Category: Emission reduction

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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.

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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.

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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?
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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.

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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.

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Back in August it was revealed that department for business energy and industrial strategy – responsible for climate remit, had taken 619 domestic flights in the previous 2 years

We have an extensive train network. We also have an extensive motorway network. With all the check in and the traveling to and from airports which are usually some distance outside cities, many domestic flights take longer than their train or car equivalent.

More importantly, these other methods have a fraction of the carbon footprint. This was also after signing a net zero emissions target. Importantly, this does not include travel to Northern Ireland as this is more easy to justify.

34 of these flights were by the minister themselves.

This only came to light through a freedom of information request from the shadow minister for green transport.

In the 6 months after the 2050 net zero target was signed into law the department took 395 domestic flights.

These all happened in the run up to us hosting a conference on cutting emissions.

We can only hope that now the COP26 has happened, the government starts to practice what it preaches.

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Having recently exited bankruptcy, Hertz has put in an order for 100,000 teslas to be delivered over the next 14 months – or have they?

Why is this good news for the natural world?

One of the problems, is that for many people they have never driven an electric car. As a result the only experience that they have with electric vehicles is something like a milk float – quiet to be sure, but not exactly fast.

Hertz, however has realized that between the extra longevity of electric cars, and the reduced cost of servicing due to them being so much simpler, and the reduced cost of powering them, it is likely that they will make more money from an electric fleet, as well as helping the environment.

Tesla for their part, is not giving a discount, all these cars are being bought at full price. not only that, but once all these cars are on the roads, millions of people each year will experience them. This in turn is likely to increase the demand for many of those renters, who will buy electric next time they need a new car.

It has been stressed, that no paperwork has been signed, so this is an area which we will have to watch this space.

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Peat sale to gardeners is going to be banned – but not until some time in 2024 or in professional cases 2028

Extraction of peat, generally means that it dries up and then releases its huge store of carbon back into the air.

There are vast areas of peat in places like Indonesia, and the DRC, however there are also large areas of peat in Scotland. Peat is full of nutrients and so it is valued by gardeners. Peat will be used by professional gardeners until 2028.

In the UK Peat is our largest carbon store, trapping as much as a tropical rainforest per hectare. They are also important habitats and protect those further down stream from flooding.

This has been known as an issue that the british government has needed to address for some time. In the end, it seems that they failed to address this with the urgency that it requires.

Most of the peat in the UK is imported from Ireland. However, they have banned it so this is soon to dry up. A ban is thought likely to cut emissions over the next 2 decades by at least 4 million tonnes.

It is a good start, but we also need to restore those peats that have already been part extracted. This could keep much of the carbon in the ground if we act fast.

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