Lake Onslow has been touted as potentially New Zealand’s most costly infrastructure project and cost figures like $10 billion have been quoted.
There are many negatives. Ecologically damaging, it will create a shallow lake over possibly 80sq km of land. When the water is released this will become a muddy swamp.
The cost of pumping the water up is greater than that gained when it is released. There is also evaporation to consider, and were the water to stay there for several years this would be considerable in Central Otago’s climate.
The power when created will be transferred north with a transmission loss of maybe 20% if adequate transfer capacity is available. Improving infrastructure for transfer will be costly. There already exists tidal flow turbines in other parts of the world which could be placed in places such as Cook Strait; providing continuous power. Offshore wind farms are up to twice as efficient as onshore ones, are also a possibility.
If the Government mandated that new houses must have sun collectors on their roofs this would help. The proliferation of electric cars is a negative when we are still burning several million tons of coal in a not very efficient power plant at Huntly. If all cars in New Zealand were electric they would consume all of our power.
Extensive sun collector farms are another possibility for power production. With climate change dry years may cease or become a rarity.
I hope that this projected, enormously expensive behemoth does not proceed. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives.
Russell Read
Roxburgh
Great expectations
Someone in your column of "Trending Topics’' gave an opinion that had the projected Dunedin Hospital been labelled a "stadium" instead, it would have been long finished by now.
The point now at issue seems to be how far the hospital is likely to fall short of expectations under the Government's funding model.
Anyone with a long memory will recall the original grand concept for the stadium, measured against the final cut-price edifice, fell so far short of it.
Maybe in Wellington, the planned hospital was just another of those airy-fairy projections, figures plucked out of thin air, on which our present party in power has so spectacularly failed to deliver. New homes, by the thousands, for example.
Ian Smith
Waverley
Visual identity
Your editorial concerning the university’s "visual identity" raises some important questions.
For example, I would be interested to know exactly what is meant by the statement, "The logo would be a symbol of a world where teaching and research are overlaid with various Maori time, knowledge and cost requirements".
Could someone explain to the readers how overlaying "Maori time and knowledge" can impinge on the teaching of subjects such as physics, chemistry or languages such as French or Spanish?
How does "Maori time and knowledge" impinge on research into the processes such as virus infections or molecular structure?
In my opinion, and the opinions of many of my academic friends, these attempts of the university to demonstrate that it is a "Te Tiriti-led university" are several steps too far, and will certainly damage the international reputation of our venerable and respected local institution.
Terry Maguire
Dunedin
Celebrate the right to freedom of speech
The French philosopher and writer Voltaire is reputed to have stated "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". He was speaking at a time in Europe when governments were autocratic and freedom of speech couldn’t be taken for granted, and he was arguing for the kind of democratic openness that we now pride ourselves on having. Well, I disapprove of what Posie Parker says, and while I am not brave enough to sacrifice my life for her, I do defend her right to say it.
Once we deny the right of free speech to people we disagree with, the more we open the door to having our right of free speech denied by those who disagree with us.
New Zealand is becoming increasingly polarised, largely as a result of disinformation and ignorance. Posie Parker, for example, bases her arguments on the principle that there are only two genders. She has clearly never heard of hermaphrodites, the term used to describe people born with the physical characteristics of more than one gender, a condition that has been around since humans first walked the Earth. But we shouldn’t deal with her ignorance by shouting her down or pouring tomato sauce on her head.
Would it not have been more effective to have left Posie Parker to say what she liked to the few people and noisy bikers whose ignorant prejudice is confirmed by her rant, and is unlikely to be changed by bottles of tomato sauce, and at the same time to have held a rally somewhere else in Auckland, with large numbers of people celebrating the joys of acknowledging non-binary choices? The message would have been clear: most of us accept a non-binary world, and while we disapprove of what Posie Parker has to say, we will not oppose her right to say it. Freedom of speech is also something to be celebrated.
John Drummond
Glenleith
BIBLE READING: Now fear the Lord and serve with all faithfulness. — Joshua 24:14.
