NZ Herald has a couple of op-ed's here and here (which i've lost), and once again, Fran O'Sullivan and John Armstrong hit a couple of nails on the head, especially the capacity Labour has to do anything big - we all remember the back-down over the 'fart' tax which should have been rammed through sans KY. It is a small start but could have provided the impetus for change 2 or 3 years ago (assuming it was either revenue neutral or dedicated to feebates/R&D).
Over at stuff NZ there's Rod Oram and he has some very pertinent things to say - especially regarding Fonterra's and Federated Farmers head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with problems.

Meridian's 'Choices' discussion document on NZ Energy

2006-11-09T21:48:00.000Z

at Meridian's website here.
H/T to Brian Fallow for pointing the way (when is the herald going to figure out that they can 'link' to other websites in their stories, not just the pathetic little 'more columns' bit at the end, it took almost 4 mins to track it down via Google. that's a lifetime in web surfing...).

Labour is also set to release an energy policy document - i wonder if helen was softening us up with her Rotorua agenda on sustainability.

Renewable energy in schools

2006-11-07T09:26:00.000Z

described here.
I'm all for the govt leading the charge on showing renewables and leading from the front and i think schools are an excellent place to start - i think most of us can remember at least once when a 6 year old reminded us to 'make it click', it just seems a little more obvious when a primary schooler says it ;-)

Anyway, i hope the social studies (not entirely sure what SS has to do with renewables) and science teachers don't just espouse the benefits of solar panels as 'good' and not solar panels as 'evil'. the debate is far more subtle than that.
for instance - where did the silicon come from to make the solar panels? how much energy was used (via carbon) to make (and transport) the silicon that you have used to stay 'green'. i don't have any numbers but i suspect that solar panels dig themselves a hole of several years worth of carbon emmissions before they start to go into credit. having said that, they're solid state devices with bugger all failure mechanisms so they should last for decades. i think a school would be the perfect place to invest in the future like that - after all, they're already investing in the most important part of our collective future anyway...
the other side of the equation = conservation, so i hope that the schools involved are serious about things like lighting, insulation and dynamic management - there's lots of scope for savings that aren't thought about.

and why is Genesis helping out? their business is to sell kWh, not deny themselves a customer. i suspect (and by suspect, feel free to subsitute the words 'am certain') that this is being billed under the advertising/marketing budget code. Quick question to any Genesis shareholders (ha!) : what is the ratio of your R&D:advertising budgets? Anything less than 1 is a green wash and i'm guessing yours is probably about 0.00001

Another 2050 scenario for NZ

2006-11-03T13:15:00.000Z

is our marine zone.
Take the worst case scenario's for sealife like this one.
Imagine it's 2035 and NZ marine industry has managed it's resources well and achieved a nice sustainable harvesting level. Now imagine the "£"£$ knuckle over the way who hoovered up theirs with the next generation of drift-nets - the Scourer 3000.
What are they going to do? You would hope that they would honour your boundaries and then buy your product at higher prices but then, let's get real... we already see dodgy registered vessels ducking in and out of our marine areas scooping up some free kaimoana do you think they'll have an attack of the guilties in 25 years? with prices even higher due to no local supply?

If i had to pick a scenario as equally scary as climate change and it's impact on NZ's (hunter gatherer) economy, this would be it. Sure we earn (now) more money from meat and butter but we have to farm for that. Long term, i would expect fisheries, among other maritime bounties, to be a far more lucrative and sustainable asset if managed well. How are we going to react if/when our boundaries are violated at will? Will we have a beefed up naval response force? Hard to believe with NZ's character. WTO complaints? Against who? loads of countries will accept the registration fee of a ship, doesn't mean squat about who actually owns the damn thing. Unlike climate change, there is no need for a global consensus, NZ will have to help itself on this one and that is likely to be expensive - we've got, what?, the 4th largest maritime zone per capita in the world or something?

I would suggest NZ start to diversify it's economy so that if and when (and let's hope never) this starts to happen, it becomes a problem for <5%>10%.
I wonder if anyone has already written an analysis on this scenario...?

Meridian sends massive dividends through to the govt

2006-11-02T13:45:00.000Z

here.
$1.1 billion dollars. Sure there's a windfall gain in that of $800B but still...
Just think of a 1% investment in NZ's energy R&D (which it should be blindingly obvious that energy is what Meridian is supposed to be involved in). That's.... 11 million dollars. Let me write that out slowly... 11,000,000 dollars.
You could start up a lab with 25 PhD's in it and run it for a few years on that kind of cash. 25 world class people in a room, thinking about NZ, food miles, biofuels, hydrogen, carbon neutral, carbon trading, feebates, flourescent lightbulbs, transport hubs, diesel, hybrids, grid upgrades, plug'n'play networks, small scale consumer energy trading...
Good grief Meridian, you couldn't even flip ten mill off the top as an advertising fillip. Your shareholder(which is my freakin' govt who love to talk the talk) should be embarrassed by the excesses you're giving them. Surely you could have thought of something to do with 1 or 2% of that money?

Stern report crib sheet

2006-10-31T16:44:00.000Z

because you know they're the only figures that will ever get reported...
here.

The dangers
All countries will be affected by climate change, but the poorest countries will suffer earliest and most.
Average temperatures could rise by 5C from pre-industrial levels if climate change goes unchecked.
Warming of 3 or 4C will result in many millions more people being flooded. By the middle of the century 200 million may be permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods and drought.
Warming of 4C or more is likely to seriously affect global food production.
Warming of 2C could leave 15-40% species facing extinction.
Before the industrial revolution level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million (ppm) CO2 equivalent (CO2e); the current level is 430ppm CO2e. The level should be limited to 450-550ppm CO2.
Anything higher would substantially increase risks of very harmful impacts. Anything lower would impose very high adjustment costs in the near term and might not even be feasible.
Deforestation is responsible for more emissions than the transport sector.
Climate change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.

Recommended actions
Three elements of policy are required for an effective response: carbon pricing, technology policy and energy efficiency.
Carbon pricing, through taxation, emissions trading or regulation, will show people the full social costs of their actions. The aim should be a global carbon price across countries and sectors.
Emissions trading schemes, like that operating across the EU, should be expanded and linked.
Technology policy should drive the large-scale development and use of a range of low-carbon and high-efficiency products.
Globally, support for energy research and development should at least double; support for the deployment of low-carbon technologies should be increased my up to five times.
International product standards could be introduced.
Large-scale international pilot programmes to explore the best ways to curb deforestation should be started very quickly.
Climate change should be fully integrated into development policy, and rich countries should honour pledges to increase support through overseas development assistance.
International funding should support improved regional information on climate change impacts.
International funding should go into researching new crop varieties that will be more resilient to drought and flood.

Economic impacts
The benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs.
Unabated climate change could cost the world at least 5% of GDP each year; if more dramatic predictions come to pass, the cost could be more than 20% of GDP.
The cost of reducing emissions could be limited to around 1% of global GDP; people could be charged more for carbon-intensive goods.
Each tonne of CO2 we emit causes damages worth at least $85, but emissions can be cut at a cost of less than $25 a tonne.
Shifting the world onto a low-carbon path could eventually benefit the economy by $2.5 trillion a year.
By 2050, markets for low-carbon technologies could be worth at least $500bn.
What we do now can have only a limited effect on the climate over the next 40 or 50 years, but what we do in the next 10-20 years can have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century.