Category: Emission reduction

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Some time, I wrote about the the collective, they might finally be ready to launch

As much as half the particulate emissions from a car, come from they tyres. While electric cars are far cleaner, this particulate emissions is particularly dangerous, to health so this move to do something about it is very good.

The idea is that a device is placed behind each wheel, and is statically charged, allowing it to collect most of the waste. The waste can then be recycled into tyres of into other things. Tyre wear accounts for about 28% of oceanic micro plastics, so it is an area we need to deal with – particularly because with their heavy battery electric vehicles wear down tyres much faster.

Most drivers on petrol engine cars, wouldn’t dream of driving without a catalytic converter – hopefully in the future the same will be said for tyre dust collectors. They should be on the market in the next few years.

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I tried the McPlant – Mcdonalds plant based burger what did I think

I enjoy eating meat. Where possible, I greatly enjoy ribs. I have regular twinges about eating meat, both because of its environmental impact and because it requires killing animals – I am not on the verge of ceasing to eat meat, but my family and I have been trying to reduce the carbon footprint of our diet.

So what did I think?

I was impressed. While I could just about tell that it was not meat, I am not sure it would have been as obvious in a blind taste test.

As you can see, the look is different, with the McPlant being a more specific shape. Never the less, the taste was brilliant
Continue reading “I tried the McPlant – Mcdonalds plant based burger what did I think”
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Many oil companies have better lower esg (environmental social and governance) ratings than Tesla how is this possible

There is a scheme which gives companies ratings based on their environmental, social and governance positions in order to allow investors to know that they are investing in companies that are thinking about the future.

This is good! Of course we should know.

However, this has (intentionally or not) been set up to fail on its own. It seems that the rating does not look at whether a company emits small amounts of carbon, or makes low carbon products but on the Dollar value of the risk/return.

Tesla’s ESG score is 28.5, giving it a ranking of 41 out of 85 USA car companies or 8,192 out of 14,666 in the world.

The companies below are all oil companies with lower esg scores are as follows:

Royal Dutch Shell ESG Score: 35.1 with a high exposure risk and strong management rating.

TotalEnergies SE ESG Score: 29.2 with a medium exposure risk and strong management.

Repsol SA ESG Score: 26.7 with a medium risk and strong management.

Equinor ASA ESG Score: 32.0 with a high risk and strong management.

It is entirely possible that the esg score is being misused by companies like this, however what is clear is it is misleading consumers and so must be changed (as whatever the current aim, this score was set up to inform not to mislead).

A quote from Bloomberg business on this scheme stated “the most striking feature of the esg rating system is how rarely a company’s record on climate change seems to get in the way of it climbing up the esg ladder or even to factor at all”.

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Climate pledges are now high enough to be confident in keeping global emissions below 2 degrees, how to get down to 1.5 or even less

For anyone who has thought about it, the way that limiting temperature rise has been discussed has been ridiculous. Up till now, hitting 1.9 degrees average warming would be a success, allowing 2.0 would be complete failure.

We need instead to recognize that for any reduction in average global temperatures that we are able to achieve, there is a significant reward.

The work is not done, until the human race is no longer adding pollution to the atmosphere.

We need as a human race, to be replanting vast areas of the planet. We need to be cutting our emissions as fast as possible, and we need to be looking for ways to capture and lock away as much carbon as we can.

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Carbon dioxide levels is 50% higher than pre-industrialized levels!

Regularly the claim is made that, we may be adding carbon to the atmosphere but we are not changing the number by to great a degree. Well that excuse is now also gone – we have increased carbon emissions by 50%. This means that the planet is entering a condition that it has not been in for millions of years – far before humans arrived.

Why does this matter? There was life back at this time, wasn’t there? Well of course there was. However, last time the carbon dioxide concentration levels were this high, average temperatures were 2-3 degrees higher and sea levels were 15-25m above where they are now. Nowadays 634 million people live 10m above the sea level or less, approximately 10% of the human population – other studies put this number as high as 1 billion. The paper Nature communications 267 million people live on land 2m above sea level or less. Nearly 2 billion live at 100m height or less.

It is reasonable to suppose that perhaps 1 billion would be heavily effected by sea levels rising 25m- needing to move to other countries rapidly. Furthermore places like the UK would get a lot smaller and become more of an archipelago.

Last year there were less than 300 million migrants worldwide, and yet there is a great deal of worry about this. What would it be like if 1 billion people had to emigrate over a relatively short period of time – and this would be permanent – there would be no chance of these people every returning home.

This fails to take account of the fact that there would likely also be a similar number of people who would have to move from parts of the planet which are too hot to support human life any more.

Cutting carbon emissions very fast is now essential, but it is not enough. We also need to be removing billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.

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UK electricity generation to be carbon neutral by 2035 says Boris Johnson

By 2030 all cars sold will need to be electric or some other form of fuel. Combustion engines will be banned, this is good news. However, if the national grid continues to burn fossil fuels, the cars will still pollute, even if their efficiency, and therefore the amount of emissions that they create will have fallen.

This will mean that all power in the UK will come from wind, solar, hydro and nuclear.

One of the big advantages, is that this will shield us from price rises of gas impacting electricity prices. Unfortunately, at this time, many houses will still be heated by gas. This can be replaced over time.

At the moment gas power plants are still very important for keeping the lights on in the uk, but this will disappear over the next 15 years.

While there are still challenges, what we need as a country is to be moving in the right direction as fast as possible. Renewables plus nuclear is already above 50% – renewables supplied 43% with nuclear adding another 16%.

By removing carbon emissions from our electricity generation and travel, each family in the UK will cut their emissions by about 17%. No where near finished, but a very good start.

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A simple change in how bitcoin is verified, could cut energy consumption by 99%

Bitcoin and other crypto currencies have rightly gained a reputation of using insane amounts of power to run. Even by using the excess heat to heat other buildings, it is still a problem.
Bitcoin mining already uses as much power as Sweden. However this could all change. Currently, the software uses, “proof of work” which requires massive computer arrays to validate purchases.

Rival system such as Ethereum uses “Proof of Stake” where miners have to pledge their coins to verify transactions. Any inaccurate information leads to penalties.

With how much energy bitcoin is using, they must follow suit or find another way to cut their energy demands dramatically.

Bitcoin mining is requiring so much power, that coal powerplant stations that are due for dismantling are being given a reprieve. This is concerning, particularly in America where their power grid had made much progress, but could see all this reverserd.

We do not want to be in a world, where countries that do not clean up how they power the grid, can make huge piles more money, simply by continuing to pollute.

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Nature communications has calculated that half of world rooftops would supply all the electricity we need

I wrote a short time ago about the solar area needed to power the world. As a result, I was fascinated to find this article from a few months ago.

On the vast majority of rooftops, nothing is done with this space. Covering the half of these roofs that face the right way, with solar panels, would be able to power the world.

This would have another advantage. If the whole world was solar powered, and we connected all countries around the world, then batteries could be unnecessary – Europe could power America and Australia during the night, and they could return the favour during our night.

The UK has been very foolish, but greatly increasing the price of Solar. This must be reversed to not put off the Solar roll out.

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Apparently fossil fuel cars make ‘hundreds of times’ more waste than electric cars

It seems obvious. Into one car you simply put electrons, into the other car you pump as much as 50kg of fuel, which uses more resources?

How anyone can compare the 30kg or so lost at the end of an electric cars life, to the 50kg or so that the average combustion car burns each week, is baffling

Over the lifetime of an electric car, roughly 30kg of raw material will be used. A combustion engine car will use 17,000 litres of oil.

Continue reading “Apparently fossil fuel cars make ‘hundreds of times’ more waste than electric cars”
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Forests appear to reduce the planets temperatures by half a degree – we cant afford to loose this

In a time when half a degree more or less warming, might be the difference between tens of millions of people becoming climate refugees, and hundreds of millions (or even billions), the idea that without our forests the planet would be at least half a degree warmer, should give us even more incentive to protect the forests that remain.

Rainforests are fantastic places and now it is clear that we need them to keep the planet cool copyright Freebie photography
Continue reading “Forests appear to reduce the planets temperatures by half a degree – we cant afford to loose this”
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