Hydrogen is not the silver bullet some think

WHAT is it with you lot in the South?

Hydrogen is hopelessly inefficient as a way of transferring energy. Green hydrogen cannot be made from coalfired electricity.

The Australians think they can make green hydrogen here. But they’ve got plenty of coal in Australia, so why don’t they do it there?

New Zealand’s problem is not what to do with power we generate, it is how to generate enough power to avoid using coal for electricity generation and milk drying. We’re a long way off that, aluminium smelter or not.

Electric vehicles use the marginal power which, on the Mainland, is from coal. That means electric vehicles emit a third more carbon dioxide than liquidfuelled vehicles.

Hydrogenfuelled vehicles emit three times more carbon dioxide than liquidfuelled ones. Their exhaust pipes are at Huntly. Ian James’ figures (Letters, 26.8.22) illustrate the problem; if the Mirai was battery powered, it would use 16KWh to do the 130km, not the 50KWh using hydrogen.

The Australians have a scheme in Western Australia to generate energy and convert it to hydrogen. From the limited numbers they present, it appears that 70% of the useful energy generated will be lost because of the involvement of hydrogen.

They should transmit to the east coast using a highvoltage directcurrent link.

And don’t get me started on cryptomining.

Bill Macky Bayswater, Auckland

Labour but not Labour?

IN reply to Bill Swift and Murray Proctor concerning the sale of state assets (Letters, 18.8.22 and 25.8.22), the Labour government of the 1980s was Labour in name only.

I voted for them and I felt betrayed, as I'm sure many people did.

In a democratic socialist country, the major services, such as electricity, railways, water supplies, mail and telecommunications, should be owned by the state for the benefit of the people.

The ‘‘financial reforms’’ of Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble sold these into private hands whose first priority is to their shareholders, many of whom will be overseas.

Talk of competition bringing down prices is misleading. Competition between companies is all about market share. Hence all the money that power companies spend on advertising to persuade people to change companies.

Later, Messrs Douglas and Prebble showed their true colours as members of the Act party, a party that is more rightwing than National.

Jane Campbell

Maori Hill

Maori language

READING Graham Bulman’s letter this morning and noting the reference to a comment on One News “this is New Zealand not Rarotonga” and the further comment that the person writing that, meant Aotearoa and not Rarotonga. Seriously? Of course the comment was meant to be Rarotonga. That is the whole point as maybe Rarotongans speak their language all the time.

My point is that we are a nation of three languages and at present we are mixing two languages together which demeans both languages.

Do not put Maori words into English sentences . . . family, children, food all translated into Maori in an English setting makes no sense. How about translating whole paragraphs or sentences into Maori instead of injecting a translated word into sentences.

Soon we will have an even worse grip on English and not a pure Maori language either.

Annette Wale Wanaka ...................................

For all his works are truth, and His ways are justice. — Daniel 4:37.