August 31, 2006
Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas. In this week’s issue: the good oil, your own Long Tail, a bicycle with wings, Sustainability 3.0 and the quote of the week.  The good oil
Even the most died-in-the-wool global warming sceptic would have to admit our existing energy sources aren’t serving us too well. Petrol prices are through the roof, we spend every winter anxiously measuring the depth of the southern hydro lakes and when the lakes are full we still suffer from power cuts, even in the Auckland CBD. Coal plants are polluting the planet, ‘clean’ hydro destroys productive land and beauty spots and we still haven’t worked out how to clean up around our nuclear plants (I hope the future generations who will have to deal with all that waste—U234, Pu238, Np237 and their ilk—are as clever as we expect). Sounds like a business opportunity, right? Sally Blundell has met the creative Kiwis who are blazing a trail in this country to design, build and deploy sustainable energy projects. They range in scale from algae to massive underwater tide generation farms. Read her story on our website. Don’t have time? Here’s the Cliffs Notes version: 1. There’s no Holy Grail. By themselves, none of these technologies will meet our power needs—just like today’s energy sources. But they complement each other, and technologies like wind and tide generation could be used with our existing hydro stations as a step on our way to green nirvana. 2. There’s money in being green. The world needs cleaner energy so green technology is set to become a boom industry. The early movers—if they can remain in business—will have experience and IP that will be in great demand. Our existing generation technology already costs megamillions; the comparatively small amount that is spent on resarching and developing green energy has the potential to pay back big time. 3. New Zealand is a natural leader. We have all the right resources—steady wind, surging tides, biotech expertise and the ability to do cutting-edge research on a shoestring. We’ve talked to companies who are getting on with the job with a healthy commercial focus, but many of them would like to see legislation rewarding companies that act to reduce their pollution. 4. There’s a green halo. New Zealand’s green image is worth a fortune to our agricultural and tourism industries and less directly to all of us. Anything we can do to improve and bolster our green profile is worth doing. Our clean energy entrepreneurs are leading the way. Your own long tail UK-based Kiwi Andrew Dubber reviewed the book of the moment, Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, in Idealog #5. We have a copy in the office now too and it’s a great read. Idealog publisher Vincent Heeringa shared his impressions of the book on our Kiwi FM spot on Monday and we’d like to hear your tales (tails?) of the Long Tail phenomenon: post a comment on our website and you could win a copy of the book. Our first correspondent was quick to let us know that he’s already read the book so we have an alternative prize: if you win and you’d rather have a funky Sea Horse Genitals t-shirt from online store REMO, we’ll make it happen. We’re good like that.
A bicycle with wings Next time I find US$30,000 in my bank account I know what I’ll be spending it on: the world’s smallest one-person helicopter. It can’t be too comfortable in the rain, and ideally one of our green entrepreneurs will work out how to power it with algae and carbon monoxide, but this seems an appropriate excuse to be an early adopter.
Sustainability 3.0 Sustainability isn’t just about green energy. Check out the speaker list at the Sustainability ’06 conference in Auckland on September 18, with representatives from the design industry, high tech, big oil, banking and politics among the sustainability experts. The conference catchphrase is ‘Sustainability 3.0: the innovation imperative’. The first stage of the sustainability movement aimed at compliance, the second at corporate citizenship, and now the focus has moved to entrepreneurial solutions. Sounds like a good time to be involved. Check out the programme. Quote of the week “hink what Tourism NZ could do with a 100-percent renewable, clean green branding. Think what the organics industry could do with that kind of information.”
—Chris Freear, New Zealand Windfarms chief executive More at Idealog online Read more on our website: Web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP and the Idealog blogs. See you at idealog.co.nz. Matt Cooney
Editor
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