Footnotes

1. ASPO

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas is a group of oil analysts and academics who study the oil-based economy and are independent of the oil Industry.

2. NIMBY

British initial slang: it is short for Not In My Back Yard. Here's a classic NIMBY attitude, "Put the turbines on someone else's skyline - not mine." And, "Why can't things stay the same? It was good the way it used to be." They, typically, don't give a stuff about the environment, wildlife, or the unsustainable use of non renewable resources, it's how something looks that counts. Next time someone complains about a renewable power project, ask what he, personally is doing to save energy so it will not be necessary to build this generation capacity. Watch him squirm or bluster while dodging the question.

3. GUAP

Acronym for the Great Unwashed American Public.

4. PV

PV is the acronym for photo-voltaic solar cells. These generate a low voltage current when the sun shines on them. By connecting a number of cells in series a useful voltage can be obtained and by connecting several of these chains in parallel the available current can be increased. The output from these cells can be stored in batteries for later use if required. It is usually fed through an inverter to produce alternating current at the normal mains voltage. If the inverter's output frequency and phase is synchronised with the mains supply its output will automatically replace at least part of the mains input and, if it exceeds the building requirements, the excess will feed back into the mains supply and be bought by the national grid.

5. Waitaki river scheme

This was known as the Aqua Project. The plan was to make a dam or weir structure high up the river, just below the existing Benmore and Aviemore power stations, and divert around 90% of the water into a combined channel, canal, flume, pipe series parallel to the river that would take the water for a very considerable distance down river to the generators, gaining head all the way. The scheme would effectively de-water the river, denying the farmers access to water and destroying miles of habitat for endangered birds, e.g. the black stilt, wrybill, black-beaked gull and others, that breed there. It would also destroy the river as a fish habitat. This point also exercised Fish & Game, who said that a world-renowned sport fishery would be destroyed. It's one of the few rivers in New Zealand where one can reliably catch salmon.

6. Fish & Game New Zealand

"We are an angler and gamebird hunter organisation which has a statutory mandate to manage New Zealand's freshwater sportsfish fisheries and gamebird hunting." This is a New Zealand organisation, formerly known as the Aclimatisation Society, dedicated to breeding and releasing non-native fish in local rivers and hunting non-native mammals, e.g., deer, pig, goats and opossums. The latter is a good idea because there are no native mammals apart from two species of bat. The non-native mammals listed above do immense damage to native flora and fauna. Ironically, the deer and chamois were introduced by this society in order to give hunters something to hunt.

7. New Zealand Forest & Bird

A New Zealand organisation dedicated to bird watching and the protection of native birds and forests. The first ecology group in the country: it was founded in 1923. When the ages of the two nations are compared, this compares well with the American Sierra Club, which was founded in 1892.

8. U.S. Geological Survey

It is a U.S. Government agency. As America's largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collects, monitors, analyzes, and provides scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues, and problems. They also carry out large-scale, multi-disciplinary investigations and provide impartial scientific information to resource managers, planners, and other users.

9. Peter Lynn

is a mechanical engineer and second-generation kite designer from New Zealand. He runs a kite making company, Peter Lynn Kites, in Ashburton, NZ. He originally presented his ideas on using kites to generate electricity on the sci.energy newsgroup and later presented them in a now-vanished web site. A copy is preserved by the Internet Archive. He was formerly associated with Makani Power, Inc, based in Emeryville, which was founded to develop better methods of extracting power from air movement. Google is Makani Power's major investor, having put $10 million into the company in 2006.

10. Energy Watch Group

is a group of scientists and parliamentarians who are based in Berlin. They monitor reserves of fossil and atomic energy resources, track development scenarios for renewable energy and develop strategies for providing a long-term secure energy supply at affordable prices.