lewlewbell

[lewlewbell]

I recently learned that New Zealand’s parliament building will be installing Solar PV to help offset the carbon footprint of government and our politicians. While this is certainly commendable, I personally feel it is only really a “symbolic effort“ to help tackle climate change or set some kind of example. Why? Many of our politicians regularly fly around the country, especially between Auckland and Wellington. No amount of solar panels on parliament will so much as make a dent in offsetting that individual carbon footprint.

The problem is we live in a large country of our population size, and flight is often the only practical form of travel ... Or is it? We have a rail line connecting much of the major centres, especially on the North Island. We have a passenger service running between Auckland and Wellington  — incidentally spoling the passenger to some pretty spectacular scenery by the way — but I know what you’re thinking, those train journeys take a good 10 hours or more, awesome if you’re a tourist looking for slow pace, but hardly practical for a politician commuting between Auckland and Parliament, right? And it’s not like we can afford a bullet train.

But wait a moment, what if you were to forgo the endurance of that long train journey by placing yourself in stasis? I’m of course talking about a “sleeper train“! What if we brought back the sleeper trains; featuring comfortable, private cabins and onboard cafe?

The eager politician could catch that 7pm Sunday train, check up on some emails via the onboard wifi, grab a cup of hot coaco from the onboard cafe, and hit the sack by 10pm. The rhythm of that rocking cabin will send them into a nice deep sleep. By the time they wake up parliament will be there waiting for them at the end of the line. They will feel rested, revved and ready to go, and they would have reached their destination having produced a fraction of the carbon footprint generated by a morning flight.

Even if they only used the train once per week it would make a meaningful difference.

Who knows, maybe you will even start off a new trend where sleeper trains become the new norm for work travel, and there will be enough demand to electrify the entire network further offsetting that footprint.

Politicians, if you really want to make a difference, put your money where your mouth is and take the train to work!  ;-)

[lewlewbell]

Every couple of weeks I dedicate a days work to Coastguard Wellington, serving as crew on the rescue vessel, Spirit Of Wellington. We often work closely with the maritime Police on the Lady Liz to ensure kiwi lives are kept safe at sea. My crew and I made a rescue video for you to enjoy! Coastguard is a volunteer service and relies heavily on generous donations to keep the vessels supplied and running. If you would like to donate, see our Coastguard website https://www.coastguard.nz/about-us/ Crew video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgB_1AYep9I

[lewlewbell]

After finishing my contract with SG Digital, and taking some time off to spend with Lai and Daniella over this beautiful New Zealand summer, I found myself with plenty of spare time, but rather than spending it all lazing around and watching Netflix, i’ve been getting creative. This is the first episode in my new YouTube channel series called AlternateLenz.  The new series attempts to explore those alternate stories that can or have had significant impacts on our world, but have somehow been overshadowed by the mainstream, or forgotten altogether.

This first episode tells the story of India’s turbulent journey through World War 2, and the significant contributions Indian’s made to the allied war effort. If you enjoyed the video, please do like and subscribe -- it encourages me to create more works like this one instead of binging Netflix -- and do share any feedback or suggestions you may have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EolTGC79cbY&t

- Tuesday 12 March, 2019

[lewlewbell]

Electric Vehicles - The Truth and The Tripe

There is no better way to ruffle the feathers of the oil tycoon than a shift to the all-electric car.

Impractical? Expensive? Slow? Unreliable? Dirty? These are just some of the words we have seen thrown around since the EV joined the global market as a genuine contender of the combustion engine powered car.

While there may be some truth to some of these accusations, much of what we hear about EV’s ranges from misunderstanding, to utter nonsense — aka tripe.

So, let’s look at some of the most common words people use to associate with EV’s and figure out which ones bear truth, and which ones stink of tripe, and let’s back up our conclusions with reliable sources.

Range ‘They are impractical because they have very little range!‘, Truth or Tripe? A lack of range when compared with petrol and diesel counterparts has likely been the greatest barrier standing between the EV and the mass market, but there are two things you should know about EV range:

Recently published studies of American driving habits have revealed that the average American drives 29.2 miles per day, well within the range of most EV’s, making the electric car ideally suited to the average daily commute.

The newly released Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf 2.0 and Chevy Bolt are all setting new standards in EV range. We are now seeing numbers like “220 miles“. A number that high is likely to outdo your own bladder range, which makes you wonder if range anxiety is still really a thing?

Charging 'They are impractical because they take too long to charge!’, Truth or Tripe?

The average EV user will tend to charge their vehicle overnight, this way they can take advantage of the cheaper evening electricity tariffs, ready for their daily commute the following morning. No doubt this is economical.

What If an EV user is going on a longer journey, or finds themselves needing to charge the car in a hurry? This is where public charging stations come in, depending on the type of system, these “fast-chargers” can charge an EV to 80% capacity within twenty minutes. This technology is also continuing to improve.

Infrastructure ‘There is nowhere to charge an EV!‘, Truth or Tripe?

So you can charge an EV pretty quickly if you are in a hurry, but there are many who claim that public charging infrastructure is simply “not there”. While it is true that charging infrastructure is still developing, most developed countries have plenty of public charging stations, it’s just a matter of planning your journey beforehand. Don’t take my word for this, check out PlugShare.

Batteries ‘The battery is expensive, and will die after a few years’, Truth or Tripe?

It is true that these large Lithium Ion batteries do not come cheap, however it should be noted that the price of batteries is dropping every year as demand increases, Telsa have even gone as far as claiming that the Gigafactory alone will reduce battery prices by around 30%.

The lifespan of an EV battery is also a lot longer than many people believe, many manufacturers provide a battery warranty of ten years, but an EV owner can expect the battery to survive long past this warranty.

Research has shown that even with the replacement of a battery, an EV is still more economical than a petrol or diesel car.

Then there is the topic of new battery technologies currently in the pipeline, but let’s save that for a future post.

Slow ‘Electric vehicles are slow‘, Truth or Tripe?

I have one word to say to you, just one word ... Tesla.

Overloaded ‘The national grid cannot handle a nation of EV’s‘, Truth or Tripe? This is another classic, inaccurate criticism. If everyone owned an EV, and they all arrived home from work at 6pm during electricity peak, and they all plugged in their EV and sucked energy from the national grid at the same time, this could present a problem, but this is not how EV’s work — they are smarter than that.

The majority of EV users will charge their vehicle overnight when tariffs are cheap, and national demand for electricity is low.

In fact, studies have revealed that while EV’s may increase overall demand for electricity, the largest problem for the National Grid has been erratic demand — trying to balance peak and off-peak consumption — and this has been a problem for many years. EV’s may actually help to solve this problem in the form of what is called “vehicle-to-grid technology“.

This technology would allow EV’s to feed your house during peak electricity when the grid is under strain, and consume from the grid during off-peak electricity when the grid is producing excess power. The result is a balanced grid, and a potential solution to the renewable energy “duck curve“.

Landfill ‘All those batteries eventually end up in landfill‘, Truth or Tripe? Tripe. Lithium Ion batteries can be recycled if proper practices are enforced.

Dirty ‘Driving an EV causes just as much emissions as a petrol car, because that energy is still coming from power plants‘, Truth or Tripe?

It is true that if you are charging your car from a national grid powered by coal for example, you may still be indirectly generating high emissions, however, there are three things you need to consider:

EV’s convert over 90% of energy from their batteries into moving the car, compared with 30% from a modern petrol or diesel car, so even if charged entirely by fossil fuels, EV’s are still more efficient

Not all countries have dirty grids, New Zealand for example uses 80% clean, renewable energy

In order to reduce global emissions, we need to move towards cleaner energy, and electric transportation. Just because that move to cleaner energy might be moving slower, does not mean we should just ditch the idea of EV’s — they are two goals that both need to be achieved.

Cobalt ‘There are children dying in Africa to mine cobalt for EV’s‘, Truth or Tripe?

Cobalt is a chemical element used in the production of Lithium Ion batteries, so you will find it in the battery of an EV, your smartphone, and many other electronic devices.

It is disheartening to say that many suppliers of Cobalt retrieve this resource from impoverished countries with very poor working conditions — countries where child labour is common — so there is an unfortunate truth to this criticism. However, the oil industry doesn’t exactly have the cleanest record when it comes to the morals of oil extraction either.

No matter how you travel or which product you purchase in the west, there’s a good chance someone, somewhere in the world is being exploited as a result, whether it be Cobalt, petroleum, palm oil, or a t-shirt manufactured in a sweat shop.

As consumers, the best thing we can do from an ethical perspective is to shop consciously — find out how a product is made before you purchase it.

Silly ‘The EV designs are too radical!‘, Truth or Tripe?

Those with a more conservative taste for design have claimed that EV’s always have a “silly“ design — probably referring to the BMW i3, which is perhaps a little radical for some — but the E-Golf on the other hand? One would surly forgive you for thinking this was a regular little petrol Golf.

Most of what I have learned about electric vehicles has come from the YouTube show, Fully Charged. If you enjoyed reading my post and made it this far, I recommend checking out this channel.

[lewlewbell]

Wellington Transport - The ten year plan

LewLewBell Vision

“What kind of city do we want Wellington to be?” this is the question Wellington City Council is asking us as a part of their 10 year plan consultation.

With a particular affection for city planning, LewLewBell does have a few thoughts -- well an ideas list as long as his arm actually -- but let’s limit this post to one of the more burning and controversial topics; transportation.

An artists impression of a pedestrian friendly Te Aro, by Pierre Emmanuelidis

I’m sure that ten years from now we would all like to see a city center designed around people. I want to see more open spaces, more trees, more parks, more cafes, and a massive reduction of inner city traffic.

I would like to be able to walk the golden mile, free from pollution and hazards.

Hold your horses a minute! What about my Holden?

The idea is not to eliminate the car entirely, but to render it irrelevant within the City Center itself.

The first step to achieving this is to transform State Highway 1 into an effective and minimally-disruptive bypass, and I believe the secret to this lies with the  Arras Tunnel design.

The Arras Tunnel can be best described as a “trenched road” with a pedestrian plaza on the top.

The recent GetWellyMoving study has proposed building tunnels to bypass the inner city, so it is certainly not unrealistic to assume that we cannot build a trenched mass transit system from the Terrace Tunnel to the Mt Victoria Tunnel.

With the bulk of bypassing traffic moved below ground, we can then focus on transforming the city center into a more pleasant, people-friendly place, where walking, cycling and playing is made simple and safe.

Continuous four lanes

Even if we move the state highway below ground, traffic woes will remain without maintaining a continuous four lane highway from the terrace to the airport. Merging two lanes into one is only asking for gridlock.

This is an existing problem, and it needs to be fixed. Let’s speed up the planned projects for a second Terrace tunnel and second Mt Victoria tunnel.

Time to look at the bigger picture

Now for the fun part.

With our most serious road traffic concerns addressed, and a new people-friendly city center in place, it is time to start looking at the bigger picture.

The city is growing, and building more roads to solve this problem is not the answer. We have our trenched highway, now it’s time to look for alternatives.

An artists impression of light rail in Wellington, by fitwellington.org (Scenario A)

The most efficient method of transporting large quantities of people from A to B is via public transportation, this fact has been proven all around the world.

Many modern, and growing cities are turning to light rail, this includes our cousins across the ditch in Canberra, Gold Coast and Sydney.

Wellington’s compactness and narrow transport corridor makes light rail an ideal form of transport for our city.

The price of a dedicated light rail tunnel

Studies in the past have indicated that light rail would be unaffordable for Wellington, because a dedicated light rail tunnel would be required to pass Mt Victoria. I would argue ‘why do we need a dedicated tunnel?‘.

There is already a planned second Mt Victoria tunnel, we just need to ensure this new tunnel is wide enough to cater for light rail as well as other traffic. It’s time to start thinking outside the box, Wellington City Council :-)

[lewlewbell]

Te Horo Junction

LewLewBell vision

Te Horo Junction is a major transport hub located in Te Horo, Kapiti Coast.

The facility operates as an International airport, railway station, shopping center, and freight depot, designed to serve New Zealand’s lower north island, including the capital city of Wellington.

With the high costs associated with expanding Wellington airport, and a struggling Kapiti airport, it was decided that a new and bold plan was required for Wellington to truly thrive as an international location.

The lower north island required an airport capable of sustaining long-haul flights alongside domestic routes, this would need to be an airport with excellent accessibility, transport options, seamless freight transfer, an airport-friendly climate and have plenty of room for possible runway extensions in the future.

It was at this time Te Horo Junction was born.

Air

With demand for air travel spread across Wellington, Manawatu and Whanganui, Te Horo Junction soon found itself connected to every corner of New Zealand, alongside Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Nadi.

A few years later came the “long-haul flight boom”, with direct long-haul flights opening to Singapore, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with rumours of Houston joining the party soon.

The larger aircraft’s had no trouble landing on the shiny, new runways.

Passenger rail

The Capital Express (operated by TranzMetro) operates a high-speed express service frequenting every thirty minutes between Te Horo Junction and Wellington City, with a journey time of approximately 38 minutes.

The Manawatu-Kapiti link has replaced the struggling Capital Connection with a new, modern, electrified service operating hourly between Te Horo Junction and Palmerston North. This service allows Palmerston North rail users to travel directly to the airport, or connect to Wellington via the Tranz Metro service.

The Overlander operates a daily service between Auckland and Wellington, via Te Horo Junction.

Road

With Te Horo Junction sitting conveniently alongside state highway 1, the Kapiti Expressway is readily accessible to car users heading northbound, or southbnound towards Wellington City via the new Transmission Gully motorway.

The facility features multi-story parking for car users, several EV charging stations, and an integrated freight depot.

Bus

Local Kapiti bus services operate frequently, connecting Te Horo Junction to the surrounding towns of Paraparaumu, Waikanae, Otaki and Levin.

Express bus services run between Porirua, the Hut Valley and Te Horo Junction.

Freight

An integrated freight depot allows freight to be swiftly transferred between air, rail, and truck. Rail lines allow freight to be transferred directly to and from CentrePort Wellington, and north towards the wider regions of Manawatu, Whanganui, Taranaki, Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa.

Shopping

Not everyone treats Te Horo Junction like an airport or a train station, the truth is the facility rivals some of Wellington’s largest shopping malls when it comes to stores. eateries and entertainment, with curious shoppers ranging from passenger’s waiting for their next plane or train, to locals looking for a bargain.

Designed for expansion

With plenty of surrounding rural land, the architecture of this facility is designed with expansion in mind. Picture a facility made from Lego blocks — designed to expand with ease as population and demand change, meaning the facility can start off relatively small, and expand over time.

Disaster response

In the event a state-of-emergency is declared, such as after a major earthquake, Te Horo Junction and its trained staff are equipped to rapidly transform the facility from a civilian transport hub, to a fully operational, disaster response facility. In such a scenario, Te Horo Junction can coordinate with disaster relief agencies to distribute supplies to a disaster zone, operate as a NZ Air Force base, and temporarily house disaster victims and government officials. The facility itself is constructed to modern New Zealand building codes, with many sections of the facility built on base isolator’s.

Questions?

What happened to Kapiti airport?

The Kapiti airport stayed for a few more years, but was eventually freed up for much needed housing. Paraparaumu residents saw it as a win-win; they no longer had an airport in their back yard, but had a brand new airport just twenty minutes away.

What happened to Wellington airport? It was removed. The staff were all offered new jobs at Te Horo Junction, meanwhile the land was freed up for high-density housing, alongside a new park and cricket stadium.

How did Wellingtonian’s feel about all this?

Initially there were mixed feelings in Wellington about Te Horo Junction and the removal of Wellington airport. Some were concerned that we had swapped a convenient airport journey for a long, drawn out one, but when people began to discover the new and efficient high-speed rail system to Te Horo, those fears were soon quelled. Lyall Bay, and Kilbirnie residents threw a party and a private $200,000 firework display.

Te Horo Junction is so much more than a new Wellington airport.

it’s a multi-regional airport, a transport hub that will significantly increase the relevance of passenger rail in New Zealand, and a disaster response facility.

[lewlewbell]

The ‘Upside Down’

Those who have watched the Netflix Original ‘Stranger Things‘ are probably familiar with ‘The Upside Down‘.

For those not familiar with this, it is another, darker world that exists in parallel to the world you know. I am here to tell you from experience that this place exists — okay, perhaps not in the form of an alternate dimension, but it is there, buried deep within your inner psyche.

If you ever have the misfortune of discovering the Upside Down, you will find yourself in a world without hope, a world where you are continuously plagued by a shadow of impending doom.

There is no place to run or hide, there is no place where you can truly feel safe and secure, because this world exists in parallel to your own and will follow you wherever you go.

Label someone as a sufferer of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety Disorder or Depression if you insist, but know that this alternate world exists in all of us, no matter how strong, resilient or psychologically disciplined you think you are. All it takes to slip into the Upside Down is a trigger and a chemical imbalance.

I have been to the Upside Down, but I overcame that notion of hopelessness and I found my way back.

Now I feel better than ever, in fact I feel so calm and relaxed that I can even write a public blog about it.

No doubt I will find myself in that dark, vile place again at some stage in my life, but now I take comfort in knowing that there is a way back home. If you or someone you know is in this place, know that the feeling of hopelessness, the feeling of self-hate is little more than a symptom.

Seek help.

There is a way back home, and you don’t need to do it alone.

[lewlewbell]

Whoever said Wellington is too hilly for cycling?

I have been commuting by bus between Wellington city center, and the hilly northern suburbs for several years now, contending with late buses, periodic breakdowns, passengers that appear to have an unhealthy vendetta against deodorant and a service that is simply going down hill -- excuse the awful pun -- so last year I decided enough was enough.

I needed to find a new way of commuting to work and back! ‘Could I hire a parking space near my office and travel by car?’ I pondered to myself, but then I would only be contributing to Wellington’s ever growing traffic woes, not to mention the pricey parking. Being an advocate for sustainability, I just couldn’t accept this option. One day, during a ride home on the bus, I looked out of the window while the bus crawled along Thorndon Quay at snail pace, when a cyclist came zooming passed, bypassing that long line of endless traffic. ‘How dare you get home faster than me!‘ I uttered to myself, but then it occurred to me, why not start cycling? But then I remembered that mountainous climb back to my suburb, and the idea went straight out the window. A few months later, that’s when I stumbled across the so called e-bike! Suddenly I had found a mode of transport that may just be my holy grail. It was a push bike assisted by an electric motor. It could climb Wellington’s hills with relative ease, give me a brief workout, and allow me to bypass all that traffic. No fuel costs and no parking fees!

That’s when I purchased the Wellington designed Smartmotion Catalyst, an E-Mountain Bike. While the initial price of an E-bike is still a little steep for some, the prices are falling alongside battery technology, and depending on how much you use the bike, you will soon find yourself saving on transport costs. It has become my primary mode of transport to work, and I haven’t turned back since! This video is now my typical commute into work.

[lewlewbell]

My Japan travel journal

In August 2015 I set out on an adventure to Japan.

I met up with my old School friend, Sing. We traveled from the shining skyscrapers of Tokyo, to the ancient city of Kyoto, to the inland sleepy town of Azumino, all under a sweltering hot heat wave.

Along our great journey we would experience the fascinating, the unexpected, and the damn right bizarre. I hope you enjoy the read.

Lewis’ Travel Journal - An adventure in Japan