Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Can you use solar hot water to pre-feed a Rinnai-type instant gas system?
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I always thought the director of GCSB was chosen by NSA, with possible helpful input from GCHQ? What Key or any other nominal NZer might have to do with it is unclear - maybe he tried to simplify the process of rubber-stamping the Americans' nomination and came unstuck.
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Paul Campbell,
The LTA says they don't exist so are not considered (!)
What happens if you have one is that energy you generate with petrol is taxed and energy from the grid isn't. So you get a partial subsidy.
To "fairly" tax one would be hard and involve having the cars computer report on electricity / petrol usage.
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Light electric vehicles are exempt from RUC until 2020 at least. That's a reasonable subsidy.
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I don't think the government has any special immunity: both the Companies Act and the Securities Act bind the Crown. I don't believe the formal prospectus has been issued, but when it does there will probably be some sort of clause indicating that the government may have undisclosed knowledge or take actions which may be to the detriment of a shareholder.
(Legislation could in any case never bind future from taking action to the detriment of purchasers).
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Another question is why, back in 1971, the government built and owned the dam and the aluminium company the smelter? Things might have worked better if they'd had the same ownership (either both government or both aluminum company).
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Angus Robertson,
In general, but:
- without Tiwai Point and with transmission upgrades, NZ would be free from coal fired generation and within reach of 100% renewable electricity (through more wind and a bit more hydro/pumped storage allowing the gas-fired generators to be decomissioned)
- the dominant consumer use of power in NZ is heating, and currently direct gas (for those that can afford it) is quite a lot cheaper than electricity for this. Making electricity prices competitive with gas in combination with making electricity 100% renewable would substantially decrease carbon emissions
- it's all very well for the affluent to argue for expensive electricity from homes with $100k plus of insulation and efficient heating. For the rest, there is a real and existing fuel poverty issue -
A motorist can see a person wandering up to a crossing, and looking both ways, but a cyclist whizzing across as if it were an automatic assumption
Well yes. What people forget is that the road rules are not some moral code as to who has precedence, but a system to ensure that road users behave in a predictable fashion, thus helping them avoid each other. If you decide to operate outside the system, then you'll reduce your chances of being noticed. Which might be ok, *provided* you assume you are invisible to others, which I generally do on a bike.
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Imagine New Zealand hosting a global data centre cluster in Dunedin, drawing on our cheap renewable energy, complementary timezone for Europe and the US, and our (unearned) green reputation
I'm just back from travelling, so excuse the late comment, but has anyone seen a business plan for such a thing that they can point me to?
As far as I can see energy costs are in the 10-15% range of total data centre costs (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1442113 http://privatecloudrentals.com/EMSSamples/TrueCost.pdf) *excluding* networking and software. Even with comparable cheap power to the smelter (sources suggest maybe 4c per kWh) our power isn't at a substantial discount to typical US rates. Against that, unless the taxpayer is gifting bandwidth to the datacentre, there's a substantial cost for most applications in sending data to and from a site very remote from all major markets,
And even if it did work (at a cost of a substantial subsidy, one would expect) then what would it do for NZ? The servers and ancillary equipment would almost all be imported. Staffing (per the report above) isn't a big proportion of datacentre spend, and a lot of those staff are cleaners and gardeners. There's absolutely no reason for any of the added value functions like software development to colocate with the servers (especially if those servers are in Southland).
We'd be much better off with renewable, reasonably priced electricity for the whole country than any new-tech scheme (has anyone suggested hydrogen electrolysis yet?).
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NZAS contributes $525 million to the Southland economy (10.5 per cent of Southland's GDP), 3,200 full time equivalent jobs and $1,600 million in Southland regional sales. Export revenue is around $1 billion each year.
This doesn't square with what can be found with a small amount of research. The document that quote comes from, I think shows production of 272,000 tonnes in 2009 which at current Al prices of NZD2200 per tonne is a net revenue of NZD609mln. This chart shows that Al production costs are dominated by alumina, power and carbon (for electrodes) all of which are imported, leaving 20% for labour and other costs.
That implies the smelter spends in labour and local supplier costs around NZD120mln, which is a very long way from 3.5bln. (Given their total labour force of 870 employees and contractors, that equates to a generous 137k per head and is probably inflated by things like equipment purchases and contractors non-labour costs).
I'm guessing the quoted numbers are using the same theory of Magic Money that applies to anything the government wants to blow our dollars on: rugby stadia and motorways, for instance.