http://www.elmoto-cycles.com/

Inventors from Stuttgart in Germany have crossed a mountain bike with an electric scooter. Looks great and should be the ideal thing for Kiwis. Goes 45km/h and has a radius of over 60km. Costs about a $1 per 100km. This is something I could see myself on. Probably even good for off the road. Have a look at the pictures and videos on the site. The concept is sound by the looks of it. Currently still a bit pricey at $8500+ but that’s bound to drop.

The constructors seem to have really splurged on good quality parts and got the design right. Remains to be seen what kind of vehicle class this would be in NZ. Could be all you need is a cycle helmet…

Long story short…no worse than before!

As before we’re still using walking, buses and taxi as our main source of movement. We use the bus every working day and have about 2-4 up-the-hill taxi trips a week which is mainly dependent on weather. In the winter it’s bound to be more.

About once a month we’re using Cityhop to get around. One thing about that that I’m noticing is that this is either on a weekend or after hours during the week (utilising the 6PM-8AM $30 special). But I do see that we’re using Citihop not quite as intended. We’re usually booking it for more than a few hours i.e. using it more like a day-rental. For that it seems to be a bit expensive. Maybe there’s better solutions out there… I’d definitely like to see a service where the car does not need to be brought back to the originating place after use. Mercedes is doing that successfully with Smart cars in a few towns in Germany.  The point of origin issue is certainly the most annoying with Cityhop or any other rental car shop.

As for missing a car…I drive to Petone a lot less now (although it has a good bus connection). But that also saves a bit on food expenses . From a money/saving perspectiveit looks like we’re starting to feel the benefits. There’s more of it left at the end of a fortnight. Which is a good thing in this time.

We’ve also got a scooter for those small trips that no other form of transport will do cost effectively. But we have noticed that it’s use is also less than once a week. It might get a bit more in summer but from a use perspective it’s not really necessary. At some point we might contemplate getting rid of it again.

From what we’ve experienced we would now appreciate:

1. More buses on weekend that have the odd service up to midnight
2. Buses that travel between suburbs not only to the city center
3. Cycle lanes
4. More Cityhop cars at several stations with returns wherever
5. Wellington bus-tunnel fare for 50ct or $1
6. A tunnel through Mt Vic for pedestrians that has no car fumes
7. Conversion of more Wellington central streets into malls
8. Less cars i.e. stop all planned roading extensions and subsidise public transport as an option

One thing I do probably have to admit is that a car is practicable what you have a child. I do know what I’d like to have when that becomes the case. I’d like to have an all electric vehicle that has two passenger seats and a small boot, can go about 100km/h, have a guaranteed radius of 70-90km per charge and cost no more than $20.000-$25.000 new.  Four seats is fine too but not really necessary at least in the first years (don’t forget I have no kiddie-experience so I might be totally wrong about this!). Oh I think I just described a Smart-4-2. Or this thing… http://tinyurl.com/pvyflb.

The site seems cleanly designed and easy to use. Only personal caveat I have ist that it doesn’t use the Government Logon Service. Would have been a nicer option one logon ‘n all.

Now we only need better public transport and we’re set to save some serious CO2.

Because the diesel engine is used for electricity generation only it can run at it’s optimal efficiency while the electric engines deal with peak power and low power. The buses use about a quarter of the diesel fuel of pure diesel vehicles. The electric engines are built directly into the wheels making them as efficient as possible (no power loss to transmission of power through gears).

The concept also uses smart GPS technology to save diesel. It recognises when it needs power and when not by sensing the congestion on the streets. I still don’t quite understand how it does that but the idea’s great.

I think until pure electric buses come our way (10 years? Batteries are still not really up to whole day use) this is a very good option and I’m sure you’d be able to retrofit later. I can also imagine that these buses need less repair than their pure diesel counterparts because the “complex” diesel engine is not that stressed and electric engines are by far less maintenance intensive. So all in all this would be a good bet.

Let’s have these things on Wellington roads please!

Since 1999 I’ve been more or less actively trying to reduce the power consumption where I live. At that time not so much out of ecological aspects but plain saving money. So things like energy saving lamps were a given. (By the way, I still use those lamps today! Out of the about 20 I bought over the last years only two have failed and one I destroyed by accident. That means these energy lamps have saved me heaps of $ and caused quite a bit less CO2 and still continue doing so.) I also rigged PCs that had to run non-stop to use less power by removing any unneeded parts. Even removing single chips from mainboards.

In 2007 I became interested in the ecological side of things. Being bombarded with climate change ‘n all left it’s mark. So I decided to re-look at where I got my energy from. I used Genisis and well….let’s say they are about as clean as a coal miners hands after a double shift. So I did a 180 degree turn and went to Meridian. As a sidenote I didn’t see a change in the energy costs I was paying each month and this is 100% renewable energy (I won’t go into the debate here whether and how that is true or not). Anyway I really felt better doing that. Made all my energy saving lamps even more CO2 friendly.

But I also thought I owe Genisys an explanation. So I did send their staff a longish email on the reasons I changed. Explicitly stating I didn’t see any move from Genisis to become more environmentally friendly. After a while I got a nice email back stating how Genisis is proud to be embarking on a mission to become more environmentally friendly etc. I wrote back that I’d contemplate coming back if they ever did.

About 6 weeks later there was an article in the press about how Genisis was searching for more coal to scrape off this earth (against the wishes of quite a few people). So I got quite enraged. The dear woman from Genisis blatantly lied to me. So I wanted to make a formal complaint but after scouring the web page I couldn’t find one email address or anything that allowed me to escalate the issue. So I wrote an inflammatory email to the woman from before and CC’d it to our then PM Helen Clark. I was hoping at least the CC would give something to mull about. Anyway nothing happened for a few weeks. Nothing at all from Genisis and I wasn’t expecting anything back from Helen. I must admit I probably did that just for the theatrical effect. But…. then I did get a letter from Mr. Mallard (at that time he was Minister of Energy). Seven pages mind you. Going into the details about what the energy startegy of NZ is. I was very impressed but not really appeased since it really didn’t condemn Genisis at all.

I think this experience festered for a while. I got more involved with ecological topics (that includes all food related topics too) and started to think about pros and cons. I looked at what I’m buying more closely and recently joined the Greens in an effort to drive more action in the direction I wanted to go. Now don’t get me wrong I am definitely not a CO2 minimalist wonder or anything but I try and do what I can. Hence actions like the post below, where we’re trying to get about without a car. Public and private transport seems to be one of my key focus points that I tend to go on about. I’ve actively taken part in discussions with local council and Stagecoach or seen to it that I participate in petitions against more roads. I am also actively trying to buy an electric car (to no avail). The effect I have is small but at least something. When the election came I was happy to see the Greens do well but still came out short.

The National party has been quieter in their first 100 days than I would have thought but it seems that now they are really turning up the heat. Never mind the ungraspable shortsightedness of stopping tax breaks for all R&D work that had just been introduced (how can (at least 45% of) New Zealanders actively throw away their future like that?). But I’ll stick tho the current unfathomable newest brainchild (or should I say dud?).

6c petrol tax increase. Alright Johnny! This is a cool thing to do. It will bring more people to public transport and give you money to make public transport better. But  then I read the fine-print. They need to raise 1bn to build more roads. Hold on! MORE ROADS???? That’s like buying horse carriages today because “they’ll never go out of style”. Cars are the transportation of the past. Can’t we all just accept that? Do we need $2.50+ petrol prices to prove that? So why 1bn for roads that we can scrap 20 years from now? But it doesn’t stop here.

The 6c petrol increase only covers about $260m so another $420m are coming from cutbacks in public transport. ???!!! OK, now I’m lost. Not only are we failing to invest in public transport but we’re also now taking money away from public transport?! Could it be that Johnny just can’t say the word Kyoto? Do you know how much this decision will cost YOU? Kyoto will be a huge burden for each and every one of us if we can’t get our act (no pun intended) together.

Just imagine what 1bn in public transport could mean. That is $250 per person in NZ. We could even build a high speed train link between Wellington-Palmerston North-Auckland. Never mind buses, light rail and trains till kingdom come. And roading is supposed to cost us $10bn+ in the next 10 years. Just imagine the possibilities (that includes the Overlander with true 24ct gold faucets).

I know Kiwis love their cars and I admit I have a weakness for them too but we all have to switch to public transport on the long term. At least we should do it for the haul to and from work. If we did that now we might even be able to keep our cars for quite some time to enjoy our weekends. But I also understand that nobody will do that without a little nudge. So I’ve been saying for years you need to up petrol taxes, RUCs and taxes on cars and at the SAME TIME introduce good, flexible and cheap public transport. The additional taxes should be contributed 100% towards building the public transport infrastructure. Even if you’re a National government you should see the short & long term benefits of that. And I can promise all Kiwis they will enjoy good public transport. It’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.

So *yay* to the 6c increase. That will help but an absolute failure at the 1bn thing.Nats get with it.

Someone pinch me please I’ve got the strange feeling I’m in America and it’s 20.01.2001.

I did some calculations and it turns out I pay about $6000 a year for driving a car (car depreciation, petrol, repairs, WOF, registration, insurance, fines,…). Depending on the car value either depreciation or repairs are higher. So the $6000 are pretty independent on the type of car for cars up to $20,000.

We don’t drive more than 5000kms a year anyway and use the bus and sometimes taxi for most of our work-week commuting. In an average week we use the car 1-2 times only. So we are really don’t need a car at all. What I’d really like though is an electric car but no-one will sell me one and I don’t have the time to build my own. I really don’t want another gas guzzler. For the time being I decided with Rebecca that we’d try and go no-car.

What does no-car mean for us? We’ll take $5000 as the calculation basis. That is the money we can spend on any means of transportation. Not included in those are 1 taxi ride a week and bus fares to and from work as we do that if we have a car or not. After some research we have found that we can do the following:

1. Walk and use the bicycle (free)
2. Ride buses ($2.25 per ride)
3. Use taxis for all trips where buses don’t drive ($15-30 per ride)
4. Use www.cityhop.co.nz. ($75 yearly, $13.50 – $15/hour for a car)
5. Use rented cars for longer trips/holidays. (about $60 a day)
6. Get a scooter (electric/petrol) for everything that doesn’t fit the above ($2000-$3000 for a scooter + $40 petrol & insurance/month)

So… then $5000 gives you 2,222 bus rides, 166-333 taxi rides, 333-370hrs of cityhop cars, 83 days of rental cars (petrol excluded). The scooter (point 6) is excluded here for now. Maybe it also motivates us to walk a little more as this directly saves money on our bottom line (there are no fixed costs to speak of). That’s a LOT of transport and it sounds quite good from a financial perspective. And(!) we can switch back to a car at any point in time without having lost any money to speak of. From an environmental perspective this is probably the lowest CO2 rating you could have in our situation (not including working from home as that is not a viable option for us at the moment).

So we’re going to give it a shot. The budget will be $100/week for all commuting expenses excluding bus rides to and from work but including all taxi rides (i.e. the one taxi ride per week is included here). Let’s see how that turns out for us. I’ll definitely post some updates on how we are going.

I’d say that is a very nice reason to loose the fumes. Does a 150mph and a 150 miles per charge (probably not at 150mph though). The motorbike is called Mission One and is probably the fastest electric bike around at the moment. Have a look at the website for more pictures. Although I don’t want to see the price tag…..yet.

Where we had single core systems in the past we now have quad/eight-core systems. They are more efficient in Watt per MIPS but we now use ever more MIPS. So we are not really conserving energy. We would only be doing that if we kept the system usage the same. We have noticed in our test datacenter that the power usage has gone up dramatically and the cooling needs too. I think it is out of proportion to what’s being done. Nonetheless we need to put more power in and more cooling and….

The new power is going into more ram and HW to run newer and bigger OS’s, Java runtimes, .Net APIs,…  Do they bring more power to the user? Do software developers need to start thinking about power usage? I definitely think so. We need to start thinking of how and when to use multi cores and business needs to think about how time critical batch processing is. Developers need to know what API call consumes how much power per call and the such. Power saving features of hardware need to be used and optimised.

As for your desktop PC and/or your notebook… Most of us are using it to surf or do email. Maybe a little photo library stuff too. So why do we need quad-core 500-1200W consuming monster machines (I am not addressing the gamers out there)? Those machines would have replaced a whole scientific supercomputer 10 years ago. Luckily the notebooks are getting more prevalent. They usually use up to 80W. Even more interesting are the new Netbooks. They use even less power. Looking at Demand people are getting that too although power usage is not their motivation.

I still think IT is using far too much power for what is really needed. I’ve seen numbers like 15% of the worlds power is consumed by IT, one Google search consumes the equivalent power of running an energy saving lamp for 1 hour. I don’t know if these are just myths but they shure point to some smoke. We need to check in our own back yards (i.e. PCs and datacenters) if there’s a fire too.

IKEA is a household name all across the World. All the World? No. Two small islands in the Pacific resist the trend. New Zealand has NO IKEA! Here in NZ we live without the cheap but quality goods. Especially Europeans miss their favourite furniture store.

There are hundreds of rumours around the so-called Auckland-IKEA. It’s probably more elusive than the Loch Ness monster.

Judging from the demand I see I can’t explain why we don’t have one. NZ’s furniture prices are astronomical and the quality is cr*p (if you don’t plan on spending your months wages on one chair). People even resort to fly to Sydney and go to the IKEA there and ship it to NZ. So an Auckland store would at least pull all of the north island clientele.

But on top of that reading this article it might make sense from another perspective…. meeting Kyoto.I can’t see our current suppliers of furniture being very environmentally friendly. IKEA seems to have hit the nail on the head. They are going in the right direction with their cheap but not at any cost program. And I think the consumer is at that crossroads now. We want affordable furniture (and anything consumable for that matter) but we want to be environmentally friendly and get quality stuff. IKEA falls into that category as does Apple, Toyota Prius (although that’s debatable) and others. So far I don’t see those companies not succeeding. Just the opposite.

Why is there only a small percentage of these companies? Why are consumers not pushing the obviously winning strategy? Why don’t we have an IKEA? Is there a petition somewhere? Does this need to go on a political agenda?

(linked image from Inhabitat)

Some say the answer is in solar panelling the world or space, having a wind-farm on every hill, taking geothermal energy and having tidal generators for every stretch of coastline suitable. I’m not really opposed to that but even that is probably not enough to feed the energy needs and the future energy needs of India, China and others. I can also fully understand people that don’t want a rotor looming over their back garden.  So again what is the answer?

We all -deep down- know what the answer is. NO! It’s not nuclear reactors! God forbid! The radioactive waste on those has a half life of about 10,000 years. We haven’t even been able to come up with a warning sign that will last that amount of time (remember the pyramids are “only” 4000 years old). I think I’ll take coal any day compared to that. No, the answer is something we’ve all heard before but have chosen to ignore. It’s the stuff mentioned in the title. What I’m talking about is nuclear fusion.

Fusion is the only power source known to mankind that can supply more power than atomic reactors (thereby enough to power all of humanity) with producing a minimum of radioactive output (a minuscule amount compared to your average nuclear plant) or any output apart from energy for that matter. As I said we’ve all heard of it but why hasn’t everyone got one in their back yards? Well…. that’s because we can’t build them yet. We don’t even know if we can. The Europeans have come together to build the biggest Tokamak type reactor ever in France called the ITER (there’s also the Stellerator type fusion reactor like the Wendelstein 7-X being built in Germany which is a different concept and cheaper). It’s the first time there’s an attempt to build a fusion reactor that can produce more electricity than it consumes. i.e. it would be the first reactor that can be seen as a proper power generating station.

But remember that we don’t really know if the scientists and builders can do it. The whole project is currently budgeted for 5 billion US$. They will probably end up paying $6-7 billion. Expensive …not?! We’re building something we don’t even know will work but sinking all this money into it???!!!! Most people don’t even know that it is being built!

Well, I think we’re not spending enough and not enough buy a long shot. If ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) succeeds humanity will probably have solved all energy problems we ever had and could have. Within this century we could switch off almost all of our bad energy sources and wouldn’t even have to build any wind farms or solar whatevers. This would revolutionise the world energy economy. Fusion power is so cheap it would obliterate your energy bill. So why are we spending only $5-7 billion? If this is as good as it gets why aren’t we spending more? America pays $500+ billion a year in oil imports and $230 billion in electrical bills. A nuclear (fission) reactor costs about the same as the fusion reactor. Are you doing the maths?

There’s a lot of negative controversy around the ITER too. Green parties and Greenpeace are complaining that the funding is taking away from funding alternative energies. That fusion reactors will probably not be operative before 2050. Sorry but how shortsighted is that? Alternative energies are needed and good but we all know that they cannot ever produce enough power to feed the world with power. Humanity needs fusion power or something new we haven’t invented yet. We cannot stop researching fusion just to spend more money on the wrong type of power generation and by that I mean anything non fusion. Green parties and environmentally friendly organisations should concentrate on supporting fusion strongly AND pushing for alternative sources in the mean time. By bickering over this all energy sources loose.

Humanity will need more power in the future not less. Even if we start consuming less. We will probably see a day when there are 10-14 billion people living on this planet.  They all want to be warm, mobile and watch TV. They will still want to travel and do things. Fusion with its promise of the ideal power source is really the answer. I discuss electric cars, others are fans of hydrogen (which I believe will be the answer for trucks, buses, heavy machinery, air travel and not for personal travel – that will be battery-electric). Both need a clean energy source to have any positive impact on the world.We will not get that without the fusion reactor.

So my plea is to have a closer look at fusion and support it as much as possible. Maybe NZ should actively allow fusion reactors to be built and give TAX cutbacks for doing so. That might give the power companies something to aim for. But even if not that it would certainly create discussion and publicity for the technology. Who knows maybe the US Navy will go fusion and then they could come and visit us! Go out and do some research like I did and see for yourself. The links above are a good starting point.

Miraz

So far I haven’t driven an EV scooter and I’d be very keen. What I’m worried about are the Wellington hills. They are a challenge for any kind of transportation. They will affect the range of these cycles. The question is by how much.

(picture is the Vectrix VX-1)

http://tinyurl.com/5laabm

Make a long story short this is another case of scientists saying Global Warming is a myth.

What I hate about the whole f*****g Global Warming discussion is that nobody seems to have gotten the point. I couldn’t care less about the official “Global Warming” discussion. This whole Global Warming discussion is about humanity looking out for nature so that humanity can survive. This is NOT about driving down temperatures or how much ice there is. Nature will always survive. If our planet turns into a smouldering Mars then that’s nature too but that won’t include humanity though.

So don’t kid yourself. What’s on the line here is us. Or to be more precise you the reader. Well to be exact its your kids and their kids. If we continue pillaging the planet we stand to lose it all for future generations. We have actually already done that. Now is the question how much we can get back.

And then there’s scientists that argue endlessly about computer models, theories and experiments. We have gazillion dollar research projects to find out if humanity is responsible for global warming. All for what? Proving something I already know?

Go out and look at what is happening. Try and find some untouched wild forests/mangroves/wildlife out there! Try and find a non polluted waterway/ocean/lake. Try and find a spot with CLEAN air. If you can -which I doubt- be happy. If you can’t, then I think you’ve just found “Global Warming”.

“Global Warming” should actually and more accurately be called “The quest for human survival”. Or maybe “Making our World worth living in again”.  Honestly?! Who wants to argue with me that humanity is not destroying nature? Open your eyes and weep at what you see. Then ask yourself if that is the world you really want to live in or if you’d like to have it with a little more nature and beauty. I’m no saint but I think I at least I’m starting to care and to react. Maybe you’ll open your eyes and take a look. Tell the scientists to shut-up and then go and start doing something about it.

And as a side-note…. Now that the new government is in place in NZ they have already started turning back the clocks. I honestly resent them for literally taking the axe to nature again. How can such stupid and shortsighted people run a country?! This probably applies to Labour just as much. They should all be ashamed for what they are doing but hey, if they were decent caring people they probably wouldn’t be in politics.

The fist since she’s visited NZ 10 years ago. I found the strength and vitality of this lady just amazing. Like (e.g.) the Dalai Lama she has a strong conviction about what she talks and captivates her listeners in wonderful stories of a wild Africa.

What was new to me was the direct connection she makes between animals and humans. She points out the many ways in which animals are necessary for us humans to survive.

I’ve included a picture of Jane with our local 34-year-old Tuatara. It was the first time I’ve seen a Tuatara up close and must admit this is a VERY unique reptile. I know nothing that comes even close. It really looks like a small dinosaur. The Tuatara really gave Jane a run for her money. Two celebrities at once is a tall order I am definitely a new Tuatara fan!

I definitely want an electric car. I did the maths and it would be heaps cheaper than our current gas guzzler or any other petrol car. The Tredia below does the equivalent of NZ $250 a month and costs $15 in electricity to charge! How’s that for saving for a rainy day (ok, please don’t do the global warming analogy here!).

(www.kiwiev.com)

Along comes this article in WIRED magazine. It seems someone (Shai Agassi) has found a solution on how to sell the electric car concept to all involved including big oil. His revolutionary idea is not the car but the whole concept. His company is called Better Place. I honestly think this will fly. To my detriment I haven’t found where I can buy shares yet.

I’d like to see NZ take this on. We have tons & tons of clean energy (although we’d need more of it) and we could get Kyoto & Co to fly too. With the direction NZ is taking currently this would be a much needed relief. What helps is that NZ has few big town centres so an introduction would be easy and cheap.

What do you think?

[Update] The title here should have been Thank God the electric car will finally come…again because we all know the General Motors EV1 was there first.