Balance Transfers – A Kiwi Microfinance Blog
Everything Micro Nothing Macro
Discussion of complementary or substitutional goods and services.
Given the ‘plastic bag revolution’, one interesting side effect that I’ve noticed around belonging to an organic food co-op is that the process of belonging to the co-op seems automatically to reduce the quantity of plastic bags that I and other co-op members consume on a weekly basis.
Continue reading “How food co-ops are changing habits around plastic bag use”
I like to think of a motel as one big eternal cost-cutting operation. The way we can afford to pay our staff more is by keeping overheads as low as possible.
Continue reading “Our plan to cut winter heating costs by 67%”
Last year, because of the dry winter and its concomitant effect on hydroelectric energy generation, New Zealand burned its way through a significant portion of its coal reserves, resulting in the release of significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. At the household level, because of massive pressure on household winter energy consumption, winter energy bills shot through the roof, leaving families across the country out of pocket if they didn’t plan ahead and budget.
This is a calculator to figure out how much you can save from incidental travel – ie all the short distance travel you make during the week, such as to the supermarket, to the beach, to the movies and to town.
You’re thinking about buying an electric car and toting up all the various cost savings and lifestyle change pros and cons. But wait – before you make such a large financial commitment, have you stopped to consider whether a car is even necessary?
Continue reading “Ebikes versus electric cars – pros and cons”
Here is a nice and simple calculator to help you figure out how much you will save in parking fees and fines by travelling to work and parking an ebike instead of a motorcar.
Today I intend to lay out a system that works well in harnessing the power of the sun, without the need for any costly solar power batteries.
Continue reading “Excuse me, but why does anybody need solar power batteries?”
The motel solar power system has now been successfully installed. I’m able to log in to my inverter system (through Enphase Enlighten) and get a near-real-time reading of the energy consumption versus production through the solar panels. This reading quickly threw up an unintended side effect, which is that the motel solar system is producing way more power at present than the original estimate.
Continue reading “Why Solar Power and Slow Cookers Go So Well Together”
The phasing in of the electric fleet could be a momentous occasion for New Zealand, enabling us to switch from fuel consumption to electric vehicles powered primarily by renewable energy. But the process also comes with a series of economic effects, most notably the need to construct additional sources to power this fleet. In this article we look at what the electric fleet could require from NZ in terms of additional power sources.
Continue reading “How Much Extra Energy Supply Will the Electric Fleet Require from NZ?”