Vicki Buck makes Guardian’s top 50 list
Congratulations to former Christchurch Mayor Vicki Buck who has been recognised in the Guardian’s list of 50 people who could save the planet.
Vicki Buck
EntrepreneurAs the world scrambles to find a fuel supply that doesn’t exacerbate global warming, New Zealander Vicki Buck, 51, has emerged as the acceptable face of biofuels. She’s one-third of Aquaflow, a small company that was one of the first to crack the technology needed to harvest wild algae from sewage ponds, then extract fuel from it suitable for cars and aircraft. Companies from Boeing to Virgin are now beating a path to her Christchurch door. They’re excited by the fact that it’s theoretically possible to produce 10,000 gallons of algae oil per acre, compared with 680 gallons per acre for palm oil. Moreover, Buck has form: she was mayor of Christchurch, set up top eco-website celsias.com, is a director of NZ Windfarms, and is now working on a start-up to reduce one major cause of climate change: the methane gas emitted from billions of animals which make up 49% of NZ’s greenhouse gases - chiefly by changing their diet.
UPDATE by frog: I have previous blogged on Aquaflow and their plans and on other biofuel from algae schemes.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Wow! However might require a lot more sewage ponds than we have though?
January 8th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Now I wonder if settling ponds for each dairy farm, to dispose of effluent in a more pleasing manner than spraying the s**t all over the pasture, would also produce algae? Joy.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
It will not be Kyoto taxes and other stupid ideas that help our drive for environmental neutrality, it will be the entrepreneurs that look at problems and solve them.
Hopefully, Labour and the Government will just stand well back and let people like Vicki Buck innovate.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Well the Kyoto costs would have to be driving the airlines to SOME extent - I doubt they would be doing a whole lot if the price of oil wasn’t so high.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:01 am
StephenR,
The airlines are excluded from Kyoto so those costs aren’t directly influencing them at all. But they are being driven to change by growing customer demand… customers who are either Kyoto worried or Kyoto trendy.
It is probably the price of fuel that is driving the airlines concerns most directly. But fuel prices haven’t risen because of fears of climate change, or possibly even Peak Oil, they have risen simply because of greedy futures speculators. By the time the speculation bubble is ready to do a dotcom Peak Oil is likely to have become a reality.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:41 am
How DID I forget about the airlines!? Damn.
Are these innovators (more the successful ones) then worthy of subsidies? Saw an article (hard to figure out if it was pie in the sky or not) about being able to make solar power/photovoltaics produce a very large percentage (40-50%) of electricity in the US by around 2050 with US$400 billion in subsidies between 2011 and then, which works out at a shade under $10 billion a year. It’s apparently working in Germany…
January 9th, 2008 at 8:48 am
# ZenTiger Says:
January 8th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
It will not be Kyoto taxes and other stupid ideas that help our drive for environmental neutrality, it will be the entrepreneurs that look at problems and solve them.
Hopefully, Labour and the Government will just stand well back and let people like Vicki Buck innovate.
…………..
Show me the environmentally friendly subdivisions.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:45 am
StephenR - tax payer money, no. Tax breaks, yes.
jh - that’s a weak argument. Just because someone builds a toothpick doesn’t mean someone else will not invent solar paneling.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:02 am
While some entrepreneurs will come up with solutions others will continue to create problems.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
kevyn said:
in other words, speculators are anticipating the future rise in prices caused by peak oil and are setting their economic actions accordingly… and their anticipations are the correct ones… and their actions are the correct ones too therefore
January 9th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
So in a way, they’re hastening the transition to oil alternatives. Would be interesting to know what the price would be without the speculation
Wonder when they’ll start pulling their money out of oil and speculating on other sources…if that’s even possible yet.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
precisely, the speculators are bringing some rationality in to the market & ensuring that it receives the appropriate price signals, which will play a role in promoting alternative technologies.
without that speculator action, oil is priced rather like potatos: the cost of digging it up plus a markup for profit, little recognition of the fact that it is not a renewable resource.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Not sure the AA, or really any driver, or anyone who buys FOOD would be too happy about the fantastic news that we are receiving ‘appropriate price signals’, especially when there aren’t any mainstream competitors for oil. I’m just saying.
January 9th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Zen: “It will not be Kyoto taxes and other stupid ideas that help our drive for environmental neutrality, it will be the entrepreneurs that look at problems and solve them.”
But if there are no eco-taxes then there will be no reason for entrepreneurs to innovate to save fossil fuels. They can continue innovating to maximise profit with no environmental considerations.
By placing a cost on carbon it means that entrepreneurs have a chance to out-perform their competitors by introducing innovations that save fossil fuels., otherwise there is no reason for them to do so, in fact the drivers are likely to be the reverse, it is more profitable to trash the planet than save it.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
If speculators are buying up oil now, it will be costing them money, so sooner or later they will have to sell it. They are hoping the price will go up further when shortages start to bite, by which time we will be glad they are selling it.
What I wonder is where is this oil that they are buying being stored? I suspect that at least part of the speculation is from the oil producers who are simply (and sensibly, from their perspective) holding back.
jh said:”Hopefully, Labour and the Government will just stand well back and let people like Vicki Buck innovate.”
Better still would be for the government to ask “what can we do to help” and actually act on the answer - not every wish item, but some of the more effective measures. But that isn’t like governments is it?
Trevor.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Stuey - so what’s wrong with a tax we keep and redirect into our economy? Why sign up to send money overseas in a massive trading scheme. Typically the Greens have shied away from the inequities of the share market and capitalism.
Actually, according to the Greens Eco-Tax policy, they wish to do both. Massive Kyoto tax payments (and where does the money come from??), plus a new regime of taxing the bads. Double whammy.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Trevor, Some of the better news outlets have noted that the $100 price is for oil for February delivery. I presume the speculators are “storing” the oil in the ground or in the delivery system and are keeping their fingers crossed that bad weather will increase heating consumption by the time the oil is delivered.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:29 am
StephenR,
In the broader view there are some indirect mainstream competitors for oil. You have to look at what the oil is being used for rather than simply at how it is used. There is no direct substitute for petrol in a petrol engine but there are other modes of transport that can be used instead of travelling by car. Likewise mowing your lawns and trimming the edges can be done without mechanical assistance.
January 10th, 2008 at 2:29 am
I Hope Government does not just stand well back, they should be funding projects such as this, or atleast telling its many funds/companies such as acc to invest in such companies instead of overseas tobacco companies.
A better option than some of the cultural junk the government wastes money on atm.
Fund them now so they can start building ponds and stop pumping the junk out to sea. I a sick/tired of being told I can not eat the local shell fish cause of some outbreak.
January 10th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
but stephen they’ll appreciate it all the less if they hit that cliff with a thud, to find nothing has been done about it. the correct price signalling that the speculation is bringing into the market will help prompt the action to smooth that slope & soften the landing. as you say, no mainstream competitors for oil - and it will remain so unless the price signals bring competitors into the market.
January 10th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I agree. Somehow i suspect this message isn’t going to get out any time soon.
January 10th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Um….What would our country be like if we say got rid of the reserve bank? Do we need it? is it just another mans device? Do we own our country? i wonder if the worlds paranoia is gonna hit here and we endup with a homeland security of our own?
Oh has anyone heard of the “Piri Reis Map”?
Amazing science! i can’t seem to fault it considering it was drawn by a turkish general in i think the 1500’s or was it the 1300’s. He drew it from older maps which was said to have been stored in the great library.
it clearly shows the south america’s and antartica’s coastlines but the coastlines of antartica’s landmass not it’s ice shores.
there lies the problem theyare exact in actual detail confirmed by todays science, no one except humans who were around at the time when there was no ice could have drawn it.
The map was drawn using spherical trig which was’nt thought to have been invented til the 1700’s, it was even used to correct modern mapping errors.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:12 am
The map is, and does, none of the things you claim. It’s been debunked many times.