Historically being anti-nuclear power has been something all New Zealanders have agreed on. A about-turn of public opinion seems unlikely, especially with so-called “green fundamentalists” in vogue. However, coal usage has risen recently with declining hydro capacity—and the proposed “pumped-hydro” scheme would be a pretty costly undertaking. With investment by the likes of Bill Gates in American in making nuclear energy cheaper and safer to fill those edge cases where renewables fail, I don’t think I can entirely rule this out. From MFAT on bipartisan consensus: “By the time of the incoming National government of 1990, however, it was fully a bipartisan cause. This the country would need in the years ahead as Mr Bolger’s administration attempted, first, to improve relations with the US, while also ensuring New Zealand showed a united face to the world in the face of renewed French nuclear testing.”↩

I’d previously suffered from small-country-syndrome—the desire to leave the small, isolated world of Aotearoa for bigger, better countries. COVID changed both the practical likelihood of leaving, but also stirred some residual patriotism, so I’m raising this to 60%. I’d still like to explore the world, though.↩

This is my attempt to avoid the mistake everyone prophesizing flying cars and hoverboards whilst not even distantly fathoming the internet in the 20th century made. In the same vein as the humans in the cyberpunk Altered Carbon, we may not be able to build space-ships that travel faster than light, but we can probably translate the human form into light and travel great distances, much as we already do today. For more see: Google’s Project Starline↩