Emission reduction – Page 18

March 19, 2021March 23, 2021

After foolish coal mine is cancelled MPs are angry

I wrote about a month ago about a deep coal mine in Cumbria that was green-lit. Thankfully this foolish plan was reversed.

At a time when many fossil fuel extraction locations around the world will have to stop working without exhausting the resource, the idea of starting a new one is ridiculous. Particularly stupid is to decide to do this, the year that the UK is to host a climate conference – with the purpose of agreeing more cuts.

March 18, 2021March 23, 2021

An analysis late last year shows UK reaching net zero emissions is far cheaper than once thought can other countries do this to?

The arguments from people opposed to climate action have gone through a number of steps.

March 17, 2021March 23, 2021

Dugongs are another animal that benefited from the lockdown

Dugongs, a close relation of the sea cow, have not done well over the last few centuries. In places like Australia they still live in large numbers. In places like Thailand though there are only thought to be about 250 remaining.

They particularly dislike motorboats and often get injured by them. The lockdowns have therefore been an incredible gift to these animals, and it is fascinating to see how quickly their behaviour changes where humans are absent.

A drone shot this image

This herd had about 30 individuals, but it is rare to see such a large herd near land.

March 15, 2021March 23, 2021

The Raegan administration removed the solar panels from the white house, why and what does it show?

President Carter installed 32 solar thermal panels on the white house 30 years ago. By 1986 Jimmy Carter had been replaced by Ronald Reagan – and unfortunately his priorities were different. He scrapped the research and development budget for renewables and eliminated any tax breaks that were encouraging deployment of solar or wind turbines.

Under Jimmy carter the white house had solar panels, why did Reagan remove them?

When the white house had to have its roof fixed, Reagan used this as an excuse to remove the solar panels, despite the fact that they were still working fine.

March 9, 2021July 1, 2022

Jair Bolsonaro is having a similar impact on environmental laws in Brazil to the impact of Donald Trump in the USA – will the effect be longer lasting?

Just like Trump in the USA Jair Bolsonaro has taken an axe to the environmental protections that Brazil has created over decades. Also just like Donald Trump, the majority of these moves have been done by Executive act. Between march and may last year, Jair signed 195 infralegal acts – and just like under Trunp these acts are thought to be only just legal and should have gone through their governmental body.

More than 4000 square miles of rainforest was lost last year alone

March 5, 2021July 1, 2022

Why do electric car emission calculations include everything but combustion engine cars only the fuel they use?

There is a constant attempt to make electric cars sound less clean than they are. Now, for a start, in order for these calculations to work at all, the most polluting electricity is usually used. Next the amount of energy used to create the car and the emissions in this process is added.

Is the balance of carbon emissions we are told are created accurate? no of course not

March 1, 2021July 1, 2022

Foolish attacks on renewable energy – Texas blackouts cannot be blamed on green energy

With incredibly cold weather hitting Texas (for instance the beach is covered in snow), Fox News has been making a big thing of the fact that some of the wind turbines are not turning supposedly because they froze – and that this is the cause of the blackouts.

This is factually incorrect. According to data from the Texas government wind turbine shutdowns accounted for less than 13% of the total outage. A bigger problem is freezing of oil and gas equipment throughout the state.

February 28, 2021July 1, 2022

The Daily Mail is claiming blue hydrogen is better fuel for cars: let’s see if it is (hint of course not)

As in the USA, some of the UK newspapers have an illogical hatred of electric cars. Perhaps chief amongst them, in the UK, is the Daily Mail. Now, I’m unsure what it’s problem is, but this article is littered with errors.

February 19, 2021July 1, 2022

Plans for first deep coal mine in 20 years, the Cumbrian government is now having to reconsider permission for a deep coal mine

At a time when many people are discussing whether we can even afford to continue to extract the fossil fuels we have already started to extract, and when the government is talking about leading the world in cutting fossil fuel use, the local Cumbrian government has given permission for the first deep coal mine in 30 years.

This decision by the Cumbrian local government has been remade on three occasions. The government of the UK in Westminster has claimed this is a local matter and that they have no right to get involved. Obviously this is patently absurd – what’s more if we are to have any chance of meeting our emission reduction promises the government must immediately abandon its foolish position, and make it clear that it is not going to happen.

Clearly despite the promises made about reducing carbon emissions, and the progress made in places such as virtually the end of coal burning for power, are not baked in successes and we must make sure to keep the pressure on the government to keep going and indeed ratchet up the speed of which we deal with a problems.

February 16, 2021July 1, 2022

Bio-fuels are necessary if humans are to stop burning fossil fuels so what’s wrong?

Battery power is great for cars and taxis. Recently Tesla has shown you can make a viable electric lorry – claims the range isn’t far enough are absurd. Name one country when a lorry driver is allowed to drive for more than 4 hours without break – modern chargers can give you 4 hours of range in 15 to 30 minutes (a Tesla 3 or Y can have 180 miles in 15 minutes).

However, there are areas where fuels will be used, like rocketry. Now it is true that no one has yet made a rocket fly on biofuels, but that’s a different problem.