Tiwai Point and Rio Tinto

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Regs

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#793468 4-Apr-2013 20:32

jonherries: Couple of thoughts:

Concerns about the price of power is directly proportional to the amount you use. Perhaps being more efficient in power use makes this discussion moot.

if you are conservative/efficient on electricity use and become a 'low user' you pay more per unit than if you are a 'normal' or 'heavy' user. sure it will cost you less overall, but its not linearly proportional.

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jonherries

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#793469 4-Apr-2013 20:33

Regs:
jonherries: Couple of thoughts:

Concerns about the price of power is directly proportional to the amount you use. Perhaps being more efficient in power use makes this discussion moot.

if you are conservative/efficient on electricity use and become a 'low user' you pay more per unit than if you are a 'normal' or 'heavy' user. sure it will cost you less overall, but its not linearly proportional.

Hahaha, It was meant to be poetic license not an exercise in mathematics! ;)

Jon

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#793485 4-Apr-2013 20:48

jonherries: Couple of thoughts:

Concerns about the price of power is directly proportional to the amount you use. Perhaps being more efficient in power use makes this discussion moot.
The irony to me about "outrageous SOE profits" is that these go to the bottom line of the government books, so you pay less tax. If this is a problem for you see the comment above. You can take some smugness to the bank in that situation.

Last comment I would make is that I think although the Greens have some ill-thought-out ideas, there are a couple of things that appeal to me about how they work: they seem to have a lot more integrity and respect for the public through transparency and accountability to their constituency and secondly; they are willing to try out ideas and when they are proved to be crazy they drop them and move on to the next thing. They have done some good stuff like making the government insulate state houses.

I agree, some of the ideas they put forward are good, are they certainly worthy of being considered (and offered as they were) partners. I was fairly annoyed they turned down an offer from the National Government to work together, surely any voice closer to those of the decision makers is one for the betterment of your supporters? Instead of having next to no say in Government as they have now, they could have had a few specific ideas considered more seriously. Politics is about compromise. It's this short shortsightedness that will ensure they never command the country.

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#793489 4-Apr-2013 20:53

Sorry to be taking this discussion on topic away from peoples personal political views...

There was a really interesting editorial in the business section of the Dom Post this morning (on stuff here) that bought some facts (although not referenced) to the table that I hadn't seen elsewhere
1) Transpower believes it can upgrade the grid in '3 summers' to send all of Manapouri's power north
2) Tiwai Pt is one of the most expensive plants per unit of output (although perhaps their particularly pure outptu mitigates this) of the whole Rio Tinto Alcan portfolio of aluminium smelters - all of which are essentially white elephant for Rio Tinto as the combined miner-processor model is chucked out the window. Bottom line is Rio Tinto probably don't care much for all of their smelters, and even less so for Tiwai Pt

All in all, doesn't look good for Southland at all

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#794445 7-Apr-2013 00:55

Those "opinion pieces" confuse me, they always refer to Tiwai being at Bluff, while as the crow flies it is close to Bluff, it is 35km by road away, but only 25km to Invercargill

Also, you get articles like this that seem to confuse the whole thing again

http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/8516574/Meridian-boss-tells-of-power-talks

Brendan

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#794450 7-Apr-2013 01:40

Linuxluver:

..........

This government has completely lost its way.

Yes. Yes it has.

I was trying to think the other day of 5 things this government has done to help the average citizen in NZ. 5 real, substantial things.

I honestly tried. I couldn't think of the damned thing.

Now, maybe someone else can. Fire ahead.

On the other hand, I had to go to bed before I completed my list of bad things this government has done: scandals, poor bashing, company closures, more scandals, sweet heart deals with fat cats, dirty legislation deals (e.g. skynet), kim dotcom..... John English being a climate change denier.... School fiascos....

Really, it's absurd to think these clowns are running us anywhere but into the ground.

Tiwai: close it down. It'd be cheaper to put all those people into training/retirement. You are paying their wages NOW, essentially (tax breaks), along with higher power prices (you pay 'half' their power bill).

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#794451 7-Apr-2013 01:42

TheMantis:
For what it's worth. Labor was in power for 9 years and did nothing about lowering the cost of domestic power pricing.. They were seduced by the high returns from their SOEs.

Yes, you're quite correct. Perhaps that is the biggest problem - both Labour and National are utterly useless. NZ really needs a strong third party, one that has real policies unlike our current minor parties.

Exactly right. YES! Finally.

Labour are useless. National are useless AND nasty.

(ACT are a bad joke).

networkn

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#794493 7-Apr-2013 09:09

Brendan:
TheMantis:
For what it's worth. Labor was in power for 9 years and did nothing about lowering the cost of domestic power pricing.. They were seduced by the high returns from their SOEs.

Yes, you're quite correct. Perhaps that is the biggest problem - both Labour and National are utterly useless. NZ really needs a strong third party, one that has real policies unlike our current minor parties.

Exactly right. YES! Finally.

Labour are useless. National are useless AND nasty.

(ACT are a bad joke).

How easy it is for people to forget that JK led this country through it's largest natural disasters, and has steered us through relatively unscathed the GFC, No political party is flawless.

I am sure the militant amongst us will have plenty to point out in the bad side of the ledger, but I honestly am very thankful Labour wasn't in power during the last 5 years.

Brendan

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#794794 7-Apr-2013 23:43

networkn:
Brendan:
TheMantis:
For what it's worth. Labor was in power for 9 years and did nothing about lowering the cost of domestic power pricing.. They were seduced by the high returns from their SOEs.

Yes, you're quite correct. Perhaps that is the biggest problem - both Labour and National are utterly useless. NZ really needs a strong third party, one that has real policies unlike our current minor parties.

Exactly right. YES! Finally.

Labour are useless. National are useless AND nasty.

(ACT are a bad joke).

How easy it is for people to forget that JK led this country through it's largest natural disasters,

Firefighters, rescue workers, engineers, aid workers, tax payers, charities, students, builders, police, beneficiaries, army etc lead us through the natural disaster.

Some politicians went on TV, asked for some more help from overseas and spent your money.

At a time when John Key and National could have shown their mettle, we merely had 'adequate' performances (or less). Any government could have done the same Andre. There was nothing superior from John Key. Indeed, the whole on going sorry mess could be characterized as lackluster.

Oh, I don't think any of the other parties would have done better mind you. And that is the problem.

Leadership Andre? I don't think you have actually seen what real leadership is. None of us have for 20 years. I don't blame you for seizing on any mediocre example.

and has steered us through relatively unscathed the GFC, No political party is flawless.

Leadership? He could do nothing but watch and react, hoping HMS New Zealand didn't hit the ice berg full on. Same as any of them do.

Aren't you bored with that yet? Aren't you sick of weak politicians making laws for hollywood pockets, making laws to take your money away if your bank fails through incompetence, taking away schools your children go to, making dirty deals for conference centers, denying responsibility for illegal spying, etc, etc etc?

Isn't it all getting a bit sickening to you yet? What's wrong with just saying NONE of our politicians are worth their pay? About time to isn't it?

I am sure the militant amongst us will have plenty to point out in the bad side of the ledger, but I honestly am very thankful Labour wasn't in power during the last 5 years.

Why? What do you think they would have done differently? I am keen to know. Anything significant.

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