Category: Emission reduction

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In 2020, for the first time the UK got more energy from renewable sources than from fossil fuels

In 2020, renewable electricity accounted for 43% of the UK electricity, while fossil fuels accounted for just 38%. The remaining generation came from nuclear. Unfortunately, that proportion was reversed in 2021.

Never-the-less the British prime minister announced in October at the Conservative conference, that the aim is to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2035 (I would suggest that they need to decide if nuclear is a green generation or not – I would suggest it is, but it should therefore be included in the figures, in the long-term it is not likely to be needed, we should be able to generate all our electricity from solar and wind).

It is encouraging to think that by 2035 all our electricity will come from green sources. In addition as no ICE cars should be sold after 2030, by 2035 the proportion of clean propulsion should be rapidly moving towards 100%

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It looks like Oil companies are looking at the future beyond oil. They are definitely not all in

While there are still many right-wing networks that deny the truth to global warming – or increasingly admit the world is warming but suggest that humans have nothing to do with this (a hard thing to argue as the only thing that has changed is us and our carbon emissions- and the change is happening faster than anything we can find in the last few million years), fossil fuel companies do not seem to be making the Investments necessary to move their business in the timescale available.

Proportion of oil capitol investment in non- fossil fuel sources. This is over 2010-2018
Continue reading “It looks like Oil companies are looking at the future beyond oil. They are definitely not all in”
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DHL has ordered 12 all electric Alice cargo planes

While there is not yet a battery that can power a passenger jumbo jet, aviation is looking more and more likely to go electric at some point.

The Alice plane is a plane that when carrying passengers can sit around 20. In cargo mode it can fly around 500 miles. It can be flown by a single pilot, and can fly about 1200kg. Travelling at just short of 300 miles per hour, and taking roughly 30 minutes of charging for every hour in the air (it can only stay up for about 100 minutes) it is thought that using these planes will save about 70% of the cost.

DHL electric cargo plane

Also, being simpler engines with far fewer moving parts, the planes are expected to have higher reliability and lower costs for maintenance.

Even more exciting, these ranges are doable on current batteries. As there is huge amounts of money going into battery research it is highly likely that in the future, the range of these planes will be able to be increased.

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Building new renewable power generation is cheaper than continuing to burn fossil fuels

For decades, many in the fossil fuel industry and plenty of politicians argued that we cannot move to renewables unless they are cheaper than fossil fuels. Now of course this ignores the fact that they have been for decades if we made fossil fuel users pay all the cost of their use (clean-up, health problems and others).

However, a new report shows that across much of the world, it is cheaper to abandon coal and gas power stations and replace them with renewables – and then run them, than it is to keep using the coal or gas PowerStation.

Continue reading “Building new renewable power generation is cheaper than continuing to burn fossil fuels”
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Use it or lose it rules on airport slots are requiring hundreds of thousands of empty planes to fly around Europe

It is thought that at least 100,000 flights with empty planes have been flown during the epidemic. These are referred to as ghost flights.

These flights have had to go ahead for airlines to retain their landing slots in major airports. The issue, is that these empty flights are thought to have emitted at least 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. These rules by the EU commission must change. It is absurd to suggest that this emissions could not have been avoided.

Continue reading “Use it or lose it rules on airport slots are requiring hundreds of thousands of empty planes to fly around Europe”
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Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’

There has been much conversation about how to power the world on green electricity.

One suggestion would be to fill the Sahara with solar panels. This would allow us to generate all the worlds power in a sustainable way (of course the world would need a significant amount of batteries as well for when the sun isn’t shining in the Sahara – it may be one of the sunniest places, but it is still night half the time.

Could we make the vast area of the Sahara desert habitable to wildlife at the same time as creating enough green electricity for the whole world?
Continue reading “Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’”
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Worlds 26 richest people own as much as the poorest 50%

The increase of wealth in a few people is shown by the number of people that it takes to reach 50% of humans wealth reducing over time. in 2016 61 people were needed to reach 50%, in 2017 43 were needed.

Why does this matter? well it means two things. Firstly a large proportion of humanity has few physical resources. When you are living hand to mouth, doing anything else is impossible. The second, is that those few with enormous resources have vastly bigger carbon footprints: this is not just thinking of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their rocket rivalry (it is not hard to make an argument that space could help save us in the future), but 22,000 with private jets and the many millions more who are emitting tens of tonnes of carbon each year.

Those with extreme wealth therefore need to offset a great deal more than just their own carbon footprint. Billionaires should be throwing money at people sequestering carbon – it will protect their own future just as much as the poorest on planet earth

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Who has contributed the most to historic global emissions? Lets try to be fair

We are currently putting a great deal of pressure on emerging countries such as the BRICS (Brazil Russia India China South africa) and a whole host of other countries.

It certainly is true that these countries are emitting huge amounts of pollution, but perhaps a more fair way of looking at cuts is to see who has emitted the most carbon dioxide over history.

Continue reading “Who has contributed the most to historic global emissions? Lets try to be fair”
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UK police looking at changing their cars to tesla model threes – paramedic and fire cars may follow

A recent trial, by the police have suggested that a tesla model three may well be a better car for police work, despite many doubters suggesting that it would never be able to handle work like this.

Tesla police car, looks quite normal, though the suggestion was to incorporate the lights into the body of the car to improve wind resistance

The average blue light run lasts between 7-15 minutes, yet the tesla model 3 has been able to take part in runs over 4 hours on active deployment, and it is thought to be possible to do more than 200 miles of blue light advanced driving on one charge.

Continue reading “UK police looking at changing their cars to tesla model threes – paramedic and fire cars may follow”
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