Posts by Andrew Stevenson
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It could be a two stage thing; if you throw out a reference and someone gets it, then there is one *ping* only. Which allows you to establish the connection (Emma and the fishy song), or suffer the
Blank stares and twisted smiles
But introducing the wordplay and mashups in the references takes it to a higher level, allowing more reward pings - and if less is more then just think how much more more is.
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It's from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, RiffRaff and Brad.
D'oh - I fail at cultural references
Its a fair cop guv'nor, but its me fundementalist upbringing to blame -
OK I get the "I do not think it means what you think it means", but is the "You're wet. Yes its raining" from the non Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie (concluding the phase with "bloody Normans") ?
"I know EXACTELY what you mean!" is one of our stock phrases, the reference is from travelling in Europe - but others we use are cultural references as opposed to private jokes.
We also introduce variations to a known reference to suit the situation, just to see if the others will pick up on it.
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Damien
It is becoming commonplace overseas, and there are some small scale exporting installations in NZ too. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it will probably cost more then power generated at a power station and delivered to your door... (20c/kWh ish) which is where the argument become pointless, or at least expensive.Retailers don't pay seperately for maintenance on any plant, generators build this into their price (7-8c/kWh long run). If you require retailers to pay a higher price for home brewed electrons (be it retail price or the actual cost of the home brew), then you are subsidising the home brewers. Might be a bit difficult to twist the arms of non SOE companies to do this.
James
In that article it said that the meter runs backwards when electricity is sold back into the grid. I'm pretty sure this is not allowed under the electricity metering and reconciliation arrangements (have to have a seperate export meter or register). Also ,IRD considers running the meter backwards (netting off) to be tax avoidence due to the GST and income issues.
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Kyle
I'm assuming you mean photovoltaic panels for generating electricity as opposed to solar thermal panels for producing hot water.If you're grid connected you can feed it back in (see above), or you can store it in batteries (expensive, require maintenance and replacement) or even as heat in the hot water cylinder or thermal hmass of the house. You're probably better of burning $5 notes in wetback, but hey its a free country.
If you're not gird connected then PV is a good part of the solution for you, but you will need the battery bank and charger/inverter etc -
Rich
They probably have heat pumps, which can be used in reverse as aircon, and is potentially a problem. Hot weather means low hydro storage, Huntly constrained out by river temperature, transmission lines thermally constrained... and now a new peak demand for power to run heat pumps in reverse. A lot of cities overseas have summer peaking problems and there is a good chance Auckland will join them.Andrew
I will remain skeptical on this, the research I've done on solar has been more at the venture capital side of things. There has been a consistent outpouring of 'new solar panel just around the corner, give us some money' but no one has delivered the goods in terms of $/kW in the market yet. You also need to consider the balance of plant required, solar panels are roughly half the total cost of the installation, less when you add electrician time. So a price reduction in panels still means you have to pay a lot for your kit, not quite as much as before but still too much in my view. -
You can feed power back into the grid from a small home generation system. But you have the have a) the right equipment for power conditioning and safety b) agreement from the lines company c) a seperate compliant meter (or at least seperate register on your meter) for export d) a buyer for your electricity.
A, b and c all cost money in some form or other - and this on on top of whatever you paid for the generating kit.
The buyer will usually pay you a lot less then what it costs you to generate the power, all things considered.
And what they pay will probably be below the price you pay for importing power from the grid, and the price of power from the grid will be less then what it costs you to generate at home.
Thats why we build power stations and move the energy around using wires, its generally cheaper for most people that way. -
Damien, I don't think I'm with you on solar power being the answer(suppose I will have to buy North and South to read the whole article - cunning marketing ploy). While the power is 'free' you still have to pay off the capital and maintenance - last time I worked the numbers it was about five times the retail price of power.
Direct use of solar thermal has possibilites, but is reliant on good design and getting the kit installed at the right time.
Solar power in Californian and Germany works because there are huge subsidies available for installers and, in Germany at least, a gaurenteed price for the power. Perhaps we could use the money for tax cuts to fund this in NZ (thats a funny).
There is a raft of other measures around efficiency and direct use of energy (why use heat to make electricity to heat water?) that are probably better considered first.James, its a lovely article you found - I got many laughs from it. While there are interesting thoughts I'd like to see some facts and perhaps logic informing those thoughts too.
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Apart from the direct 900 jobs at the smelter, there is all the supporting roles to consider (doctors, couriers, suppliers etc etc). What happened to small towns when the dairy factories were closed down?
What else do we get, Meridian and Transpower get a whack for making and transporting the power. Both are SOE's so the money goes to the state rather then off shore.
And its not as simple as 'turn off the smelter and feed the power into the national grid for hot showers'. The lines going out of Invercargill do not have enough capcity to feed all of the power generated by Manapouri out to the north (why build it when all the power is going to the smelter?). Getting a transmission constraint sorted out can be a bit of a problem as is evidenced in the Waikato/South Auckland. -
I'd say it's more that we don't care about the efficiency or energy use of a vehicle/appliance.
Like Amory Lovins said, people care about cold beer, not the energy needed to run the fridge.
People rank the factors like capital cost, running costs, appearance, fitness for purpose, street cred etc in making these decisions. And more often then not the energy component is down the list...