LanzaTech

I recently saw a television profile of LanzaTech, the bio fuel company based in Chicago, Illinois. Made for New Zealand TV, much was made of the origins of the company in NZ. I've heard of the company before, I knew they'd moved to Chicago, dumping NZ staff in the process; though the programme maintained much of the Kiwi based staff were relocated to the USA. So far, so good, or at least I thought so until I checked out LanzaTech's website later.

The Lanzatech website rarely mentions NZ. The founder, Dr Sean Simpson is revealed as an Englishman who has lived in a number of countries, but not NZ evidently as his company profile fails to mention it. No mention is made of the company's origins in NZ, and of the NZ taxpayer support they received. Very strange all this, as the reporter for the television piece showed an ebullient Simpson supposedly proud of his Kiwi connection, having children born there and having lived the longest part of his life in the country. You'd think this would at least be mentioned on their website somewhere, but if it was, I couldn't find it.

This looks to be another kick in the teeth for little old New Zealand. Upon further research I find NZ's Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA) have the same idea:

https://www.hera.org.nz/lanzatech-fish-got-away/

HERA are kinder to LanzaTech though, they think a lack of support from the government led them to leave. A John Key disaster that one then. But I'm not so kind, I think this is a classic example of startups exploiting creativity and invention. The obvious answer is to do the exercise again, creating a competitor to LanzaTech; much of the technology still resides in Kiwi brains, do it again, much the way the British did with nuclear weapons. In the latter example, the British gave their tech to the Manhattan Project, only for the Americans to refuse to give it back, so the British simply did it all again. That's how Britain gets to be a nuclear power (not many people know that).