Cunning Plan Number Nine

Self-Drive Cars: What’s the point?

Let me state from the outset, that I have no training or knowledge about the technology behind self-drive cars. I haven’t taken an interest in them, and have never had a strong opinion about them. After all, what’s the point? It’s a dumb idea that will never work, right?

To be fair, that probably is a strong opinion; so let’s try to understand the idea before we discard it.

People at Google, and other “Brainiac Factories” are trying to build a car that will do the driving for us. Basically that must involve building into said car, a myriad of sensors that can “see” the environment it is driving in, and react in the same way that a human driver would. No, not the same way. Better.

All my life, I have been hearing about the ambitions of computer programmers to create a chess playing opponent that can beat a grand master. Have they achieved it? Don’t know. The world lost interest. I know I did, and I quite like both computers and chess.

Then there were the boffins trying to create artificial intelligence. Apparently, the test is for somebody to ask it a series of questions, and for it to give structured, “considered” replies. The questions would be structured in such a way that the answers could not be scripted, and would demonstrate actual thought. Have they achieved it? Not that I have heard.

Given the less than stellar progress in replicating specific, focused aspects of the human brain, it seems absurd that somebody would think that it’s a cool idea to ramp up the difficulty factor. They don’t want to build a car that will drive on a test track without incident. They want it to be able to drive in traffic, on unfamiliar roads, and share that road with the most unpredictable and dangerous animal on the planet. Me.

No, I was right. It’s a dumb idea.

But…

There is merit in a controlled environment where ALL cars are controlled, and ALL cars can communicate with each other for a common result. A “Hive” mentality.

So how about this:

·      A car that I can drive when I need to.

·      A car that “slots in” when in a high volume environment. Like a freeway?

So if we think about the slotcar model for a jumping off point. The driver can control many things, but when it’s in the slot, “the road” controls the steering.

Can we create freeways with slotted grooves down the centre of each lane, for cars to drop a “guide flag” into? Probably not.

But we can lay metallic strips that the car can magnetically “sync” with, to stay on track.

So I drive my car from home to the freeway on-ramp:

·      As I line up, I drive across the guiding strips on the ramp, and the car is guided into position.

·      At this point, I relinquish steering control o/f the vehicle. Just like some of those sci-fi movies, the steering wheel might retract into the dashboard.

·      I also relinquish speed control, so the pedals could retract as well.

·      Using the “hive” analogy, the freeway then absorbs my car into its neural network. We are slotted in between other cars going the same direction. Our GPS would have told the network of our destination, so it will guide us to the correct exit. In the meantime, we travel at optimal speed, with all the other worker bees.

·      The Neural Network will know how busy the traffic is at any moment in time, so will use all available lane in the most efficient way possible. For some stretches of freeway, there may be 8 lanes moving north, with 2 moving south. Allocation of direction for each lane will be dynamically recalculated constantly, and the speed of vehicles in corresponding zones adjusted accordingly.

·      The network may decide that certain lanes will move faster than others. When a car on the faster inner lane was approaching its exit or freeway change, the network will adjust the speed of vehicles nearby, to facilitate it moving seamlessly into the outer lanes in time to make the exit.

I see this concept as very exciting. Imagine being able to stop the gridlock on freeways and motorways around the world. I also see it as far more practical and achievable than the overly ambitious and hazardous path currently being explored.

After all, while this idea does utilise self-drive, it does not need all of the human-emulating traits that these people are trying to create. It is controlling a vehicle, on a confined freeway, with no aberrations or human anomalies to contend with, and it is magnetically locking the vehicle to a “track” that follows a predefined path.

When the vehicle needs to exit the freeway, it switches between magnetic lanes until it is following the path up the exit ramp. I imagine these magnetic strips are not just one-per-vehicle lane. I imagine that there will be a bank of strips, only centimetres apart, and the magnetic lock under each car would be reading across many strips at once. In this way, the car could be instructed to move left or right in small or large increments, while staying “in contact” with the road at all times.

If the network was aware of the physical dimensions of each vehicle, then it could use this incremental left/right adjustment to stack vehicles tightly across the width of the freeway. What may be 4 lanes when the big trucks are moving, could be 6 lanes when the soccer mums are out in force.

Because the network also controls the speed of all vehicles, they can travel both faster and closer than would be “humanly” possible. Lateral and longitudinal separation can be reduced to millimetres at quite high speeds, when a lane change is required.

If a vehicle detects a fault requiring immediate attention, the same method is used to “herd” the vehicle to the side of the road, where it can stop safely.

Uptake

Laying network strips on the surface of freeways is probably not as prohibitively expensive as some alternatives. The important thing is that only compatible cars be allowed onto the freeway. I would imagine that if non-compatible cars were forced onto second-tier roads for the same journey, then there would be considerable incentive to buy a compatible model, o

Cunning Plan Number Eight

Redcliffs is red again.
Decades of dust and dirt have covered the stone cliffs that gave the suburb in Christchurch it's name.
While the February earthquake rippled through the city, it began under the hills of Christchurch. This meant that Redcliffs took much of the initial brunt of the waves.
As a result, houses above the old cliff now balance precariously over the new cliff, and homes at the bottom of the old cliff were buried under the newly displaced rubble that uncovered the new face.
We now have an unfortunate situation there. The houses at the top are obviously uninhabitable, that's a given. But the schoolyard on the flat below, because of the instability of the cliff face, was also too dangerous to let our children back there until something is done to make it safe again.

But what?
Nobody seems to know what to do, so the world of Redcliffs seems to have simply stopped, while the rest of the city moves on and rebuilds.
Here's a thought...
We can never move on while the cliff remains in its current form. Who knows when more will fall?
So why not remove the cliff, and with it the danger?
Draw a line along the footpath in front of the school playground, and then sweeping around to meet the cliff as it comes down to the flat. 

Along this line, build a retaining wall at perhaps 3 metres high. This "walled garden" can be used to pack in rubble from the hundreds of demolitions around the city. 

When filled, build another retaining wall above the first, but set back 3-6 metres. Fill it with rubble.

Then another retaining wall, set back again.

These teired walls are built to follow the topography of the terrain.

By the time the walls reach the top of the cliff, two things will have happened.

First, we have found somewhere to put a huge amount of rubble from the rebuild.

Second, we have eliminated the risk of rockfall from the cliff, by eliminating the cliff. Suddenly, the houses at the top can be rebuilt, because they are no longer tetering at the top of an unstable cliff. They are perched on the top of a hill, looking down across our new terraced hillside. The terraces can be planted with a range of foliage, and can be built to include walkways if required.

Sure, my terraced hillside pretty much wipes out the school, but we can't use it at the moment, can we?

Cunning Plan Number Seven

Facades and Heritage Buildings.

After the September earthquake, a gaggle of architects were up in arms about the need to retain a boring building in Manchester Street, because it was a good example of some early 20th century decade. Ho Hum!

Nothing against that building. It wasn't ugly. It was in excellent condition. But it was hardly heritage.
To me, heritage is the old stone buildings. Heritage is the churches, the arts centre. Heritage is the cathedral. Now THOSE are beautiful buildings.

Since February, we have much bigger issues than a single building less than a hundred years old.

Recently, there has also been discussion about retaining the Town Hall, another heritage building.
Seriously? It's a '70s building with a nice auditorium!

I think somebody needs to decide what constitutes heritage.

Now, about the REAL Heritage buildings (using my definition).
The John Knox Church at Carlton Corner. Amazingly, the walls came down, but the roof stayed intact. I guess they built them this way, with the walls being detached from the building structure. The walls were brick, not stone, but it still qualifies. I guess churches get a free pass.
I guess they will just build new walls to fill in the panels, but why not do something a little different. I would like to see those brick/stained glass panels replaced by opaque glass blocks. That would give it an ethereal feel, without changing the shape.

Back to the stone buildings. I don't know if stone walls can be made earthquake-proof, without making them ugly. I do think, though, that tilt-slab walls are safer (if built properly), but they are seriously ugly from the get-go.

So why not make them less ugly. The university and the Town Hall were built from tilt-slab, with stone chips impregnated into the visible side. Not too bad.

Here's a thought. Make tilt-slab walls for many of the heritage buildings, but make them look like stone. Not by covering them with that nasty veneer that was fashionable a few years ago, but by making the face LOOK like stone. Make casts of real stone walls, and pour the concrete onto it in the slab construction. I imagine the guys at Weta in Wellington could make a tilt-slab church that looks 'real'.
Why not use the technology that kiwis have?

Just a thought.

Cunning Plan Number Six

Wifi in the Central City


People talk about free wifi being an attraction to the central city. Maybe. I know that when I am overseas, I trawl for free wifi. Starbucks or Maccas are always a good bet.


Here's an idea that may already exist. It might not exist, for good reason. Here it is anyway.
Have accessible wifi in the central precincts, but it doesn't need to be free.


When I am at home, I use wifi, and do my emails via xtra, Telecom's ISP in NZ. When I travel, I now have my laptop set up so that I can still send and receive email as if I am at home. I want to grow that idea to the wifi service itself.


When I am in the city centre, I want to be able to stop at a cafe and send an email, or trawl for something fascinating that can't wait. Why can't I use my xtra allocation? I have a few megs a month allocation, so why can't I access it when I am out and about? My laptop is set up to talk to my home wifi, and through to xtra. They keep track of how much I use.


Imagine that. Xtra customers can access their own allocation from in town. Not free. Something they are paying for. I should contact Telecom and suggest it.


But Wait! Why just Xtra customers? Why not Vodafone customers? Why not all broadband customers in the country?


Now THAT would be cool.
Have a wifi network set up to cover the entire central city, and then have it accessible to all broadband customers. If you aren't a customer, you could either become one for the duration, or you could purchase time, like other pay services.


Now that duration thing is an interesting idea.
When you hook in, and you don't have a customer number to access your own account, you could be given a selection of offers from the providers.
Vodafone might be offering 50megs for $5 within 7 days. Xtra could be offering 2Gigs for $40 for the month.


Choose the plan you want from any provider, and off you go. Go anywhere with wifi access in the central city within the timeframe chosen, and you are online. Similar to some mobile plans overseas.


Actually, that's such a good idea, it should not be limited to just the central city. How about any wifi anywhere in the country? Wow! A new business idea, perhaps?


Can I just take this idea to it's natural conclusion?
There are wifi modems everywhere. In many streets, every house has one. So why not spread this idea through the suburbs? If every modem has software that allows anybody to access their own broadband account from it, then things could be interesting. Obviously there would be firewalls to protect the owner's computer and data allocation. Also, there would be a 'pass-through' function to allow anybody else to use the access point to remotely connect to their own ISP and their own account.


Not long ago, when you wanted to connect to the internet, you were chained to the blue cable in your house.
Today, you are chained to the invisible boundary set by the range of your modem.
Maybe tomorrow, we can wifi our way around the country. 

I wonder if wifi can roam...

Cunning Plan Number Five

Light Rail.

This seems to be the one part of the draft City Plan that is getting some push-back. Probably the cost.

I think it's a great idea.

I remember years ago, when the Gondola was being planned for the Port Hills, there were two options on the table. One was the gondola. The other was a monorail to the airport.

Personally, I think they chose the wrong one.

Anyway, light rail. Great idea.

One problem, though. Light rail takes up road space, and that is at a premium. When the council put bus lanes around the place, that was a complete abortion. Sorry, but it was. It cost zillions, and they weren't even complete lanes. They stopped and started constantly. Papanui Road was once one of the longest stretches of straight road in the city. After the bus lanes went in, it became a perpetual chicane. Bus lane on the left. Now a turning lane for the right. Then a hundred metres of bus lane again. Then a little stretch of cycle lane for good measure. Good Grief!

Another problem. Imagine the cost of laying the tracks throughout the city. The recent extensions to the tram tracks were expensive. Ripping up and releveling entire streets, one after another. Come the earthquakes, and all of that good work has been ruined. Back to the drawing board.

Another problem. If it is decided that the light rail won't always share the roads, then what? There are some old train tracks in parts of the city they can use. But what about the rest of the city? Buy up land, and cut a new track through back yards? Expensive.

Here's my idea. Lay the track above the road. Elevated above the road. 20 feet above the road.

Many american cities have elevated trains. Others use monorails. Back to the original idea of a monorail to the airport. Excellent idea.
Imagine a series of concrete pillars laid down the centre of Memorial Ave, where the meridian strip is now. Every so often put a bridge up and over the road, that doubles as a station platform for the train. From the airport, straight down Memorial Ave, and around or through Hagley park. Stops at all major hotels. Brilliant!

The same can be done with all major arterial avenues with meridian strips. Even those without. Papanui Rd, Benheim Rd, Riccarton Rd, Linwood Ave. Wherever we need it to go.

One major advantage of rail over roads, is that they are less affected by traffic. They are more reliable, so become more patronised. Buses will always get stuck in traffic.

Light rail, like the current (recent) trams, are still at the mercy of traffic lights and traffic jams. No more reliable than a bus, so I might as well take my own car.

Efficient rail services have really shone when linked to large venues like sports stadiums. One of the best thing the Ausies did for their Olympic Games was to put rail to the stadium. Thousands of people away from the stadium only minutes after an event finishes.

As a red-blooded kiwi, I like to take every opportunity to take the piss out of the Aussies, but this one they really did well. I'll just have to wait for another opportunity. I know I won't be waiting long.

So there it is.
Let's go with rail, but lift it away from the traffic. Maybe monorails are cheaper in this situation. Who knows?

Cunning Plan Number Four

There is general agreement that to bring life to the central city, we need to bring everything to the central city. Retail, commercial and residential.

All over Australia are apartment complexes encompassing entire city blocks. Around the outside are residential blocks, with secure gates to green areas inside, along with other residential towers. Car-parking is underground, and covers the entire complex. Elevators from the carpark are located to come up into each tower block, and only residents can operate the elevator in their tower. Ver efficient and very secure.

I don't know if this idea has come to New Zealand at all. There is a block of land on Madras St in Christchurch that has remained vacant since an electrical line company abandoned it. I have always thought that this block was big enough to build one of those gated apartment complexes.

But this is about rebuilding the inner city. Here's my thought.

There will be enough city blocks laid waste to build one of these apartment blocks, but lets add a twist. At the moment, low-rise is what people want, so lets set a limit of say, 5 stories.

• Street frontages around the entire block will be retail. All the shops and restaurants we want in our neighbourhood. Some buildings could be all small retail, some could have a department store, and one or two could house a cinema. If you can't find what you want in your own building, try the one across the road.
• The next level up will be commercial. Office space.
• Above that will be residential. Between 2 and 4 stories of apartments.

We know that basement carparks did not fair well in the earthquake, so we won't go there. Imagine the entire area inside this block is car parking. Private and public. All views from the retail, commercial and residential are out into the street. Hidden from sight in behind this facade will be car parking, on all floors.

On the ground floor, all parking would be for the retail. If necessary, this could spread upstairs. On the commercial floor, carparks would be assigned to each office, right outside the door. Remember the access to the upper spaces are all internal, from either elevator, or from the attached car-park space. If the building is wide enough, then there will be spare parks on this and higher floors for additional public parking. All parks that face the outer office or residential spaces will be allocated to those tenants, but anything inside will be spare for guests or public parking.

Same goes for the residential floors. The resident's car can be parked right outside their doors, just like their internal access garage they left in the suburbs. These could be lockable private areas, or simply assigned parks. Excess parks on each floor would be available for public parking for neighbouring areas, so as to minimise the requirement for street parking.

As has been mentioned in the draft city plan, rooftop gardens could easily be incorporated into these buildings, for either public or residential use. Perhaps allotments, in the old English style, just 5 stories up.
Also on the roof, can be some power generation equipment, to help the building generate some of it's own electricity. There can be the facility to add solar cells when they become viable and cost-effective, but right now there can be a series of VAWT (vertical Axis Wind Turbines), as mentioned in a previous post. There can be quite a few of these scattered across the roof. Because of the extra uses of the roof space, there will need to be lighting up there. The VAWT and lighting can share the same posts.

So, what do we have with this?

• Live in an inner city apartment.
• Go to your favourite restaurant just downstairs.
• Maybe go to the office in the same building.
• Major retail and even cinema may be in the same or adjoining building.
• Park your car just outside your back door.
• Grow veggies on the roof.

Ticks all the boxes, doesn't it?

Wow! I could do that.

Cunning Plan Number Three

Finally, some Earthquake-proofing. Floating Foundations

It seems to me that there are two main reasons for a house to become unliveable because of an earthquake.

·        The first is that the house was not designed to withstand an earthquake.

·        The second is that the ground beneath the house moves, ripping the house apart.

As a result, the cost to repair or replace a house affected by an earthquake can be astronomical. Multiply that by a city, and the insurance industry could be on its knees.

Solution:

If we can increase the earthquake strengthening regulations for new houses, then they will be able to withstand future earthquakes much better than they have recently.

How? Quite simply, start with the foundation.

Aren’t They Deep Enough?

It has been shown that homes with deep foundations, even very deep foundations, still succumb to a major earthquake. Actually, I believe that a deep foundation hinders rather than helps a house when it comes to surviving an earthquake.

When a deep foundation is sunk into the ground, it is like burying your fingers deep into the dirt, and taking great fistfuls of the ground. It does exactly what it is designed to do; holds on for dear life. Then, when the earth tries to move in two directions, the foundations stay where they are buried, and everything shears at the weakest point. The ground opens, and so does the house.

I saw a family on TV that moved from their broken home into their daughter’s playhouse. The reason why the playhouse remained intact was that, relative to its size, its floor was built to hold it’s shape and weight with or without support. You know the sort. The playhouse is built onto a pallet, or similar. It is delivered on the back of a truck, and rolled end over end to its final location. It's structure and integrity is unharmed by this transportation method.

By contrast, look at a house built on piles. If any piles sink or are pushed up, the floor distorts brutally, twisting doors and walls above. There is no cantilever ability in the house at all. It relies completely on every single pile staying exactly where it was put, and never moving even a millimetre.

Then there is the concrete floor. A thin ring of concrete around the building. As deep as you like, but  only a few inches thick, with a thin layer of concrete over a pile of shingle in the middle, the purpose of which is really only to stop moisture getting into your carpet.

When one of these floors breaks in an earthquake, the entire building is a write-off.

Cantilever Floor

My idea is to design the entire floor of the house like a cantilever, rather than a thin slab over a foundation. That may mean making it considerably thicker, and certainly involves reinforcing steel throughout the entire floor.

The next step is to tie the walls firmly to the floor, and to make them rigid. This stops the flexing that causes so much internal damage to a house. The result is that the house stays intact, like a cube, even under severe cantilever conditions. Then, when the earth tries to move in two directions, the floor stays undamaged, and the ground opens harmlessly beneath it. If the earth opens to the extent that it collapses under part of the house, the worst that can happen is that the house tips a little into the hole. It is undamaged, but on an angle. The solution is to jack up the house to level again, fill under it, and reconnect any pipes or services that have broken away. The house remains intact, because it does not flex or break. It simply moves as a single unit. It floats.

If a house is to be built on less stable land, a completely floating foundation may not always be practical. The solution could be to have additional anchors under the floating floor. To give stability in normal circumstances, foundation piles can be built into the corners of the floor, down into solid ground. Their point of connection with the cantilever floor should be designed as an intentional weak spot, weaker than the floor itself. In a strong enough earthquake, the floor can snap off the piles, to allow the house to float free and remain stable and intact, rather than succumb to the terminal deep foundation fate mentioned above.

While this Cantilever Floor design may add a few thousand to the building cost, it could save hundreds of thousands for the Insurance Company. We may almost be at the point where a new building will be uninsurable unless it complies with this type of earthquake-proofing design.

Cunning Plan Number Two

Next, something from the Earthquake.

Underground Services

One of the most disruptive and long-lasting results from an earthquake is the damage to underground services. Sewer, water, even phone and power.

The pipes we have underground are strong enough to last for many years, sometimes decades. However, they are not strong enough to sustain an earthquake. They are too brittle, and do not bend when the earth bends, do not move when the earth moves.

Solutions:

1.      I guess we could “earthquake-proof” the ground, so that it won’t move. Does that work? Up to a point, perhaps, but at what cost? Will it sustain the sort of sideways movement we experienced in February? Possibly not.

2.      A radical approach would be to move all of these services above ground. Pipes everywhere! The look would be very industrial, which could be very funky and modern, or could be very grungy and depressing. Hardly a universal solution.

3.      Now for the most practical in my view.

Many parts of the city will need to be rebuilt from the ground up, so lets start a little deeper.

·     All sewer lines head from the city toward Bromley.

·     All water lines head to the city from the reservoirs.

·     All power and phone lines criss-cross the city to cover all areas.

The result is a network of underground services with an unimaginable number of places that earth movement can break a line.

My idea is to create an underground grid of service tunnels or conduits.

These can be built as major arterial tunnels first. Neighbourhood services would be connected to these conduits, and over time the tunnels would spread further into these neighbourhoods.

·        The straight sections could be concrete or steel. These are large pipes where servicemen can walk upright. 
·        Imagine shipping containers welded end to end and laid underground beneath the road.

·        At regular intervals, there need to be access hatches, for servicemen to enter.

·        Inside the conduit, all service pipes run along the walls. Sewer, water, phone, data, power. Everything. All one above the other, and all accessible to their respective servicemen.

·        Because all cabling and pipes are “open-air” inside the conduit, they can be made of a flexible material, giving them the opportunity to flex with movement, and survive considerable earth movement outside the tunnel. Unlike with buried cables, even major earth movements will have virtually no impact.

An obvious difficulty with burying something large underground is the water table in Christchurch, but this does not need to be unsurmountable. I am sure that engineers are capable of finding good solutions to any challenges here.


As the central city is being virtually rebuilt, this is a good place to start this tunnel system. Obviously, there is also an opportunity to start in the eastern suburbs as well. Over time, these two systems can be joined as the network is spread into the other suburbs. 

Cunning Plan Number One

Letter to the Mayor


Like many services, including government, electricity has become more and more centralised over the years. Not unreasonable, considering the considerable cost of generation over those years.

However, centralization, like in government, has its drawbacks. Control, cost and even relevance are issues that often cannot be influenced from a local level. One answer can be to decentralize, sometimes in power generation, and sometimes in government.


One example of a successful model built on the idea of a decentralized resource is the Internet. Built on an interconnected, neural net design, it is called “The Web” because of its very structure. It’s DNA. Designed on a core of network redundancy, there are so many pathways between two points that it can survive considerable deterioration without loss of service. That is the advantage of decentralization.

Power To The People

Most buildings as we know them today consume energy. They rely on that energy being supplied from a centralized supplier, who generates it at a remote location.

What if there were houses, buildings, even whole cities who could produce their own electricity from wind or solar?

Instead of large centralized power stations and overhead power lines transecting the landscape, the buildings themselves become virtual power plants that make electricity from the sun and the wind. Energy-producing buildings form networks, instead of being totally dependent on a central power source.

Renewable energy is naturally decentralized. The sun and the wind are available everywhere.

Great! A power turbine in every street!

When we talk about wind generation, we think of those monstrous turbines, relegated to hills and paddocks far away from our view. While to many people wind turbines may have a regal beauty, to others they are an eyesore. They also need to be in those hills and paddocks, to get the unimpaired wind to drive them.

Another downside to these turbines is cost. They are spectacularly expensive to design, build and construct. Once built, these turbines are then very expensive to connect to the grid. Running that fresh renewable electricity from the back of beyond to where it is needed is not a cheap undertaking.

One Cunning Plan Coming Up

I would like to suggest an alternative; Vertical axis wind turbines. Rather than the traditional turbines, where the horizontal axis turbine needs to turn into the wind to operate, the VAWT can catch wind from any direction. VAWT turbines are also much smaller, and considerably cheaper to build and install, and they are designed to work within the city limits.

New technology has taken solar power from the hot tap to the light switch, and wind generators from the farm to the city.

There are various VAWTs being designed for the urban landscape. Even better, for the price of a single giant turbine, dozens of VAWTs can be installed all over the city.

Aesthetics

When cell-phone coverage took off in New Zealand, public acceptance of cell towers lagged well behind. As a result, towers were disguised and decorated to lessen the visual impact. When public resistance evolved into acceptance and apathy, cell repeaters started to appear as subtle bulges on top of street lamp poles.

I would like to avoid the aesthetic challenge of installing new poles for wind turbines, and trying to integrate them into the landscape. In the CBD, turbines can be mounted on high and low-rise rooftops to harness the omni-directional winds that whip around these buildings, while in the suburbs, I envisage hundreds of VAW Turbines, mounted high on street lamp poles. The poles are already there. The wiring access is already there. All that is left is to retrofit the turbine onto the post above the lamp assembly, relative to the weight-bearing properties of the post.

Let the wind of change help to power our city into the future.

Let us take the first, tentative steps towards that future, by encouraging businesses and citizens to generate their own renewable electricity, and to feed their surpluses into the established centralized network.

While we are planning a new Christchurch, lets try to include a little future-proofing while we are at it. Put your council at the leading edge of change, by encouraging each department to lead by example. As Mayor, you can also encourage your engineers to find the solutions in this proposal, rather than the obstacles.

While as a city we will never become completely independent from centralized power generation, by reducing our absolute reliance on centralized energy, a number of things can happen.

·        Money can be saved both individually and communally

·        Power shortages can be a thing of the past

·        Power supply companies can invest in improving the efficiency of current stations, rather than building new ones to keep up with growing demand

·        When parts of the grid go offline for any reason, those areas of the city can remain “empowered” with emergency minimums provided by their neighbourhood turbines

·        Whatever else befalls us during times of crisis, being able to switch on a light or to heat a meal keeps the despair at bay a little longer.

History of Cunning Planz

I have always pondered with cunning planz, some large, some small.


I once designed a lifting device for moving wheelchair passengers into an aircraft seat. It almost got off the ground, but the company that was building it went tits up before any were sold.
I don't think it was because of my device.


The first idea here is about power generation. I didn't invent the idea here, but I may have invented the place to mount it. I certainly haven't seen it done this way anywhere else.


Living in Christchurch, everything we think about now is earthquake related. Buildings that will survive them, and ideas to retain services afterwards.
That's what this blog is about. Ideas I have had since the earthquakes.


This first idea is an one that grew long before the emergency aspect of the proposal became obvious. I believe the idea stands alone as a means of allowing the city to reduce the cost and the dependency on centralised power. However, since the recent events in the city, it became clear that suburbs need to have the ability to be as self-sufficient in as many ways as possible. Having even limited supplies of electricity would be a godsend to some of the worst effected areas.