Ocean energy to electricity

Dr Craig Stevens, NIWA Wellington/University of Auckland/AWATEA

National Aquarium of New Zealand, Marine Parade, Napier

Dr Stevens discussed energy in the ocean and international efforts to convert some of it into electricity and how this has intertwined with the vagaries of international geopolitics over the past few decades.

Different technology options developed and tested over time in different parts of the world were presented. Examples included machines to capture wind, wave, tide and current energy.  He noted that environmental impact understanding and public perception would make some current installations difficult to establish today.

Outlining oceanographic processes and showing how they vary around New Zealand, Dr Stevens identified areas of greater and lesser potential when considering these technologies for local power generation.  Current technology is a viable option for off-grid sites where the eceomics are compared with diesel generation of electricity.

Dr Craig Stevens is a physical oceanographer with a focus on environmental fluid mechanics in extreme environments.  He holds a joint position at NIWA and the University of Auckland. His use of observational techniques takes him to a variety of locations ranging from Antarctica to Cook Strait.  

His work is mainly about turbulence, stratification and waves – and how entities react/behave/exist in such fluid environments.  From the energy perspective he has looked at how to optimally locate tidal turbines so that they extract energy effectively, whilst minimizing environmental degradation. 

Professor Jason Ingham, University of Auckland, Thursday 20 February 2014, 7:30PM. National Aquarium of New Zealand, Marine Parade, Napier.

This year’s 1931 Napier Earthquake Commemorative Lecture was “Developments in assessing and upgrading existing buildings for earthquakes with relevance to Hawke’s Bay buildings”. The lecture was in two parts.

Professor Jason Ingham from the University of Auckland Centre for Earthquake Engineering Research began with an explanation of developments in structural engineering with specific focus on Napier’s Art Deco Buildings.

Jason did his BE and ME at The University of Auckland, followed by a PhD at the University of California at San Diego. Supervised by Professor Nigel Priestley and Professor Freider Seible he investigated the seismic response of elevated concrete freeway frames and funded by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

The second part of the lecture was Government Buildings, presented by Noel Evans of OPUS International. Noel described the processes used to evaluate the school building stock of the Ministry of Education. Following the upgraded requirements for non-residential buildings, a very large number required detailed assessment. Noel gave examples of work, including destructuve testing of buildings, that alowed engineers to greatly reduce the number of buildings requiring extensive and expensive individual assessments.

Noel was elected a Fellow of Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand IPENZ in 2012 for his contribution to the application of engineering and technology in the community and particularly for his contribution following the major earthquake events in Canterbury.

The third part of this presentation was a panel fielding questions from the floor. Jason and Noel were joined by Guy Lethbridge of Strata Consulting Engineers and Kevin from the University of Auckland.

Image of Napier after the 1931 Earthquake from the Rev. John Macky Album accessed via: Presbytarian Research website http://preshist.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/napiers-historic-earthquake-81-years-ago/

Mike Taylor, University of Auckland. 7.30PM, Tuesday 4 February 2014. Holt Planetarium, Chambers St, Napier.

A large turn-out brought 100 people to hear Mike Taylor’s lecture. Mike gave a general background to the gut microbiota and its importance to human health overall, noting bacteria have many beneficial functions, including for nutrition, immune system development and  pathogen defense.

He then introduced the notion of gut bugs influencing our brains, and that imbalance or “dysbiosis” in gut microbiota has been linked to wide range of human ailments (obesity, cancer) and neurological disorders.

Mike identified mechanisms by which links between the nervous and digestive system are or may be linked, citing some very recent international research. He then built his presentation into some specific discussion about gut-autism interactions and the overall objectives of the Minds for Minds research team.

Autism is a major human health issue that appears to have increased markedly in recent decades. In the 1990s about 1 in 2000 people were reported to have some form of autism spectrum idsorder. Now it is reported to affect as many as 1 in 88 children (1 in 54 boys).

A number of recent studies have indicated differences in the gut microbiota of people with and without ASD, though few consistent patterns have yet emerged.  In order to better understand the role of the gut microbiome in ASD, Mike Taylor and colleagues have recently started to investigate the composition and activities of the faecal microbiota among people with ASD.

This work is done in close collaboration with geneticists, a neurologist and a biochemist and fits within the wider framework of the Minds for Minds research campaign.

http://www.bioscienceresearch.co.nz/staff/mike-taylor/

Carol Larson, Exploring on the Joides Resolution. 7:30PM Tuesday 5 December 2013. Holt Planetarium, Chambers St, Napier.

From May to July 2013, Carol Larson spent two months in the Gulf of Alaska on board the research vessel “Joides Resolution”. She was one of two New Zealand participants in this international programme, supported by the Australia-New Zealand Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme Consortium (ANZIC).

Carol described the Joides Resolution, the research project, and her experiences on board as Education Officer as a member of Expedition 341-South Alaska Margin. The project involved drilling sediment core samples, seeking to understand the tectonics, climate and sedimentation associated with this active plate margin.  More at www.joidesresolution.org

As Education Officer on the voyage, Carol’s roles included connecting the research with schools and other interested groups around the world. A group of our Branch Council members was able to connect with Carol by Skype video link, and were given a personal guided tour of the ship, meeting and hearing from crew and scientists about their work.This presentation extended that and was greatly appreciated by the audience.

Carol Larson is the Education Team Leader at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier.

Dr Claire Postlethwaite, 7.30 pm Tuesday 19 November 2013. Holt Planetarium, Chambers St, Napier.

The November lecture was “Why did the pigeon cross the road? Modelling animal behaviour with mathematics”.  How migrating animals find their way over long distances remains one of the great, unanswered  questions facing biologists today. Despite intensive research for over 60 years, there has been no  convincing explanation of the mechanisms animals use for determining their position relative to a  target location. Dr Postlethwaite’s research in this area combines ideas from both mathematics and behavioural  ecology.

Due to their ease of handling and willingness to home, homing pigeons have long been the  experimental model for the study of animal navigation. Dr Postlethwaite and colleagues are developing a predictive mathematical model for how animals  navigate over long distances. These results will be applicable to a wide variety of migratory species.  They expect their results will explain how birds such as godwits can fly non-stop from Alaska to  New Zealand, a trip that requires locating a target only 2-3 degrees wide when migration begins.

Dr Claire Postlethwaite, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Auckland University completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge. She specialises in research in Dynamical Systems, and mathematical models of animal behaviour. She was recently been awarded a Marsden Fast Start Grant for research in animal navigation.

A summary of Dr Postlethwaite’s research can be found at http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~claire/research.html

Dr Huub Kerckhoffs, 7.30 pm Tuesday 29 October 2013. Holt Planetarium, Chambers St, Napier.

The optimal use of light plays an important role in horticultural production. By manipulating the light environment we are able to control and steer crop growth and development. Innovative lighting technologies such as LEDs can provide optimum crop specific ‘light recipes’ at every crop stage. In greenhouse horticulture especially, this can be used to maximise crop quality and returns.

Huub Kerckhoffs is a lecturer in Horticultural Production within the Institute of Agriculture & Environment at Massey University. He received his PhD in plant physiology from Wageningen University (Netherlands). Huub has a broad background on how light and other stimuli are controlling growth and development in a wide range of cropping systems. He worked on this in several countries (Netherlands, UK, US, Japan, Australia) before coming to New Zealand.

“Switch” is a film produced as part of a project of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. The project’s aims are to build a base of understanding about Energy, to promote its conservation and efficient use and to provide an objective view on how the world can meet both increasing demand for energy and environmental goals.

In September 2013, the Hawke’s Bay Branch of the Royal Society teamed up with the Institute of Professional Engineers NZ to host a screening of the film, followed by a discussion led by a panel of experts.

In the film, Dr Scott Tinker, Director of the Bureau, leads the viewer on a 90-minute tour to illustrate the different ways the world produces the energy it consumes. Using the amount of energy the average person in the Western world consumes per year as a handy metric, he compares the amount of energy each primary or secondary source can produce. He vividly makes the point that despite measures to conserve energy and increased production efficiency, global demand will continue to grow in step with the economies in developing countries such as China and India.

“Switch” owes its title to the notion that, given the earth’s finite resources and mankind’s environmental consciousness, at some point in the future, oil and coal as primary sources of energy will be overtaken by cleaner and more sustainable alternatives (gas, nuclear, and renewables such as hydro, wind, geothermal and solar). “When,” it asks, “is that likely to take place, and how will the energy mix look when it does?”

Following a break for refreshments, we reconvened to hear the views of Geothermal Energy specialist Ian Thain, Electrical Engineering Consultant John Geoghegan, and John Penny from ABB Power Electronics. They were able to give a New Zealand perspective on this topic and answer some of the many questions that the film had generated in our audience of over 70.

We thank Eastern Institue of Technology (EIT) for hosting the screening at their Taradale campus.

To stage this event, the HB Branch of Royal Society purchased the rights to show the film for educational purposes. If any schools or colleges would like to host a screening, we would be happy to help; please contact Antony Steiner using the “Council” link at the top of this web page.

Reviewed by Antony Steiner

Dr Ross Ferguson ONZM FRSNZ. 7:30pm Tuesday 27 August 2013

Branch members and guests gathered to hear Dr Ferguson’s lecture at the Hawke’s Bay Holt Planetarium. We are grateful to Dr Ferguson for coming to speak with us, and the the Planetarium for hosting the evening.

Dr Ferguson says that rather than study only the actions of individual men and women, of governments or of economic forces, we should also look at plants because it is plants that ultimately determine the quality and course of human life. Most of the foods that form part of our normal diet, we would not think of as exotic.  And this shows just how blasé we have become.

What we have is really a remarkable range of food – truly exotic food in the sense that it is alien: introduced from abroad: brought in from outside. The movement of plants and foodstuffs from one country to another has had many consequences.

Dr Ferguson’s thought provoking talk considered the implications of the pursuit of some addictive plants and was illustrated by many paintings and engravings. The socially accepted addictions discussed include tea, coffee, sugar and chocolate. Staple foods such as potatoes and grains have had remarkably less influence on history than the more lucrative extras.

The domestication of a vast array of foods has determined the way we can dine today. It has also encouraged world exploration- spices; created a commodity second only to oil – coffee; started wars – tea and opium; led to population boom and bust – potato; and believed to have created happiness, sobriety and higher thought – coffee and sugar.

Dr Ross Ferguson, FRSNZ has worked  with DSIR and then Plant & Food Research mainly on the biology of kiwifruit and related species.  He made a detailed study of kiwifruit, their origin in China and the process of domestication leading to them becoming New Zealand’s most important horticultural export.

Reviewed by Phillipa Page

Wednesday 11 September, 5.30pm–8.00pm, Eastern Institute of Technology, Gloucester Street, Taradale, Napier

Victoria University of Wellington invites you to a free public lecture by Professor Tim Stern from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences and Professor Lionel Carter from the Antarctic Research Centre.

Exploration, earthquakes and resources of Zealandia

Over the past few years, we have experienced severe earthquakes in Canterbury and, most recently, in the Cook Strait region. Meanwhile, the Gisborne area has been subjected to a different type of ‘slow earthquake’—earthquakes that take minutes or hours to occur, rather than the few seconds normally associated with regular quakes. Amongst all this upheaval, earthquakes create warps and structures in the earth that trap resources such as geothermal steam, oil, gas and valuable minerals. In this talk, Professor Tim Stern will present results from some of the exploration programmes he has been involved in, to investigate both earthquakes and the related resource potential of New Zealand.

An island in a changing ocean—how New Zealand’s ocean is responding to modern climate change

New Zealand sits between the South Pole and the Equator, so it’s not surprising that our climate and ocean are strongly affected by natural forces coming from Antarctica and the tropical Pacific Ocean. The eastern North Island, for example, has flooded under subtropical cyclones and has chilled under southerly storms that extend from the Ross Sea. Professor Lionel Carter will examine how these  great north and south weather machines are behaving under modern climate change and what may occur in the future. This is not a ‘doom and gloom’ story, but a discussion of actual observations that will contribute to the nation being better prepared for the challenges ahead.