Nine To Noon for Wednesday 21 September 2022

 

09:05 Solar farm approved for Waikato to power 30,000 homes

A UK based energy company has been granted approval to develop a solar farm in Waikato which will generate electricity to power 30,000 homes. The Environmental Protection Authority has approved Harmony Energy's proposal for approximately 330,000 solar panels to be installed on 182 hectares of a 260-hectare site at Te Aroha West. The land is currently a dairy farm, but livestock grazing will continue with sheep around the panels. Construction will get underway in 2024, with the solar farm operational in 2025. Kathryn speaks with Pete Grogan, a New Zealander who co-founded Harmony Energy.

09:30 Black Ferns' performance coach on getting the team World Cup ready

It's just over two weeks to kick-off in the Women's Rugby World Cup - delayed of course from last year thanks to Covid. The team will play a warm-up test match this weekend against Japan at Eden Park, before they face Australia on October 8 in their first pool match. So what does it take to get the players World Cup-ready? Amanda Murphy is the Black Ferns' strength and conditioning coach.

09:40 Lake Taupō volcano rumbles

GeoNet has increased the alert level for the volcano below Lake Taupō for the first time, after a swarm of quakes around the lake this year. The super-volcano has been rattled by 40 tremors a week since May, and 700 overall since January. The volcano caused the largest eruption on Earth in the past 5000 years when it last exploded about 1800 years ago. Dr Finn Illsley-Kemp is a volcano seismologist at Victoria University of Wellington. 

09:45 Australia correspondent Karen Middleton

Karen says the republic debate is rumbling following the Queen's death. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Government have been saying is not the time to discuss future governance, that it should wait until after the mourning period has passed. But those who are keen for change are saying if not now, then when? Prominent ABC journalist Stan Grant, who is Indigenous, has written a searing piece of commentary this week on the role of the monarchy from a First Nations perspective, which has sparked some further debate.

 

10:05 Scriptwriter turned best-selling thriller writer: Michael Bennett

Kathryn speaks with screen writer and director Michael Bennett. He was the 2020 recipient of the Te Aupounamu Māori Screen Excellence Award, given in recognition of significant contributions to the Māori screen industry. Michael Bennett is widely acclaimed for his work documenting the case of the wrongly convicted Teina Pora, including his documentary The Confessions of Prisoner T  and a subsequent non-fiction novel and feature film, both called In Dark Places. With a stellar career in film making and script writing,  Michael had never attempted writing fiction - until now. Better the Blood is a post-colonial crime thriller and it's already captured the attention of publishers around the world, with 11 translations in the works, and plans for a TV series are underway. 

10:35 Book review - The Trees by Percival Everett

Martene McCaffrey of Unity Books Auckland reviews The Trees by Percival Everett, published by Graywolf Press.

10:45 The Reading

The Writing Class, episode 12. Written by Stephanie Johnson, and told by Alison Quigan.

11:05 Music with Charlotte Ryan : Laneway is back

Charlotte talks to Kathryn about who is in the lineup for the Laneway Festival and plays some tracks.

11:20 One Hundred Havens: A history of the Marlborough Sounds

Author Helen Beaglehole first visited the Marlborough Sounds in a small yacht after a very stormy Cook Strait crossing. She returned numerous times over the next 40 years, exploring and sailing the Sounds' intricate network of coves and dense bush. When she learned little had been written about the history of the Sounds, she set out to change that, and the result is One Hundred Havens: The Settlement of the Marlborough Sounds.  As she notes, it's the story of two people and two fates: Māori, who had their land "bought" by the Crown and were placed onto ever-shrinking reserves and the various waves of Pakeha settlers through the area. She joins Kathryn to talk about what surprised her in her research into history of the Marlborough Sounds.

 

11:45 Science: Smelling Parkinson's, the Ig Nobels and the imperial "option"

Science correspondent Allan Blackman joins Kathryn to talk about the extraordinary ability of a British woman to smell Parkinson's and how she's contributing to further research on the disease, the best (or worst) of this year's Ig Nobel prizes and how a post-Brexit Britain is consulting on the "option" to go back to the imperial measurement system.