strypey

strypey, 48 minutes ago

... but ultimately they're still pushing timid, neoliberal solutions;

"Great British Energy would be set up with public money but would be independently operated and any profits would be reinvested, Labour sources say.

It would be able to build new wind, wave and solar projects - but also invest in privately-owned renewable schemes."

#BrianWheeler, 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63046067

strypey, 44 minutes ago

"Sir Keir has resisted calls from trade unions and many on the left of his party to nationalise the energy industry to help keep soaring bills down, arguing instead for an extension of the windfall tax on their profits."

#BrianWheeler, 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63046067

We're going to have to work hard to get a public consensus in favour of forcing investors to sell infrastructure into public ownership (back into it in many cases). But having a windfall tax, let alone extending it, is a good start.

strypey, 1 hour ago (edited 1 hour ago)

Chances are, the pothole crisis was the result of the over-use of roads for moving heavy freight (instead of rail or coastal shipping), combined with the Key government robbing from the road maintenance budget to fund its Roads of Dubious Significance. Something the the subsequent Labour government either didn't notice, or didn't fix. If Winston First want to beat up on Labour, why not pick on that, instead of inventing a story from whole cloth?

(6/6)

strypey, 1 hour ago

Also, it seems that Refining NZ ended local production of bitumen because they couldn't compete on price with imports, not because of environmentalists trying to shut down fossil fuel infrastructure;

"The refinery’s revenues had been declining and would continue to do so, he warned, unless they agreed to transition to an import terminal."

#JonathanMilne, 2021

https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/08/06/marsden-point-refinery-closure-to-save-100mt-co2/

(3/?)

strypey, 1 hour ago

So in summary, using imported bitumen for roads in Aotearoa is not a new thing, so chances are it wasn't the cause of the pothole crisis. Local production shut down because that was more profitable, for the cartel of transnational oil companies who control it. They control it due to a neoliberal government's decision, in the late 1980s, to hand ownership of the only oil refinery in the country - a natural monopoly paid for by the public - to a consortium of transnational oil companies.

(5/?)

strypey, 1 hour ago

Finally, on a historical note, Marsden Point Refinery...

"... is a tax-payer funded legacy from the 1960s that was... expanded again on a much bigger scale under Robert Muldoon’s Think Big projects in the 1980s, following global fuel security scares in the late 1970s... [under] the Fourth Labour Government... and the refinery assets were transferred to the New Zealand Refining Company, a consortium of the five major petrol retailers."

#ContrafedPublishing, 2020

https://contractormag.co.nz/contractor/marsden-point-bitumen/

(4/?)

strypey, 1 hour ago

Firstly, it seems that at least some of the bitumen used on roads in Aotearoa has always been imported;

"Waka Kotahi launched the bitumen supply chain review when it was announced by Refining NZ that it would cease onshore production of bitumen at Marsden Point Refinery in 2021. Before this, bitumen was sourced from both local and international sources."

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/media-releases/review-finds-bitumen-supply-chain-operating-effectively/

(2/?)

strypey, 1 hour ago

Oh and PS;

"The Fuel Industry (Improving Fuel Resilience) Amendment Bill, which was designed and passed by the Labour government in August last year, increased the level of onshore fuel stocks required to be held by fuel importers and wholesalers."

#EmmaHatton, 2024

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/08/nz-firsts-doomed-deal-to-reopen-marsden-point-refinery/

Seems from the Waka Kotahi link posted upthread that plenty of thought was also given to securing sufficient supplies of road-quality bitumin.

strypey, 1 hour ago

Oh and PPS;

“It’s not lost on me that there are inordinately large competing demands on our infrastructure spend, but there are other ways to boost resilience, not the least of which is getting the oil companies working with Channel to increase onshore holding capacity.”

#ShaneJones, 2024

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/08/nz-firsts-doomed-deal-to-reopen-marsden-point-refinery/

Another way to boost resilience is to reduce the fossil fuel dependence of our transport infrastructure as quickly as possible. Which the new govt is doing nothing much about.

strypey, 3 hours ago

@lightweight
> It's possible to use a self-hosted Gitlab (or, I think, Forgejo) as a Docker image host

Sounds like this is something you have yet to experiment with? Do you use Docker in your hosting setup? If so, where do you currently store images?

strypey, 23 hours ago

Once again, listening to the Star Fall hosts talking about the production of Blake's 7...

https://kitchendavid.podbean.com/

... makes clear that it's more than the sum of its parts. As with the original Star Wars (see the Fixed in the Edit video).

(1/?)

#podcasts #StarFall #Blakes7

strypey, 23 hours ago

The cast added their own layers of flavour, and not only the quality of their portrayals. Decisions to leave the show shaped the story in ways neither Nation, nor any of the other writers - could have predicted. As with Star Trek TNG, the ways fan connected with each of the regular and recurring characters - or didn't - also had some influence on how long the characters stuck around. The last minute change of heart that led to Series D had similar effects.

It truly was a group creation.

(3/?)

strypey, 23 hours ago

Terry Nation, credited as the creator, did indeed come up with the initial ideas, characters and plots. But he was drafting scripts in a hurry after agreeing to write 13 episodes for Series A. So script editor Chris Boucher added a lot of the flavour - especially in the dialogue - that fans remember B7 so fondly for.

The effects department were working with a meagre budget for the first series. But did some beautiful design work with what they had. These visuals too are iconic for fans.

(2/?)

strypey, 4 hours ago

@sj_zero
> you can't say for certain whether a spot will even stay a forest on geological timeframes, and the odds are it will not

Fair point. We also can't guarantee that future generations won't clear the forests to "improve" land, as our well-meaning but ecologically ignorant ancestors did. But for as long as a forest is allowed to exist, it's at minimum a carbon store, and potentially a carbon sink, depending on its maturity, biodiversity etc.

(3/3)

@fgraver @AccordionBruce @tbaldauf

strypey, 4 hours ago

@sj_zero
> The CO2 in a tree is gathered over years and years, whereas rotting can occur in a relatively short period of time.

Right, but you're not seeing the forest for the trees. What you call "rotting" is mostly fungi, bacteria and other decomposers, eating dead plants and using the carbon to form mycelium etc. A wild forest has a wide range of plants and fungi, all of which are absorbing carbon as they grow.

(1/?)

@fgraver @AccordionBruce @tbaldauf

strypey, 4 hours ago

New forests absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release. Once the biodiversity stops increasing - adding more species to absorb carbon in the same area - they become carbon neutral. So returning cleared areas to wild forest, wetlands etc, is a fantastic way to reduce net atmospheric carbon in the short term, and potentially hold it for centuries. With a bonus effect of helping to restore biodiversity.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-dont-mature-forests-carbon-dioxide.html

(2/?)

@sj_zero
@fgraver @AccordionBruce @tbaldauf

strypey, 4 hours ago

End note; again, thanks to @sj_zero for laying out your arguments with so much detail. I'm finding this discussion both fascinating and insightful.

Note to @fgraver @AccordionBruce and @tbaldauf, if any of you are not enjoying our exchange, and want to be untagged, please just sing out.