Tagged: infrastructure

New Zealand wants to build a 100% renewable electricity grid, but massive infrastructure is not the best option - Guest Work

Guest Author • Jul 31, 2020 •

• climate change,
• electricity,
• emissions,
• hydro power,
• infrastructure,
• renewable electricity

Janet Stephenson, University of Otago A proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half of that provided by hydro power. The … Read More

Tech giants are battling it out to supply the global internet – here’s why that’s a problem - Guest Work

Guest Author • Apr 23, 2018 •

• atmospheric drones,
• Europe,
• Facebook,
• FASTER,
• Google,
• infrastructure,
• internet,
• League of Legends,
• MAREA,
• Micosoft,
• Privatisation,
• Project Loon,
• remote,
• rural,
• Satellite,
• stratospheric,
• tech giants,
• trans-Pacific,
• undersea cable,
• US,
• Wikileaks

Claudio Bozzi, Deakin University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. The US Federal Communications Commission last month granted Elon Musk’s SpaceX permission to launch 4,425 satellites that will provide affordable high speed broadband internet to consumers. The Starlink network will be accessible in the US and around the world … Read More

Opinion: Precious arable land - The Dismal Science

Eric Crampton • Apr 23, 2018 •

• agriculture,
• apartment buildings,
• congestion,
• developer,
• government,
• houses,
• infrastructure,
• land,
• New Zealand,
• paddock,
• passenger rail,
• transport,
• upzoning

I just don’t get the fixation with making sure that nobody builds a house on agricultural land. The government plans to make it harder for councils to approve new homes and lifestyle blocks on productive land near urban areas. A report out today, called Our Land 2018, shows New Zealand’s urban sprawl is eating up some of the … Read More

The public has a vital role to play in preventing future cyber attacks - Guest Work

Guest Author • Apr 20, 2018 •

• AI,
• artificial intelligence,
• Atlanta,
• Australia,
• cyberattack,
• education,
• firewall,
• government,
• hackers,
• human resources,
• infrastructure,
• IT,
• New York,
• Russia,
• secure,
• UK,
• USA

Sandeep Gopalan, Deakin University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Up to 400 Australian organisations may have been snared in a massive hacking incident detailed today. The attack, allegedly engineered by the Russian government, targeted millions of government and private sector machines globally via devices such as routers, … Read More

How to solve the ‘monster’ fatberg problem - Guest Work

Guest Author • Nov 09, 2017 •

• fat,
• fatbergs,
• grease,
• infrastructure,
• oil,
• sewerage,
• sewers,
• waste,
• water

By Alison Browne, University of Manchester and Mike Foden, Keele University.  Fatbergs – enormous solid masses of oil, grease, wet wipes and other hygiene products that congeal together to cause major blockages – are wreaking havoc on the sewers of cities around the world. A 130 tonne specimen described as a “monster” recently caused backups … Read More

Google Street View – A Useful Research Tool? - Public Health Expert

Public Health Expert • Jul 10, 2017 •

• Google Maps,
• Google Street View,
• Graffiti,
• infrastructure,
• litter,
• urban measures

Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Amber Pearson, Amanda Rzotkiewicz, A/Prof George Thomson Looking at Google Street View can be highly amusing. If you’ve ever wandered around a neighbourhood with Street View on Google Maps, you’ll have realised that everyone’s faces are blurred. Google is very concerned with privacy, so they’ve implemented an algorithm that finds out which parts of their photos … Read More

The real increase in infrastructure - The Dismal Science

Donal Curtin • May 28, 2017 •

• Budget,
• infrastructure,
• roading

The government made a decent effort in the Budget to boost the spend on infrastructure, as it showed in this graph, taken from the ‘Capital at a Glance’ document handed out yesterday as part of the Budget material. But if you thought that we will have an extra $32.5 billion worth of shiny new infrastructure in four … Read More

Cycling and walking in six NZ cities: Where are we at? - Public Health Expert

Public Health Expert • Sep 04, 2016 •

• active transport,
• cities,
• cycling,
• infrastructure,
• transport,
• walking

Dr Caroline Shaw, Dr Marie Russell On-road cycle lane Wellington. Photo credit: Jenny Ombler. Active transport is important for health and sustainability. But no one has previously looked systematically at how NZ cities support cycling and walking. Therefore, a new study has been performed and is now published online. This blog reports its main findings. Walking and cycling for … Read More

What social insects can teach us about resilient infrastructure - Guest Work

Guest Author • May 26, 2016 •

• design,
• infrastructure,
• resilience,
• social insects

By Eliza Middleton, University of Sydney Accidents, natural disasters and random or targeted attacks can cripple human infrastructure. Our transportation networks, supply chains and communication networks are increasing in size and becoming more complex as our populations grow. How do we protect those networks from becoming vulnerable and failing? Social insects may provide some inspiration. Social insects, … Read More

A once in a generation opportunity - The Dismal Science

Donal Curtin • Mar 10, 2016 •

• Auckland Harbour Bridge,
• infrastructure,
• New Zealand government

I’m going to be talking about infrastructure, but first let’s detour back to August 1968. President Johnson is waging the Vietnam War, the Warsaw Pact forces have invaded Czechoslovakia. In Dublin I have just turned 17, and I’m hoping that José Feliciano’s Come on baby light my fire will encourage one of the prettier girls from St Louis Rathmines to … Read More