Posts by David Haywood
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Oh, that's beautiful, Jon! Thanks so much for directing me to that clip. Wave music!
This is just the sort of sculpture (I guess you'd call this a kinetic scupture?) that I love. I shall add it to the links section of the podcast.
And I'll suggest to RB and Cactuslab that we might need a better filing system here.
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RE: Late-breaking compromise on Bradford's bill...
Actually I think this is very good news! The fact that National, Labour, The Greens and United Future have been able to work out this compromise underlines the fact that (nearly) all of our politicians are well-intentioned on the subject of protecting children. Well done the politicians! (And I don't say that very often.)
Rather gives me hope for the parliamentary process...
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Emma Hart wrote:
I think we should just dedicate this thread to David Haywood from the get-go...
Badly done, Emma! My injuries -- and indeed the generally precarious state of my health -- are no laughing matter. I take such things very seriously indeed, and I don't take kindly to fun being poked at them.
Although I do have a mildly amusing story about an acquaintance of mine who fell off his motorcycle...
The day after the motorbike accident his neck's a bit stiff, and so he's really happy because he reckons he can get a day off work. But it turns out his employer makes him to go the doctor for a sick note.
So anyway, he has to waste half his sick-day getting x-rays, but then he goes to this great party in Rolleston that night -- and he's pogo-ing round, and head-banging, and dancing the night away.
Next morning he's having breakfast when the doctor phones him. And the doctor's like: "Dude, I've just looked at your x-ray, and you've broken your neck. Lie down on the floor very carefully, and I'm sending round an ambulance to take you to hospital."
So he lies on the floor. Eventually the ambulance arrives, and they put him in a special stretcher and drive him to hospital at about 10 km/h, so that they don't accidentally paralyse him. And then they wire his head into this contraption for a couple of weeks.
Heh heh...
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Andrew Llewellyn wrote:
RE: "as long as you've got a decent head"
Passing up the chance for a wisecrack... what does that mean?
Very noble to pass up that opportunity, Andrew...
'Head' just means "the pressure that results from a given height of water". In this case it refers to the height at which your water is sourced. For example, if your pipe inlet is on a hill 100 metres above your turbine (100 m of head) then a mere ten litres per minute of flow would give you about 2.75 kWh per day (allowing for a total turbine-generator efficiency of around 70 per cent).
If your pipe inlet is only 30 cm above your turbine (30 cm of head) then you get bugger all.
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Riddley Walker wrote:
that sounds like the professor is living up to his name, is he quoting from the Maxim Institute Journal of Family Law?
No, Prof Dawkins article (not available online, unfortunately) is very interesting and thoughtful, and well worth reading. It made me realize how tricksy and devious (some) lawyers can be -- not him, I hasten to add.
Your observation:
I have found that most kiwis actually do find the s59 repeal perfectly sensible and un-remarkable when they understand what it's actually about
... made me feel a little less depressed.
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Anke:
A fascinating post -- brutally honest, very funny in parts, and deeply depressing at the same time.
I actually think this is quite a brave piece. I've written about this topic myself on Public Address, and received some pretty nasty emails in response (not quite death threats, but certainly death hints).
So good on you for putting your head above the parapet to describe how this looks to non-NZ eyes.
I imagine that your article might be uncomfortable reading for some NZers -- but sometimes the truth hurts...
Graeme Edgeler wrote:
Hitting children has always been illegal in New Zealand.
Interestingly, Assoc-Prof Kevin Dawkins (University of Otago School of Law) completely dismisses this claim. In an ODT article (Tuesday, April 10, 2007) he says:
The justification [i.e. Section 59(1): "... is justified in using force by way of correction to a child, if the force used is reasonable"] gives the parent a defence to a charge of assault. [Therefore] provided the force is reasonable, the parent is not criminally liable. So much, then, for the claim that smacking is already unlawful.
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Juha Saarinen wrote:
I haven't been following the issue beyond feeling annoyed that electricity prices are rising fast and regularly. Good to hear that it's all under control then.
I wouldn't exactly describe it as under control. But we've certainly got the potential to have a very rosy energy future.
BTW, there's a *very* interesting story about electricity prices in New Zealand. I've found a couple of people who tell me horror stories of what happens (behind the scenes) off-the-record, but no-one (so far) who'll go on the record to tell me something that I can publish.
Mark Thomas wrote:
if you had wind turbines out in the sea, you could use the turbine base as the monolith, and have swingarms and floats poking out each side. so for every turbine you'd have four wave generators. and you'd save money on power cables. brilliant. i don't know why no-one's thought of this before!
It *is* a good idea -- and, in fact, such systems have actually been built (but I can't find a link off-hand). From memory, there were some design flaws in the big-ish system that was attempted, which meant that it ended in tears.
Some people are very keen on combined wind, wave, and tidal machines. The advantage being, as you say, that you don't have to duplicate mounting/transmission costs.
Alas, you couldn't use this approach on the IRL 'wave wobbler' system, because the 'monolith' bit is also floating in the sea (slack-moored).
Andrew Llewellyn wrote:
How feasible are small turbines, either wind or water driven?... Enough to feed back to the grid?
I've never installed micro-wind/hydro myself, but from engineering research/reports that I've read, water driven turbines are *very* feasible. Even quite a small flow can produce significant quantities of cheap electricity (as long as you've got a decent head). Small remote area (rural, etc.) wind turbines are also worthwhile -- I seem to remember that you're better off with wind if you need to install more than three power poles to connect you to the grid (but don't quote me on that).
But I have actually done the numbers on rooftop wind turbines for city-dwellers in Christchurch, and they don't stack up. At best, the payback period is on the scale of the expected life of the turbine. Of course, it's possible that other NZ cities might have a better wind resource -- but I note that a number of British owners of roof-top wind turbines have been disappointed, see:
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Consumers-Disappointed-With-Micro-Turbines.htm
http://www.scoraigwind.com/citywinds/index.htmIn the case of an urban roof-top wind turbine you would feed back electricity into the grid, but not to make money! You'd just use the grid as a battery bank, i.e. you'd dump surplus energy there when you had an over-supply, and take it back when you had a shortage. For a 'small' wind turbine and even a fairly energy-efficient household, you'd almost certainly still be running in deficit to the electricity company.
Juha Saarinen wrote:
What's the longest you can run an underseas power cable... here's an Aussie [wind turbine] mentioned that costs A$10,000 and spins at 100 rpm
Putting on my HTS hat: you could, in principle, run a High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) cable between NZ and Australia, which would efficiently transfer large amounts of electricity. But the cost would be absolutely staggering -- think of $100 per kWh (or more)...
Solwind (in New Zealand) also make an inexpensive vertical axis wind turbine...
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Hi Benjamin,
Very glad that someone is listening to these programmes.
I'll try to set up an RSS feed for you in time for next weekend...
Cheers,
David -
Juha Saarinen wrote:
Oh well, we're pretty stuffed then. Better learn how to become the world's most energy-miserly nation by a massive margin.
Dude, we're the luckiest country in the world in terms of renewable energy: hydro, wind, wave, solar, tidal, geothermal, biomass, etc. we have all in abundance. There's every reason to be very optimistic about our energy future...
Hadyn Green wrote:
I once spoke to David Bellamy about this. He was against tidal generators but not wave generators.
Having some familiarity with Dr Belamy's energy 'expertise' I imagine that this is because he doesn't realize the difference between tidal stream and tidal barrage systems.
Tidal stream is where you use underwater tidal turbines to capture the tidal energy. It's just like a windfarm, but with smaller turbines (since water is more dense). This is the method that you could most easily use in New Zealand.
Tidal barrage is where you essentially build a dam across the mouth of an inlet. As the tide rises the water flows into the dam via a turbine/generator. And then, as the tide falls, the water flows out of the dam via the turbine/generator. It's kind of like a normal hydro dam that can work in both directions.
Environmentalists are (probably fair enough) very anti the tidal barrage approach because it causes a major impact on the ecosystem. So (in my experience) when some of them hear the word 'tidal' they tend to just shout "No, no!" and don't bother to listen to whether you're talking tidal stream or tidal barrage.
Either that, or Dr Bellamy believes the myth about tidal stream turbines chopping up fish. This operates on the same principle as all those birds which are sliced and diced by wind turbines (don't worry, bird lovers, there basically aren't any).
We hope to do a programme on tidal energy before the end of the series.
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Andrew Stevenson wrote:
Ahhh no, not an accountant, actually I'm an energy engineer...
Oops... A thousand apologies for that, Andrew.
Why do we have to align ourselves with Australia?
For the same reason, obviously, that Finland has always been so keen to align herself with Russia...