Hi folks,

A story from Stuff says that we could be looking at getting our power here in New Zealand from the sea.
It's amazing just how long it's taken for them to come to this conclusion, it's not like Cook Strait (sea between the North and South Islands) showed up just last week.
Here's the the story .

And another about the on-going battle to actually get some work underway on the Grid before it really fails!.

Yep I heard about it too but as usuall there are missing details.
Nothing is mentioned about dead tide and the period before and after when power generation will be severely reduced and stop at dead tide.

Power is generated upon demand and we require a steady 50 Hz frequency. The thoughts are good but those slack periods certainly need to be topped up with hydro, gas or nuclear power generation.

Then also the problem of getting the bulk of power to Auckland is not addressed yet.

The 400 kV line needs to built rather sooner than later.

Also there was a possibility of extending the DC link from Haywards to Auckland too, interesting alternative but quite feasable I think.

See what happens ??

Ray,
I'm not sure if my idea is the same as yours.
To my way of thinking, we should have at least a 400kV system all through the country, not just in bits, here and there.
Down here in Canterbury, the work has been put in place to upgrade the 110 and 220kV lines to 400kV.
Why is it such a problem up North?
Sure bigger Pylons.
Big frigging deal.
400kV carries lower current, and them lines are a lot higher off the ground.
To my way of thinking, it's the Greenies influencing the Media.

Don't they always.

But they should s%^t up, They still drive cars, use grid power, fly to Wellington a couple of times a week, so a real greeny does NOT exist.

Good on you guys down South, at least work is done instead of talk, talk, talk and no action here up North.

Ray,
Don't get me wrong.
I have nothing against the normal North Islander who uses power efficiently and never complains.
My attacks on Auckland (which I acknowledge you weren't born in) are only from the fact that those that have lived there all their lives and expect a free ride from the rest of the country.
How many times have we heard in the media that "when Auckland suffers, we all suffer!".
All I can say to a statement like that is, when will Auckland stop being the cry-baby of this country and take stock of itself and just grow up!!.
Sure Auckland has more people, that is the fault of the city planners and Immigration folks.
Most people enter Auckland International Airport as their entry to NZ and most never venture further from Auckland.
I was at a High Rise course in Auckland in 1990 and the attitude of the FF's toward the "ethnic" community was little more than despicable.
Down here we engage people that are from other cultures.
I'd sought of hope that that attitude has changed in Auckland, since 1990.
I was ashamed to be in the same pump!.



[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 07-07-2006).]

Ray,
I see that Vector is in the gun over the power failure again.
People want compensation now, all this time after the fact, Vector refuses to pay out and I agree with them.
Why after all this time would you wait to put a claim in?.
Besides, isn't that why people have insurance these days?, or do they merely not bother to get insurance and depend on a bit of compensation from an innocent party?.
Power failures can and do happen, Aucklanders should be aware of that already.
Power failures also happen outside of Auckland, some places down here just got their power back on since the snow fell.
No talk of compensation here.

What on earth is going on here??.
New Zealand people as far as I can see have become a nation of mere cry-babies.
If you bought property near pylons, or if they crossed your property, did you not think that maybe one day them lines might be upgraded.
I see with this article you just get yourself a lawyer and you can hold the whole South Island (even the whole country) to ransom.
This would not happen in any other country in the civilised world, why should it happen here?.
IMO, the lawyer has contacted the people and is looking to make some cash out of it.
I'm sick and tired of these people that want media coverage and get themselves a lawyer to flog a dead horse.
They all use an airy-fairy idea that EMF's are bad, yet if that was really the case, we would shut off all Radio and TV signals as well.
A lot of people live around AM transmitters and FM transmitters.
Do we see groups protesting to have them shut down?.
But it is the same sort of radiation, E and M fields.
Bring on the Psuedo-Science again!.

Trumpy, it does seem that ambulance chasing lawyers have complicated the upgrade of the national grid.

I think that the fields adjacent to 220kV lines are different to the fields surrounding radio & cellphone towers though.

If theres even the slightest hint that living under HV pylons is unhealthy, then no one should have to.

Our electricity generation body should be able to afford to relocate people living underneath pylons. And keep the pylons seperate from the population. Instead Transpower is mis-managing the grid.

NZ is a country of 4 million consumers of hydro power. Hydro is the cheapest power to produce. So where is all the money going?

Well,
At the same time kiwi, them lines have been there since the 1950's, if not longer, it's not as though the nasty Transpower put them there in the night-time so that no-one would notice.
People chose to live next to the lines, why should they be now given money (from the tax-payer no doubt)because of their poor judgement?.
I smell a racket here and the fact that lawyers are involved now only amplifies that thought.
The lawyers will want their pound of flesh.
Meanwhile, the NZ Electricity system suffers, just wait until we get to next winter and we have a really big outage, everyone will blame the Government again and Transpower, but these idiots that say "I'm going to block any progress on the upgrades because it "might" cause me and my family cancer" need to stand up and show us some real evidence, not BS from so-called scientists.
Tell me, where is the evidence that HV lines cause cancer in New Zealand??.
All of the arguments offered here use "scientists" and references from either Canada, the US or the UK.
All of which have a LOT more people than New Zealand, so statistics based on population, don't really sort of fit here.
{Like I said some time back, David Bellamy might be a scientist, but he has no place in an argument about physics, he is a botanist!.}
The day they invent an electric tree, he should be bought into the argument.
Our transmission voltages are different, as is our terrain and pylon hieghts.



[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 07-13-2006).]

Oddly enough and off-topic, we said goodbye to the first Live-Line Line Mechanic from this district this morning.
Ron Irving died the other day at the age of 98 after suffering a fall in his home.
He was one of the staff instrumental in getting Line Mechanics used to working "live" with voltages upwards of 11kV.
The local PoCo recorded his experiences on audio tape in the 1990's, in a 4 hour interview.
I'm glad they did now.
A local man, he had a lot to say about those from out of town, moving here.
Not to say he was bigoted at all, he just had strong views, if you stayed in town any longer than 2 years, that was OK by him.
I remember him as a damned good trainer of Line Mechanics, if you passed in Ron's course, you could pass anywhere.
I remember his catch-phrase to this day:
"Old Salt wouldn't like that!", which meant you ballsed up a technique and would have to re-do it quickly.
He was a fair man though, there was no favouritism, if you were told off, there was a reason for it.
To put it simply, Ron made me the Line Mechanic I am today, same work ethic, same work standard.
RIP Ron

Trumpy, I don't think the NZ electricity grid is in trouble just because of a bunch of greenies whining about the pylons. I'm just suggesting that Transpower CAN afford to fix the problems in a way that will suit everybody. Also that it needn't cost the consumer or taxpayer any more than we're already paying. Transpower just needs to channel some money away from the excessive salaries & perks of its management and into grid investment.

kiwi,
What I'm suggesting, is the fact that the money is there to be spent, but with people blocking the process through that legislation called the RMA (Resource Management Act 1990), people can effectively ham-string a perfectly good plan simply because they object to it, without real reasons for the objection.
Now, please don't get the wrong impression here, I am not a rep of Transpower or anything like that (although I do work for the Govt through the NZ Fire Service ), all I am looking for is common sense.
We ARE going to run out of supply capacity one day here, it's not a question of if, but WHEN!.
Look at all the building that is going on around NZ and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that the demand on our Grid is getting larger as we speak.
Think of all the computers that we didn't have 20 years ago, but need power now.
And all the mod-cons that seem to get more and more every year in the glossy catalouges that jam-pack your mail-box, seemingly everyday, people buy these things.
There seems to be no end to it.