Rugby Ball Shows on Queens Wharf....

Continuing with these designs on Queens Wharf, what I'm really looking forward to is the removal of that fence that separates Queens Wharf from the Ferry Terminal. And, removing the structural walls (concrete block and grey) that separates the Ferry Terminal itself from Queens Wharf. You can see that wall in the background, in this pic, just over the roof of Shed 10....

But before I go there, closer, here's another pic of Queens Wharf, looking over the Cool Shed to Shed 10. Wonder what that "egg" is in the background....?

Looking down Queen Street, between the existing buildings there, you can see along Queens Wharf. You can still see the heritage fence that lines Quay Street, but the fence by Ferry Terminal buildings has gone. So have the car parks there. No way should there be office commuter car parks on Queens Wharf. Banish them. This is a social place...

The "egg" is the Paris Rugby Ball. Built for the last Rugby World Cup event. A building to showcase New Zealand. Continuous film shows on the interior walls. An exhibition of all that's the best about New Zealand - for locals and visitors alike.

It would fit nicely on Queens Wharf for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Part of the life on the city end of Queens Wharf. With tables and brollies spilling out from the newly activated edge of the Ferry Building...

It would be part of the transformation of Queens Wharf into a premier downtown showcase, show place for Auckland and New Zealand...

We are all looking forward to a bunch of fantastic ideas from the design competition. It's a very interesting project .... Go well....

Aucklander's carbon footprint compared to Londoner's...

Did you know:

London Vs. Auckland transport CO2 emissions: 2006 comparison
Population Total emissions Per capita total emissions Transport emissions Per capita transport emissions % transport emissions of total emissions	London* 7.3 million 44.3 MtCO2 6,068 kg/person 9.6 MtCO2 1,315 kg/person 22%	Auckland** 1.2 million 11.93 MtCO2 9,941 kg/person 5.14 MtCO2 4,283 kg/person 43%

* Halcrow Group et al, 2009 VIBAT Stage 1 Report, p.58 (see:www.vibat.org)

** ARC Modelling

So. Aucklanders are responsible - on average - for THREE TIMES more transport CO2 emissions compared to Londoners, due to our higher travel demands and greater transport energy use. Interestingly, London's relatively low transport carbon footprint, the UK Government and Greater London Authority are jointly getting on with a set of policy initiatives to reduce this carbon demand (due to transport) by 60% by 2030.

The UK is taking CO2 emissions - and transport energy efficiency - very seriously.

I wonder when our Government will get round to translating its 10 - 20% CO2 reductions by 2020 target it has commited NZ to at Copenhagen, into policies and strategies that will reduce transport energy in Auckland....

And I wonder what we need to do as a region to ensure that our new Regional Land Transport Strategy also tackles this imperative....

But, hey ho, even if we do have a great little regionally agreed RLTS, Transport Minister Joyce doesn't seem to feel any need to give it any attention anyway. He's just advanced the biggest road building program NZ has seen. Totally in conflict with the current RLTS. Maybe he thinks it's a sign of economic strength and power to push Auckland's transport related CO2 emissions way up, so that then we can skite internationally that we emit FIVE TIMES more CO2 per capita getting around than our London mates. Now there's a claim to fame....

How sustainable is ferry travel....?

This is an interesting one. The issue of how "carbon hungry" ferries are first came to my attention when I was asking the former CEO of Veolia (Chris White), how expensive it was to run our diesel trains. I did some research and found the following:

Cost of fuel to run Auckland's public transport. % of mode operating costs.
Mode Rail Bus Ferry	% of Operating Cost 3% 11% 30%

You can appreciate how much it costs to push a ferry through the sea, compared to the low rolling friction of a train, with steel wheels running on steel rails whose gradients are usually not more than 2%. But a train is a very heavy thing - when it's full of passengers the total weight hardly changes.

Now we have a "free weeks ferry and bus" ticket being offered by ARTA and Fullers. This is good. But it is helpful to understand what we are promoting here....

There is a fantastic link I recommend if you are interested in growth strategy and intensification and stuff. It's a blog: Agenda 21, Auckland, Intensification, and Sustainable Urban Development, by Manish Udar. You can find it here:
http://sustainability.rediffiland.com/blogs/2007/05/21/Agenda-21-Auckland-Intensification-and-3.html

Here's a quote:

".....Public transport is an area of considerable energy wastage. It is quite commonly believed that commuter trains are the most sustainable form of urban transport, followed by fully occupied buses followed by fully occupied cars and that the least sustainable form of urban transport is an empty commuter train followed by an empty bus followed by a single occupancy car. But these common assumptions are not borne out by facts, if energy consumption and CO2 emissions for various transport modes are examined....As is shown by the following table, urban transport also contributes heavily to the greenhouse effect if it consists of petrol, diesel or gas driven buses, or if coal or gas is used in the production of electrical energy to power public transport trains. It also shows that vehicles with a high occupancy rate are less likely to contribute to the greenhouse effect. If a lot of people are packed together in a given space, they are more likely to be able to find a group of persons to occupy their vehicle to its optimum capacity. This seems to suggest that an intensified city will lead to lower greenhouse emissions. Whether this is borne out by experience needs to be examined....."

Carbon dioxide emissions in terms of kg per passenger kilometer
Mode Electric car (2 seater, 2 people) Average bus Quickcat ferry (rush hour) Suburban diesel train 4.0 litre Jaguar XJ8 (2 people) Electric Inter City 225 train Internal air flights Jet Raider ferry (average)	Carbon 0.02 0.08 0.08 0.13 0.16 0.17 0.26 0.45	Occupancy 100% 20% 65% 22% 40% 50% 65% 20%

That old Jet Raider ferry is seriously hungry.
Because those partly filled trips really chew through the diesel.
Wonder how the Kea does?

Queens Wharf Design Competition underway...

About time. A few conflicted agendas to sort out, but at last the competition is underway. I am delighted to see that the competition provides for "adaptive reuse" of the existing sheds. It also provides for the option of an iconic disruption of the wharf as well....

Time will tell. It looks like the total duration of the competition - it is in 2 stages - is about 8 weeks. That's for those who make it into stage 2....

I think this space needs to become a social space for Auckland and Aucklanders.

Think of it as: myspace.auckland.com

Sure it's a big place, and can be used for other purposes from time to time, like docking cruise-ships, but its downtown location and proximity to public transport links screams out that this needs to become a public space. A social place.....

The organisers/key agencies for this competition have set up a website.
Check it out at: http://www.queenswharf.org.nz/

The timetable for the competition is:

Mon 24 August 2009
Stage 1 design competition opens
» Learn More
Fri 28 August 2009
Design contestant briefing and Q&A session (optional)

Fri 11 September 2009
Stage 1 design competition closes, 12 noon

Sun 13 September 2009
Public exhibition of designs opens
» Learn More
Sun 13 September 2009
Queens Wharf public access day
» Learn More
Mon 14 September 2009
Evaluation starts on submitted designs
Fri 25 September 2009
Short list of designs to go forward announced
Mon 28 September 2009
Start of detailed development for short list designs (Stage 2)

Fri 16 October 2009
Close of detailed development for short list designs, 12 noon

Mon 19 October 2009
Evaluation starts on detailed designs

Fri 30 October 2009
Conclusion of the evaluation of detailed designs

Mon 06 November 2009
Winner announced during this week

So. get on down there for the site visit on Sunday 13th September.
Liberate the place with your presence.
Take your camera and take lots of pictures.

Tetrodotoxin and North Shore Beaches...

The ARC had a formal briefing from environmental experts at its Environmental Management Committee meeting today. So I thought it useful to share the report....

While the science is somewhat tentative, there does appear to be strong evidence to support the opinion that the dog deaths and problems experienced at Cheltenham and Narrowneck beaches, are unrelated to reports of penguin, pilchard and dolphin deaths elsewhere in the Hauraki Gulf.

The dog deaths that occurred after ingesting substances found on NarrowNeck or Cheltenham beaches were neurological. The dogs died very quickly - less than an hour afterward. There have been other reported dog deaths in Auckland Region, but these have been lingering deaths accompanied by vomiting, and sometimes these sick dogs have had to put down after being sick for some time.

The cause of death of the dogs that died after eating something on Narrowneck or Cheltenham beaches have been attributed to tetrodotoxin - often referred to as TTX for short. TTX was confirmed in the stomach of one of the dogs that died.

ARC specialists have been working with other Government specialists intensively. Last week 150 Sea Slugs were collected off NarrowNeck and Cheltenham beaches, between high and low tide marks. Of these Sea Slugs, four were confirmed contaminated with the TTX poison. It is suspected that the dogs ate or tasted a Sea Slug poisoned with TTX.

Rapid death is associated with TTX poisoning.

ARC specialists visited North Shore beaches yesterday (Monday 17th August) and found 5 Sea Slugs at NarrowNeck Beach and 2 at Cheltenham. These Sea Slugs are now being tested at the Cawthron Institute in Wellington - where the others were tested. So there is still a risk that poisoned Sea Slugs may be being washed onto these beaches.

A Public Health Warning is still in force for North Shore beaches, but it appears that Cheltenham and NarrowNeck beaches are where the TTX poison danger has been localised.

Apparently TTX is produced from a reasonably common bacterium which can infect quite healthy sea animals. It appears that this bacterium lives happily in soft bodied animals like Puffer Fish and Octopus, in a sort of parasitic arrangement. It doesn't harm them. However if another animal attacks the host and bites it, then the bacterium emits TTX which can either kill the attacker or repel it. Scientists believe that Sea Slugs - which are carniverous and eat pretty much anything - ate a sea animal which was contaminated with TTX.

Then these Sea Slugs themselves became contaminated with the TTX poison, died, and got washed up on beaches, where they have tempted local dogs.

We were advised that adult Sea Slugs are about 80 - 100 mm long. They are soft, smooth to the touch, and coloured pale grey, with brown/black stripes. It appears that Sea Slugs go through a boom/bust breeding cycle where a proportion of mature healthy Sea Slugs commonly die - after spawning - and may get washed up on the beach. What was uncommon with the present situation, was that a proprtion of those that were washed up were around 40mm long - ie young. This supports the view that the Sea Slugs themselves were poisoned.

ARC experts stated that this was the first time TTX had been detected like this, in the Hauraki Gulf, but were quick to point out that this may have happened before - it was a natural event - but may have not come to anyone's attention before this event.

When and how might oil decline affect New Zealand?

A long ago I worked for Shell International in London. IC/13 was the department that employed me where I was a Systems Analyst building computer models for Shell's Strategic Planning and Econometrics gurus. It was after the Oil Crash...

Anyway. I prepared a few graphs to tell a wee story....

Imagine NZ's economy goes like this graph. It graphs annual GDP change. We're in a recession now, so GDP change is negative. Plan is it will turn positive. Not till 2013 here...


Much of New Zealand's economic growth will need to be fuelled by oil - because we are still very much a carbon economy. It turns out that a good indicator of what is happening in global oil terms, is the number of days of oil supply there are - above the ground of course - in OECD stocks....

So let's have a look at that, if nothing was happening "bad" - ie there was still an "infinite" amount of oil under the ground. The rest of world would be in +GDP growth territory, and would be drawing more heavily on those OECD stocks. More would be pumped from OPEC oil reserves correspondingly, and the number of days in stock would stay about the same - maybe go up a bit to keep pace with growing demand...

But actually that's not happening. This graph shows that actual levels of stocks are falling behind forecast - despite the decline in global GDP/economic activity. This information is among the pile of inputs that world experts are looking at, with increasing concern... because....

...the reality is that when Western economies get geared up, get their finances sorted, recover from the recession, and move into production, the energy they need - that they will demand - will be more than can be supplied from the OECD stocks, even with the OPEC pumps going full bore...

A major finding at Shell, and one which I am sure is shared everywhere, is that the first big trigger for price rises, for spot price rises that fed into price rises at the petrol pumps, was that OECD stocks went into decline... that seems to be the risk Western economies are looking at.

So. The recovery brings the risk that there will not be enough oil around to fuel it. And the proverbial will hit the fan...

I haven't yet been able to find a good historical data graph charting crude oil price vs inventory (stocks), but this one shows the general relationship.

International Energy Authority - "Oil Crisis in 2010" - fact or fiction?

Amazing how an article in Granny Herald can hit the spot.

You can see it here.

It's a reprint of most of an interview given the UK Newspaper The Independent by Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

Key bits include: "The IEA estimates that the decline in oil production in existing fields is now running at 6.7 per cent a year compared to the 3.7 per cent decline it had estimated in 2007, which it now acknowledges to be wrong...." and: "Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years - at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated...."

You can see how the article appeared in the Independent here. There is a lot more. What is particularly interesting about this link is that the newspaper has been running an email opinion and feedback and debate section after publication.

This is almost as interesting as the article itself.

For example:

'global production is likely to peak in about 10 years'

Firstly, oil is not produced, it is extracted. The earth produces oil at an extremely slow [geological] rate compared to the insane rate at which we are using it ..... around 84 million barrels a day, down from a peak of 87 million barrels a day.

Secondly, it's a nice line, but it does not match the facts.
Global extraction of light sweet crude peaked in 2005, and absolute peak of extraction almost certainly occured between 2005 and 2008. Desperation attempts to prop up the system (tar sands, deep water etc.) are unlikely to compensate for loss of extraction from old oil fields, such as Cantarell, which is now experiencing double digit annual depletion.

Thirdly, since we are headed for an abrupt climate change event (due to massively excessive emissions, very much related ot the use of oil), the last thing we need is an economic recovery that spurs increased oil use and increased emissions.

So here we are, falling off the energy cliff and headed into enviornmental catstrophe, with clowns and criminals in control, squandering one of the most precious substrances we have on futile wars and the construction of white elephants, such as the absurd Olympic venue.

The crux of peak oil is, of course, that there can be NO economic growth with a declining energy supply. And a little further down the track the industrialised food production system, which is totally dependent on cheap oil, will collapse, either rather slowly, or very rapidly -we just don't know..

Governments totally ignore all these issues.

It all goes to show what many of us have been sating for a long time: mainstream culture is completely insane and we are headed for a series of catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions.

However, in the culture of 'be happy, think positive', reality rarely gets a mention.

And:

This piece is so laughable that it is either a hoax or the author was told to write something to cause panic on a slow day of selling papers.

I have been in the Oil/Natural gas business all of my adult life. I can tell you this: We've only found about one tenth of what's available. The United States alone has enough reserves to be energy independent for centuries to come.

If you still believe the myth that oil was made by decomposing dinosaurs or vegetation you are so behind the times. Our planet makes oil and it has never stopped making oil. Oil is a fundamental element of the earth just like water, methane, carbon dioxide, oxygen, iron, etc.

Stop the panic mongering.

What a worry!

And if you are interested in actually hearing what the good Dr had to say about these same things about a year ago, try this:

Transforming Queens Wharf's cool shed into a "Cool Shed"

At the end of Queens Wharf stands what is generally known by Ports of Auckland as "the cool shed". Inside it contains a purpose built cool room often used to hold bananas and other fruit and vegetables that need to be kept cool to prolong their lives before being onsold to shops for distribution.... So. With all the talk about Queens Wharf, I decided to have a play with it. How could it be reused....?

Here it is with a paint job. Kept the life buoy. And cleaned up those big roller doors. Won't it be great when we can cycle round the edge, and take the dog for a walk....

This is the western edge of the cool shed. The sunny afternoon side. Mostly out of the wind. I thought it would be fun to put some big awnings up. Festive. Adaptable. Adjustable. People appreciate the shade when the sun is high in summer. As they linger to watch the action. Plenty of ferries coming and going. Quite close by too. Recognise people you know as they go past.

There's a few occasional tables here. Not directly associated with specific restaurant. Probably needs to be some public seats too. Maybe against the walls. Lots of scope for that...

This is another perspective. The cruise ship is still moored. People coming and going over there. But a different and separate experience by the cool shed....

And here we see part of the cool shed opened up for business. Can see that the iron trusses are part of the restoration. Popular in there...

This part is a Food Court - much like you can find in a mall. Concessions offered to operators. Low cost take away food - not expensive restaurants. Places to sit and eat outside - under the awnings - on the lee side of the shed away from the wind....

There's room for a few bays like this in the cool shed. One might be for low cost retail. Another might be set aside for a farmer's market. There are options to service these bays from the rear - perhaps service lane/corridors behind the frontages...

And of course you can go through and step out the other side of the cool shed. There's that cruise ship just begging to be looked at...

Or maybe head out the door to the end of Queens Wharf. Check out that view... Find a bit of shelter there. Maybe there's a skate ramp or stage or just a place to sit and eat that takeaway....

Either way, the views are pretty interesting. Another afternoon well spent on Queens Wharf....

Queens Wharf - Design for people and ships and sheds...

The cruise ship is in. You can see the extendable walkways. These come from level 1 of the Shed 10. This is the way passenger exit and entry is handled by Wellington's equivalent shed. And many other places. It means that entry and exit facilities can be handled on level 1. Leaving wharf level for other things. Including visitors...

The futuristic shelters can be used to group activities like interpretation, food vendors, seating... Important to note the interesting views that are available at the end of Queens Wharf and along its length...