Yeah, I hear you on that. But my view is, that’s how much it cost. Cancelling it won’t make it cheaper in the future. Sometimes we just need to bite the bullet and pay for what we need.

It’s more like an issue with initial quotes than the actual cost of the thing. The problem is, the public sees a big cost and screams “they’re wasting our money!”, but that’s not really it at all. The government is trying to invest in needed infrastructure that benefits all of us in the future. Literally their job.

Mate, the infrastructure is reaching end of life anyway and needs replacing.

The benefit of doing it all at once is they were enlarging both terminals to allow better offloading of freight. Pay more now to spend less later.

The dumbest thing about changing teacher only days, is they are not counted in then mandatory number of days a school is open for. All this change will do is make them close earlier, so the kids will still be off school and parents will still need to make arrangements.

It’s fucking stupid.

The only thing I’m concerned about is the continued creep of housing developments into productive farmland.

If developers want to increase density of housing in current areas, that’s a good thing! I don’t particularly care about how stylish a development is at this point in time. Besides, current cookie cutter housing is all ugly anyway.

I agree with you, and I think it’s interesting to look at why there is a short term uptick in youth crime.

Something something cost of living crisis something something

Congrats mate! Thank you for all your hard work on maintaining this little piece of the internet for us!

But the ambiguity comes from the crown ignoring the original, Te Reo document, in favour of the translates English version, then ignoring that as well.

I want these to become a thing, because they’re awesome. But I doubt it actually will.

Plus, there are much more efficient ways to move large numbers of people. Still, ground affect craft are neat.

I expect this to change. The problem is they pushed it out for light vehicles before it was ready. If it’s going to work anywhere, it’ll be heavy vehicles, shipping and aero.

But hell any new zero emissions tech is ok by me. Just…something other than dead rotten dinosaurs.

Look again. I’m not talking about light vehicles.

A BEV truck can weigh up to 5 tons more than a FCEV. Why would that not be a case use for hydrogen? Now scale up to a ship where volume is no issue. BEV shipping is a non-starter.

New battery tech is fantastic. But why would you assume new battery tech, currently prohibitively expensive, will come down with scale but hydrogen won’t?

Ammonia is significantly more harmful in the event of a leak. Yes, it’s more hydrogen dense than pure liquid hydrogen.

Ultimately I don’t see a reason to dismiss hydrogen like some are doing. Is it the perfect solution in all cases? Of course not. Does that mean it is not a viable fuel source for transport? Absolutely not.

Scale solves most problems. Hydrogen also has other uses, such as steel production, which further increases the scale.

For light vehicles batter EV is likely to be the leading type for some time, as volume is more of an issue then weight for the ranges we need.

That’s not entirely true. If you are purely looking at $/kWh then yes, of course this is the case. However that is not the only consideration when it comes to transport. Weight of the drive unit, use of rare earth metals, lifespan of the drive unit, energy density by weight, speed of recharge, ease of transport energy, and more are all considerations.

I’m not arguing that vehicles will become hydrogen electric. I agree they are not suitable without some serious technological advances. What I’m saying is that at a certain point, larger vehicles (trucks, trains, ships, even aeroplanes) will become more suitable to hydrogen.

I’m all for increasing rail and coastal shipping for cargo. Having lived overseas, it’s criminal how much we rely on trucks here.

I can’t find the exact figures, as it depends on battery range and battery tech. One study I’ve seen found a battery truck would weigh over 5000kg more than a hydrogen-electric version.

I’ve also seen figures of double the weight for a Li-Ion battery EV compared to HEV at ranges above 300 miles.

It is technically challenging, I don’t disagree, but it has high energy density by weight. It also, of course, has lots of other applications. Steel manufacture being one.

But to be honest, even if it never eventuates and we get carbon neutral biofuels, I’ll be happy. Anything is better than what we’re doing right now.

Of course it is, don’t be daft.

Price will come down with scale. Currently hydrogen is only produced at a very small scale. As production increases, price will drop. Simple really.

Freezing pumps is a problem I’m certain will be solved. In its infancy, EV charging stations were slow. Look how far the technology has come in a short number of years. As uptake increases and infrastructure is built, I am certain these problems will be overcome.

Absolutely. If there was the political will in this country, we would have an excess of cheap, renewable, power.

Yes, as I said above, this is true because a) hydrogen doesn’t currently have the scale to bring the cost down, and b) is more suitable for large vehicles anyway. It’s failure to be a viable consumer option doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work in mass freight transport.

There are problems with these articles, and it almost always comes down to scale. There currently isn’t the scale and infrastructure to bring the cost of hydrogen to make it cost effective compared to pure electric. With time that could change if there is a will to do so.

But regardless, as I mentioned in my other comment, hydrogen has a much better use case in large scale transport. Trains and ships, for example, where volume isn’t a problem and where the weight of batteries becomes untenable. This is, I think, where hydrogen will be viable.

There seems to be a general push against hydrogen electric transport recently. I agree that it isn’t suitable for small-scale transport, such as cars or even busses, but I do think there is a use-case for large transport.

Ultimately the problem comes how do we get the electricity from the generator to the vehicle where it needs to be. Obviously batteries are more efficient, but they come with their own problems. They weigh a lot, which damages infrastructure, they require rare metals, they have a maximum capacity per unit weight.

Of course they have advantages, but I think as the vehicle gets larger, and the charging time requirements drastically increase, I think there comes a point where hydrogen electric systems are worth looking at. Trains and shipping being the main ones, and potentially trucks.

Of course, if the hydrogen is not generated cleanly then it’s moot, but the same is true for pure electric systems as well.

Ultimately, I would like to see renewable generation that turns excess power into hydrogen for a train and coastal shipping fleet.