iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Front page news in The Press! I am surprised that 9 of the 10 farmers interviewed were 'mistrustful' of climate science, thought it might be 3 or 4. The study says they rely on the farming papers like Rural News, which is one of the last mainstream media outlets that still platform climate deniers.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Big calvings at the Tasman Glacier recently. I wonder what the lake area is now? Photo: Beck Jell.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Another massive month for EVs in NZ EV with 4138 new light EVs (ie cars, utes, and vans combined) sold, 2nd highest on record. 25% market share. Source: evdb.nz, always quick to update.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

New NZ utility solar records set on 24 & 29 Sep, 550 MW peak, 4408 MWh for the day, due to the Tauhei & Kowhai Park solar farms (each 150 MW) entering service. Will double in next 12 months. Previous record was 360 MW set in August during Tauhei commissioning.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Go solar! Annual generation (utility + distributed) up 62% in a year. Should be even higher growth next year as largest-ever farms nearing completion now. Data: MBIE Energy Quarterly. Annual solar generation of 1171 GWh is enough to power 15,000 km of e-bike travel for everyone in the country.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

PS If we compare to GDP it becomes apparent that some of the recent emissions reduction is related to the recession. In the 3 years to: June 2019: GDP +10%, CO2 +6%, carbon intensity -4% Dec 2022: GDP +7%, CO2 -12%, carbon intensity -19% June 2026: GDP +3%, CO2 -7%, carbon intensity -10%

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Even more impressive is the performance on per-capita emissions, now just 1.03 tCO2 for the quarter, down from a peak of 1.91 in June 2006 (–46%). The rate of decline is up with the best performing countries in Europe, despite NZ supposedly having no "low hanging fruit". (But population ⬆️⬆️⬆️.)[2/2]

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

NZ: Oil consumption fell more than 10% in the second quarter of 2026. Since oil is such a dominant part (>75%) of our CO2 emissions, this took quarterly emissions back to their lowest since March 1996, more than 30 years ago. The drop was even fast than that during the GFC in 2008. [1/2]

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

"Sumner said Methanex would focus on operating the Motunui plant over the next several months and then safely idling and preserving the facility for long-term optionality “should future circumstances support a restart of operations”" Reminds me of Slartifartbast.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Looking good in the Andes (PS based on a true story)

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

New Zealand EV drivers pay 7.2c/km (5p/mile). Sales collapsed when it was introduced, but since the war began the market share for new electric passenger cars has recovered to a respectable 33%.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

NZ does have a peaking problem & need more batteries & demand management... but solar! Highest solar power generation on record yesterday and it's only early August.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Sounds all too similar to New Zealand where EB1 (2022-2025) is likely met because of accounting changes and a recession, while for EB2-3, the government is relying on techno-optimism & dubious claims about the effectiveness of the ETS – essentially they are free to put out rosy forecasts.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

From Hazel Petrie's review of Charlotte Macdonald's "Garrison World: Redcoat soldiers in New Zealand and across the British Empire" landfallreview.com/marching-to-...

Chapter Nine includes an insightful comment made by the English philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill in a letter to his friend Henry Chapman in 1866. He wrote that it was ‘not the behaviour of the aboriginal peoples that had proven the problem … but the behaviour of Britons living “under new conditions” in territories they now claimed as their own’. I was reminded of that observation when I received an unexpected phone call from an upset friend overseas who had just encountered two tourists from New Zealand. Both were immigrants, one English and the other from Western Europe. They told her that the English language was dying out in New Zealand and asserted that only Māori received treatment in public hospitals, before offering several other extraordinary examples of alleged ‘Māori privilege’. When she asked why they remained in Aotearoa New Zealand if things were so bad, the Englishwoman replied: ‘It is a Commonwealth country … I am entitled to live there.’ Her response confirms that what Macdonald describes as ‘garrison sovereignty’, imposed through the violence so eloquently described in this volume, continues to flourish.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Greenpeace climbers have hung a banner from a giant rimu tree, recreating one of NZ's most iconic environmental protests - the 1997 Native Forest Action tree occupation that helped to successfully end logging of native forest on public land. www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO26...

Photo of indigenous New Zealand forest from which is hung a 18 m2 banner reading "Toitū te taiao. Join Us. Defend Nature. Greenpeace."

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

In New Zealand, solar and coal are both quite small contributors to the grid. Recently solar (3.6% of generation in Q1 2026, 50% annual growth) has overtaken coal (1.8%). Let's keep it that way!

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

“The Prime Minister has had to cut short his crucial Middle East talks seeking continuation of our oil supplies… The introduction of fuel rationing has given the union cause a large measure of public sympathy…” Dougal Stevenson reads the TV1 news in the opening scene of Sleeping Dogs (1977)

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Wow, New Zealand fuel imports really fell off a cliff in May. Was that when stocks were said to be "declining, but stable"? I forget.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Berkeley Earth now has monthly temperature records for thousands of cities. Here's how summer has changed in Auckland, New Zealand - average max are up 2.1 ºC, from 21.6 to 23.7 ºC. More than half (+1.1 ºC) of that increase occurred in the past 20 years, a warming rate of 0.55 ºC per decade.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

On 30 June, geothermal set a new New Zealand daily record of 30776 MWh (23% of total utility generation).

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

A sunny day in winter can generate as much solar power as an average day in summer. (Not quite a fair comparison as capacity is up ~20% – still impressive though.) Graph (app.em6.co.nz) shows daily NZ utility solar power generation in MWh. 1000 MWh is enough to make about 30 million cups of tea.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

4103 new light EVs (cars, utes, and vans) sold in New Zealand in June 2026, the second-highest on record. Market share 32%. Pity it took a war to shake off 26 months of slow sales.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

In the year to March 2026, geothermal (up 482 GWh) and wind (up 214 GWh) also hit all-time records as well as solar (up 406 GWh).

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Solar returns 60% annual growth for the second year in a row and now provides 2.5% of annual electricity. It is now within a smidgen of overtaking coal. Data from MBIE Energy Quarterly www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and...

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

New Zealand energy emissions to March 2026: slow decline continues due to falls in coal, gas (running out), and electricity (wet weather + more RE). These are all small sources – oil is >75% of emissions and has increased in each of the past 5 years (even though data includes 1st month of the war).

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The US-Israeli war in Iran has led to a doubling of EV sales in New Zealand, now at their highest level barring the rush to beat the end of the rebate in 2023.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

New Zealand still well below peaks, but drifting upwards. At the moment the cleaner fleet, decline in WFH, population growth, and recession are somewhat in balance. Q1 2026 will start to show the effect of the US war.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

From Jonathan Swift's _A Modest Proposal_:

"Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither clothes, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: Of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: Of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shopkeepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.”

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

This could be due to working from home, which rose significantly over 2018-2023 and may be now unwinding. Oil use in road transport has been trending back up, despite fuel efficiency of the light fleet improving 4.5% since 2022 while population is up 3%.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

This NYT front page from 24 June 1988 is admirably direct. "Sharp cut in burning of fossil fuels"

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

More and more? World fossil energy per person in 2024 was still at 2007 levels – no overall increase in 18 years.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Could be related to the ITV documentary, "Warming Warning", broadcast in the UK the previous December.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

A lot of focus on rising electricity prices – but real residential prices are still lower than 15 years ago. Meanwhile, the margin between industrial & residential prices, which grew dramatically after the reforms of the 1980s, has been shrinking. Why is that?

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Nice chart! Here is how New Zealand is doing. Transport is 39% of final energy consumption, industry 29%, buildings 27%, agriculture 6%. Data source: MBIE Energy in NZ 2025

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

The Economist, 21 April: "By April 20th the last few oil tankers to cross Hormuz before the war began reached their destinations, in Malaysia and California... The outlook could worsen if America ... bans exports of refined products, which have risen by nearly half since the start of the war."

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

NZ's progress in squeezing out the last bit of fossil electricity is undone by the transport sector, which uses far more fossil energy than electricity (12x as much in 2025) and is also prone to increase rapidly.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

This chart appears to be sourced from kpler.com, a reputable freight analytics firm, but the original is proprietary. If correct is suggests that mass flight cancellations are imminent, initially in Europe.

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Robert McLachlan @robertmclachlan.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Another way to slice the past decade: 2014-2019: CO2 ⬆️ in 145 countries, by 2.48 Gt, CO2 ⬇️ in 64 countries, by 0.98 Gt 2019-2024: CO2 ⬆️ in 117 countries, by 3.00 Gt CO2 ⬇️ 96 countries, by 1.44 Gt

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