If National wins ...

[elZorro]

I'm quite happy for JK to tackle facebook head on. Too much beating about the bush here.
I didn't realise that there was doubt that JK paid his taxes?

The Greens and Labour leaders have supplied their personal income statements, John Key refused to. He also seems to know a lot about tax havens. If you invest $50mill, surely you'd expect an income of let's say $5mill a year, that's going to be taxable in the normal scheme of things. We're all expected to pay our share, after all.

[Major von Tempsky]

I'm sure John Key wouldn't give Facebook some heavy advice about PR and paying a reasonable amount of tax! Without checking his own position first.
Unlike with Trump I think you are chasing a rainbow.

[GTM 3442]

I'm quite happy for JK to tackle facebook head on. Too much beating about the bush here.
I didn't realise that there was doubt that JK paid his taxes?

The cynics amongst us might think that it's about as sincere and credible as Tony Abbott's promise to "shirtfront" Vladimir Putin.

[GTM 3442]

GTM, I'm all for using solar/wind, but when it costs $17,000 to set up enough gear to run a small workshop, I draw the line at the moment. Even though heat engines like car motors are about 20% efficient in using the energy in fuels as motive power, it's still a vast amount of energy to replace. So you can't just put up an electric transport fleet idea, without doing the rest of the numbers.

Oh Good Lord, El Zorro!

Here I am, peering into the future at a global, strategic level - almost a visionary you might say - painting the big picture, and you're complaining about a smudge in the top left hand corner of the frame!

Why, in a country so abundantly blessed with wind and hydro resources, anyone would consider solar power for anything other than passive water heating eludes me. Especially solar power at the individual workshop level for an industrial user.

At our global, strategic, (visionary?) level, the numbers don't actually matter - changes to energy generation are coming. They have to. The world can't keep powering itself by burning stuff - it's simply too expensive. And too dirty.

Stand back from the microscope, and try a squint through the macroscope.

[elZorro]

Oh Good Lord, El Zorro!

Here I am, peering into the future at a global, strategic level - almost a visionary you might say - painting the big picture, and you're complaining about a smudge in the top left hand corner of the frame!

Why, in a country so abundantly blessed with wind and hydro resources, anyone would consider solar power for anything other than passive water heating eludes me. Especially solar power at the individual workshop level for an industrial user.

At our global, strategic, (visionary?) level, the numbers don't actually matter - changes to energy generation are coming. They have to. The world can't keep powering itself by burning stuff - it's simply too expensive. And too dirty.

Stand back from the microscope, and try a squint through the macroscope.

GTM, I'm on your side when it comes to energy use - yes, solar tubes or passive heating arrays are much more efficient than PV, but you only get hot water, and my workshop doesn't need much of that. We're on flat ground and wind is patchy. What would be more useful is if the electricity retailers were forced by legislation to pay more for any PV energy fed back into the grid, up to a sensible limit per household or business. The power companies would lose some profits, but NZ would quickly change into a more self-sufficient operation as far as electricity needs. And it would create a lot of work for installers.

But I do mention the energy used by vehicles whenever a change to an electric fleet is proposed. In places like California, they are short on hydro, even reticulated power (or were) so a wholesale change to electric vehicles just couldn't happen at the moment. There is an enormous amount of energy in a car's fuel tank, it's a one-off resource that humans are squandering on a heat engine at 20% efficiency, sometimes just for a trip to relieve boredom.

As an aside, I'm not sure what anyone else does, but when I pull up into a "service station", get out and start to fill up my car, only to find that the pump is on prepay and the lone operator can't be bothered pressing a button to fire up the pump after a friendly wave - I just hang up the pump and go somewhere else. If they don't trust me enough to sell me petrol on tick for two minutes, they don't deserve my custom. It's bad enough I have to do all the work. More of us should just drive off, they'd get the message.

[GTM 3442]

But I do mention the energy used by vehicles whenever a change to an electric fleet is proposed. In places like California, they are short on hydro, even reticulated power (or were) so a wholesale change to electric vehicles just couldn't happen at the moment.

Oh dear! El Zorro, you really are a "glass half empty" type aren't you. The curse of conservatism, I suppose.

I will just note in passing that the lack of rails didn't do much to impede the onward march of progress in the form of the steam locomotive.

And that the inevitable march of progress in the form of electric personal transport will require an effort not unlike that required to gird the world in rails of steel.

The future's coming, ready or not. And keeping one's head in the sand leaves sensitive parts of one's anatomy dangerously exposed. . .

[elZorro]

Oh dear! El Zorro, you really are a "glass half empty" type aren't you. The curse of conservatism, I suppose.

I will just note in passing that the lack of rails didn't do much to impede the onward march of progress in the form of the steam locomotive.

And that the inevitable march of progress in the form of electric personal transport will require an effort not unlike that required to gird the world in rails of steel.

The future's coming, ready or not. And keeping one's head in the sand leaves sensitive parts of one's anatomy dangerously exposed. . .

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to convert most vehicles to electric, of course that's sensible. But only if you have enough carbon-neutral energy to produce the extra electricity that would be required. And in some cases it's very hard, or might involve 20 years of new infrastructure work. It took about that long to build all the hydro stations on the Waikato River. You could swap the Bluff aluminium smelter power use for electric powered car energy, that might be a clever solution. But it has to be on that scale.

[dobby41]

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to convert most vehicles to electric, of course that's sensible.

Except for all the carbon is making batteries etc.

[GTM 3442]

Except for all the carbon is making batteries etc.

TThinkof the New Zealand Parliament. Now slap a carbon-scrubber on the top to catch all that CO2-rich hot air. Sell the recovered carbon to the battery makers. A lovely virtuous circle, dobby old thing, a lovely virtuous circle.

[GTM 3442]

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to convert most vehicles to electric, of course that's sensible. But only if you have enough carbon-neutral energy to produce the extra electricity that would be required. And in some cases it's very hard, or might involve 20 years of new infrastructure work. It took about that long to build all the hydro stations on the Waikato River. You could swap the Bluff aluminium smelter power use for electric powered car energy, that might be a clever solution. But it has to be on that scale.

Manapouri? Manapouri? It's not on that scale El Zorro, it's much bigger than that.

To replace the world's current dependence on dirty burning things with clean electricity is much bigger than what you suggest. Much bigger.

Your conservative option of saying "Ooooooh! its a big big job" and "Ooooooh! It will take a long time." while wringing your hands just isn't an option.