Darryl Talks About New Zealand

I drive from the north end of the expressway to the south end, taking the North Ōtaki off ramp and the South Ōtaki onramp.

65km North of Wellington, 15km of new expressway is open to the public, bypassing Ōtaki, the location of holiday traffic jams. This new highway massively increases capacity into and out of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. The Project cost about 450 million NZ Dollars, about 300 million USD.

Apparently they are opening it in stages Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

In this video I do some container gardening. How to make a cheap low budget container garden. I figure that the buckets are 5 for $12.50 One planter that is the same size costs about $10. The compost that I used cost about $7 per bag, potting mix about $10. The fertiliser is about a dollar. I grew the plants from seed. So the plants I used cost about $3. I reused the 6-pack seed starting trays that I bought with some other flowers in them. If you don't have a drill, you can cut drain holes with a sharp knife. If you are going to grow 3 plants, sunflowers, corn and beans, for example, that would be about $10 for seeds. But that would be enough seeds for 15 buckets. So somewhere around $20-40.

Monarch butterfly season. Danaus plexippus

Perhaps it is called the Peka Peka to Otaki Expressway? Whatever the name is, it's almost almost finished and still, sadly, probably won't open before Christmas.

This is the Topjoy Butterfly 8.7 inch color e ink display with DES Display Electronic Slurry e-paper colour display. Specifications TopJoy Butterfly 7.8-Inches / 7.8-Inches Pro Dimensions 193mm x 135mm x 7.9mm Screen 6 7.8-Inches DES New Color E-Paper Screen Resolution 1404 x 1872 Black and White PPI 300 PPI Color PPI 150 PPI CPU 4-core 64-bit Cortex-A55; max 1.8GHz GPU Mali-G52 Mali-G52 7.8-Inches Pro: 4GB LPDDR4

I was looking at the Auckland Light Rail project last week and that lead me to to thinking about what a Christchurch commuter rail network would look like. Here is the Link to the Regional Rail project. https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2022/07/04/regional-trains-and-electrification/ Once you get the system up and going, the lines replace bus lines. 00:00 Intro 02:00 Line Map (East West) 04:00 Northern Line 04:55 Amberley 06:25 How long are the lines? 07:00 Additional Tram Lines - Airport 09:00 Another Tram Line 09:40 It's better for Tourists 13:50 Tourism and Destinations 15:20 Round out the network 15:55 There's already a gondola!

I am still thrashing out the ideas, I guess I would be happy with anything other than a tunnelled light rail. Just noticed after upload I mixed up a couple of place names, sorry about that, it's a lot of words. I think I said Papakura instead of Pakuranga. I also might have mixed up Penrose and Papatoetoe. Part one: https://youtu.be/K2MoWZs8o4U 00:00 It's been bugging me. 0:55 What's the actual route anyway? 02:10 Nine zeros $??,000,000,000 02:45 Context: Up in the air? 05:10 3x more tramway for the same price? 05:25 Context: Why build ALR? 06:00 Population density 07:35 The bus line we use the most. 08:55 The AIR bus line 09:30 Train lines in consideration 9:50 Train lines with new city tunnel stations 11:10 Look at my new proposal: Not a tunnel. 12:17 List of small project stages. 13:08 Stage by stage: City. 13:55 University 14:00 Dominion Road 14:20 "Light rail" is modern trams 14:44 Dominion Road to Mt Roskill again 15:00 Along the motorway to Onehanga 16:24 Dominion Rd to Motorway connection 16:50 Onehanga Station 17:15 Mangare Bridge Mangare Town Centre. 17:50 Auckland Airport Park & Ride 18:15 Airport Terminal station 18:40 Extension Airport to Puhunui Manukau and Clover Park 19:15 Botany, Pakuranga, Sylvia Park and Penrose Loop to Onehanga 20:39 Conclusions: 22:25 Transfers 23:20 Is the underground line to save carparks?

The Auckland Light Rail is one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in New Zealand. I will cost more than all the highways of national significance. In this conclusion, I suggest what I think would be better for half the price.

The Auckland Light Rail is one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in New Zealand. I will cost more than all the highways of national significance. We really have to be critical about what we spend other peoples money on. I look at this link tram which visits many central and southern suburbs including: Herne Bay Ponsonby Saint Marys Bay Queens St Simonds St AUT Grafton Newton Balmoral Dominion Road Epsom Mount Roskill Three Kings One Tree Hill Royal Oak Onehunga Māngere Bridge Māngere Favona and the Airport. I like this channel RMTransit. https://www.youtube.com/c/RMTransit

The Auckland Light Rail is one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in New Zealand. I will cost more than all the highways of national significance.

The abundance of traffic lights on Kapiti Road have got me down. So I redesigned the interchange with no traffic lights, only give way signs. I also added cycle paths raised crossings for cycles and pedestrians, as a form of traffic calming. The interchange is modulated buy the other traffic lights near by, which will create breaks in the traffic. This will relive traffic on Kapiti Road down to Coastlands at one end and New World supermarket and Mitre 10, at the other end. The redesign will improve safety and trip time for cyclists, while lowering peak speed for motorists, the changes will reduce red light delays and traffic congestion delays for motorists, off peak and on peak improvements. 0:00 Intro 1:45 Kāpiti Road 2:20 Excessive traffic lights 3:00 Shared pathway 4:05 Those lights again! 4:40 Zoom in 5:50 My proposed changes 7:30 Western detail 12:50 Eastern detail 15:00 Conclusion

That's Pretty Darn Quick

In this video I talk about the Aptera solar powered electric car. 2022 10 01 14 18 19

I tried out the OpenLook 75kW charger at Z Energy Vivian street, after they shut down the 50kW and 25kW chargers that ChargeNet operated at the location. Because this charger can charge two cars at the same time, it has has about the same capacity as the two chargers it replaced.

If you go outside and look to the west after sunset in the ext dew days you will see Jupiter rise at its' brightest.

I was at the Paraparaumu weekend market and saw a flower arrangement playing a sax.

This location is the Aston Norwood Cafe and Function Centre. It is located in Kaitoke, on the Rimutaka Hill Road, north of Upper Hutt, Wellington.

What should you do to increase energy supply? Coffee and no breakfast. What about decentralising energy production for resilience? Solar Vs Nuclear Large scale nuclear power is a dumb idea for New Zealand due to scale. Most normal nuclear power plants are about 1GW or higher. So, if you build a 1GW base load at one point in the network, you will have outflow capacity problems there. You will want to put the plant in a major demand area, so you don't have to spend billions on lines from the plant. So you will need to build it in Huntley. At that point if you mess up, or have an earthquake it will be very painful for all New Zealanders. Theoretically you could build three or four smaller stations, but do you want to be the test subjects for a new technology like that? And do you want it in your back yard? I don't. But you could put some solar on houses and install some batteries in houses. The 1GW nuclear power plant would cost $NZ9 to 15 billion (will it go over budget?). You can install a 5kW array of solar panels and a 10kWh battery on half a million houses for the same price. This would generate 2.5GW on solar peak, and store 5GWh for overnight. It will make less power in winter and more in summer than the nuclear system, about 50% more power overall. But it can't fail all at one time in a disaster. If every fifth house had power in a wide spread disaster, it would be better for resilience. You can get a hot shower and charge your phone at your neighbours house in a disaster, provided they also have tank water. The batteries can also be charged from the mains if it is not sunny in the winter, which can help prevent high spot power prices on peak load (dinner time), it helps balance the grid. Also, the solar surplus can be used to charge electric vehicles. If you are going to install solar and batteries on half a million houses, you will also want to implement cellular connected smart chargers for cars, so that you can also use that to balance the grid by charging at solar peak, and decanting power form house batteries into cars at optimal times. I don't imply regularly drawing power form cars, except in exceptional circumstances - disasters and adverse energy trading events - ultra high spot prices. Another good thing about the solar and battery option is that you can have a gradual roll out. You don't have to wait 20 years and then have the thing turned on in one go (at which point you collapse the energy market). If the solar thing turns out to be wrong, you can change direction after a few years having spent 15% of the budget. If you get 10 years into the power plant and stop, all that money was wasted for zero benefit. These simple arguments should be enough to never consider large scale nuclear in New Zealand. It's different for other countries. This plan will not work in countries that don’t have some other consistent generation base, like geothermal or hydro. Also, it works in places that are not freezing cold every day in winter. 00:00 Intro 00:40 Decentralise energy and roads

Link to part 1: https://youtu.be/ifU_RCrjLNg I take a look at some of the features of the Pekapeka to Ōtaki Expressway, including the cycle trail path and bridges. This expressway is built like a dual carriage motorway. This location is 70km north of the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. New Zealand Highways of national significance project.

Link to part 1: https://youtu.be/ifU_RCrjLNg I take a look at some of the features of the Pekapeka to Ōtaki Expressway, including the cycle trail path and bridges. This expressway is built like a dual carriage motorway. This location is 75km north of the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. New Zealand Highways of national significance project.

I take a look at some of the features of the Pekapeka to Ōtaki Expressway, including the cycle trail path, bridges and tunnels. This expressway is build like a dual carriage motorway and is located 65km north of the capital of New Zealand, Wellington.

SH59 Reopens after being close for a month at Pukerua Bay. Wellington.