Panamax Port now for Port Taranaki N.Z.
09:41:12 PM - 2007-05-28
PORT TARANAKI $20 MILLION HARBOUR DEEPING
NEARLY FINISHED!
$20 Million Harbour Deeping Project in Port Taranaki New Zealand will be finished next week
(End of May 2007)
It means we will now be a Panamax Port .
A full-blown deep-water Port Capable of handling really big ships.
For the past nine months, the Machiavelli, New Zealands biggest dredge, has been chopping out hundreds and thousands of cubic metres of volcanic rock from the bottom of the Port's Entrance and Harbour and dumping it well out to sea.
In doing so, it has created a 200 metre-wide entrance channel and an Inner-Harbour Turning Basin where the biggest ships can now Safely Swing around before Reversing into their Berths.
It is hugely significant to the Economic Future of Taranaki, now Port Taranaki will join
New Zealand's "Big Four" Export Ports - Auckland, Taranga, Lyttelton and Otago - as the only ports in the country capable of accommodating the Panamax-sized ships that are being increasingly used in all parts of the world.
Such ships are named because it is the maximum size that will fit through the locks of the
Panama Canal, that vital link between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that is each year used by more than 14,0000 ships.
Port Taranaki - the only Export Port on New Zealand's Western Seaboard and the closest Port to Australia.
In 1865 there where 135 Ports trading internationally in New Zealand.
But 70 yers later, as ships got bigger and their draughts deeper, the number had reduced to 65 Ports.
70 years later again in 2005, the number had reduced even further to just 15 ports, only nine of which were container ports. Now, as ships get bigger still, there's a fair chance the number will reduce even further. By investing in its Multimillion Dollar Deeping Project, Port Taranaki has positioned itself to escape the next cull. It is believed Port Taranaki geographic location has the potential to be of huge benefit, not only to the future of coastal shipping, but to the future of
Trans -Tasman Shipping.
What we (Port Taranaki ) needs to do now is work really hard to Access Potential Trade Opportunities, we need to get out and sell ourselves further, now we have a Panamax Port.
Elsie Hagley |
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Biofuel Success in N.Z.!
06:59:43 PM - 2007-05-24
SOME BIOFUEL SUCCESS IN NEW ZEALAND TO MEET TARGET BY 2012!
Solid Energy will put $20 million in the next three years into production of Biodiesel using Canola grown in the South Island and Vegetable Cooking Oil collected from the Food and Hospitality Industry.
Another plant showing promise is the"Cane Willow" historically planted for basket-making industry could soon be powering New Zealand vehicles.
Lake Taupo Development Company and Agrigenesis began trial work in 2005, exploring energy farming opportunities using salix, a cultivated willow bush.
BioJoule Ltd is a joint venture between the two companies aiming to produce,
Elthanol for fuel and lignin for the biodegradable plastic industry, they have gone from an idea to a concept and are confident it will work, having improved understanding of growth and weed control.
Willow trials are showing promise and they are confident it will work.
The project has funding from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Sustainable Farming fund to continue trials.
The company plans to produce Ethanol through a pilot plant by the end of 2008.
Producing Ethanol from carbohydrates is well proven - it is a matter of getting the design right and bringing it all together.
It is the crops that hold them up, not the tecnology.
They don't see willows thriving in dry areas and they cannot be grown on steep country - they need to be grown on harvestable land. The next step is to start planting crops.
Salix could yield 11 to 16 times more energy for every unit of energy used to process it. This contrasts with corn, widely used in the United States, which has an energy yield of 1.6 - being first-generational results in annual costs
Salix does not need to be replanted, because it regrows after harvesting.
BioJoule has markets for all its products and believes it will produce ethanol for far less than present crude oil prices.
The company dream is for New Zealand to be Petrol Free.
International companies are expressing interest in our ligin extracting tecnology - as the world runs out of oil it also runs out of plastic, this is where the added value is.
"This is an exciting new concept - plastic bags take 50 years to biodegrade, using this new technology it is only taking three months for this transformation."
Also good news for farmers!
A trial in Taihape (centre of the North Island) found that cattle didn't require drenching, because the tannins from the willow paralysed the worms, which resulted in a niche market for the meat.
So this could be a win, win situation for everyone as drenching animals is a very high cost to farmers.
Maybe success for all of New Zealand in this targetting of Biofuel by 2012. |
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Ethanol - Henry Ford's Choice!
03:06:11 AM - 2007-05-18
ETHANOL WAS THE FUEL HENRY FORD DESCRIBED AS THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE IN THE 1920's - 1930's
Yes Ethanol was the fuel of choice for Henry Ford's first cars in 1908, the Model T which can be modified to run on either gasoline or pure alcohol.
Ethanol was first prepared synthetically in 1826 and the process for distillation used today emerged two years later 1826.
The Model T was designed to run on alcohol, which Henry Ford described as the fuel of the future, and efforts were made in the 1920's - 30's to substain an Ethanol programme.
Now almost 100 year's later there is renewed interest in Ethanol-blended Fuel that has spawned a host of spinoffs throughout the agricultural world.
World oil concerns could be solved in one generation by serious investment in energy production,
is the belief of Bert Heemskerk the global boss of Rabobank,which he said in Australia recently.
He backed up his assertion by announcing a US $500 million fund to invest in "clean technology" and more sustainable energy supplies.
The sign of the increasing interest in ethanol from big business is Wall Street investors lining up to back new ethanol plants, of which there are 200 in the planning stage.
They will result in an extra three billion tonnes of capacity needing 27 million more tonnes of grain and the aim is 15 billion gallons of Ethamol by 2015.
A whole new farm economy is emerging in the United States in the quest for renewable energy and already this is leading to a "food for fuel" debate.
Over 90 million acres have been sown in maize in the US this year and now the debate has began over whether finite land resources should be devoted to growing crops for food or for fuel.
It is also being argued that the swing to Ethanol production is taking too much grain away from the food markets.
Huge processing plants in the US have rejuvenated rural communities and local business.
Corn is the primary feedstock for Ethanol production, about 13% of the nations corn crop went into Ethanol in 2005 - some 1.43 Billion bushells.
Ethanol can also be made from other grains such as sorghum as well as from "biomass" sources such as corn cobs, cornstalks, wheat straw, rice straw, switchgrass, vegetable and forestry waste and other organic matter.
So Ethanol is no new thing, it has been around since the early 18 century, and as Henry Ford said it is going to be the fuel of the future, as today it is touted as the only proven commercial scale renewable transportation fuel in the market place.
Elsie Hagley |
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Are New Zealanders Missing Out?
06:40:32 PM - 2007-05-09
IS THIS TRUE ? KIWIS MISSING OUT!
Chris Liddle - Microsoft Chief Financial Officer says.
Kiwis often lack the aspiration needed to achieve greater things!
If New Zealand could get its economy together it would be the Best Small Country in the World.
Chris Liddell is a kiwi, so maybe he know's what he is talking about - I myself agree with him because we have not got sorted out the economic side of things, and as he says the last few years we haven't made any substantial progress.
While New Zealand has had a huge ecconomic windfall, it has not been invested in hard infrastructure like roading and ports, or in soft infrastructure like Broadband.
I know that his veiw of the infrastructure of broadband is true, as over the last few years I have been struggling with Telecom and Xtra to get a better serves of internet connection.
About six months ago I paid for the service, at a considerable cost for my own satellite with broadband, to get a Internet Connection in the Rural area, which delivers a faster connection, and good download right to my door, I can rely on in most of the time.
I agree that Kiwis are missing out.
Like Chris says Iam disappointed that New Zealand as a country have not done more for our education system, New Zealand certainly can learn from America about the competitiveness of their education system.
New Zealanders on any Sporting Arena will conquer the world, (especially with Rugby)
so why not now translate the same sense, to the Business world, and make New Zealand a more educated country for the future of New Zealanders. Kiwis are missing out.
Elsie Hagley
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