Off Topic The Environmental & Pollution Thread

This looks really interesting! Thoughts?

https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/protein-from-air?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3

 

Yes it certainly does look interesting so thanks for posting it. A concern is if this turn out to be the start of millions of people eating factory produced artificial food while the wealthy get to eat real food? To an extent that happens already, especially here in the West. There is already a huge disparity between the rich and the poor and my fear would be that this kind of thing just reinforces that. At the same time it could feed starving people so there is also a big up side to it. Thoughts? It sounds good but it depends on what the end game is.

 

An extremely valid point, Kaito. I must admit that my thoughts were along the lines of helping alleviate starvation in poorer countries and reducing the dependence on meat, but it’s a scary thought that it could be used so the “masses” get to eat artificial food (“Soylent Green” anyone?) whilst the rich get the “real” stuff.
And, guaranteed, some bastard somewhere is thinking about how to do that right now ......

 

Yep. Posted that about 3 months ago on the Off-Topic thread, whereupon it got lost. Proof positive we needed this thread. And I think it is a very good thing, as it absorbs CO2 in the processing and could be an excellent substitute for flour when all the top soil has been washed or blown away by extreme weather [no wheat]. Yes, you could be cynical about it. But all it would need is for someone famous to eat it and it would be next week's superfood.

 

You wouldn't expect me to post anything positive to do with the Murdoch family, owners of Fox News in the USA, and significant others. But James Murdoch has been distancing himself from his dad Rupert ever since the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Fox News typically runs a line which denies HICC. A theme that Donald Trump likes to trot out every time he thinks he'll gain favour.

But James has felt very uneasy in all this. In 2017 he became part of the Tesla board, in an effort to display where his environmental thoughts were heading. Incidentally, there was a point where Elon Musk's Tesla CEO command became shaky and someone suggested James Murdoch for CEO. In response Elon Musk said "that won't happen." And he didn't give a reason. But there was enough Murdoch family shadow cast over James that that suggestion was an absolute non-starter. So James has decided to further distance himself from the Murdoch family by denouncing Fox News. His dad says Murdoch news outlets are not climate change deniers. Yeah. I've pulled the woolly jumper over my head, Rupert, ready for your next BS.

This comes from the California based website Electrek who are rather well informed of world events, often getting real environmental and green tech news in front of Fully Charged and others, so check them out:

https://ww.electrek.co/2020/01/15/t...cks-familys-media-over-climate-crisis-denial/​

 

And VW are going into some sort of next gear over BEVs. They are cutting research into fuel cell vehicles [hydrogen], admitting that battery vehicles are years ahead. Certainly a decade at least. I suspect that Herbest Diess's new funky friendship with Elon Musk means that hydrogen isn't going to get a look-in any time soon. Which reminds me, I must do that Pros and Cons list. But it isn't so much a list as two things. 1] Rapid re-fuel of the first vehicle in the fuel station. Thereafter, if the next vehicle arrives too soon the tanks can't deliver the hydrogen at the correct pressure. So it's a dubious plus anyway. 2] Range. Yes hydrogen cars can go a bit further. But battery ranges are going up, and as soon as solid state batteries come out [by about 2025, at current estimates] it's game over. Refuelling in seconds and as much range as you need. So hydrogen really is for big ships, maybe some airliners, and a few other things. But sheer economics is going to keep hydrogen on the sidelines.

After all, hydrogen cars [FCVs] are just complicated BEVs - most of the battery is the hydrogen cell. This passes through the very expensive fuel cell to make electricity, which goes to a real battery. The battery delivers power to the electric motor. But because the battery of a FCV is necessarily smaller than in a simple BEV [getting all the stuff in], it can't deliver the characteristic magical oomph that a simple BEV can. Even ordinary versions of Teslas literally catapult off the line [I have recently been lucky enough to be a passenger and then driven a Tesla M3 Dual Motor, note NOT performance version] and leave the occupant gasping at the effortless near-silent huge power. And other more modest BEVs can do it. I've sat in an old Nissan Leaf whilst it surpised me with its get up and go.

BEVs are not perfect environmental vehicles. But all-in-all they are a damn sight better killer of the old ICE car than a hydrogen FCV. And by the time hydrogen gets anywhere near being viable the game will have long been over and everyone will have gone home.

https://ww.electrek.co/2020/01/16/v...work-on-fuel-cells-to-accelerate-battery-evs/​

 

Very interesting! Thanks TSS! I’ve now found tomorrow’s reading for myself! Loads of really interesting articles there! Cheers!

 

Yes, it's one of the best and clearest news sites I've come across. I pop there... probably once a day at least.

 

The current problem with electric cars is not so much the distance you can go without a charge as the time it takes to actually charge them surely.? Or am I behind on this. My understanding is currently the quickest charge is about 36 mins. Or is that only certain cars??

 

You called

 

It's about journey and charge planning so my brother in law tells me. For instance shop and charge The number of charge points is increasing day by day.

 

And for good battery maintenance it's best not to keep going from fully charged to zero, but to top up, say, from 40% to 80% more often, which takes far less time. It's all a case of rethinking your whole lifestyle, as with most aspects of dealing with climate change.

 

At the moment it definitely takes longer to refuel your BEV with electricity than it does to refuel your FFV with petrol or diesel. However, whereas your FFV will cost say £50 to refill your massive tank, whatever it is, to go 300 miles, the BEV will cost £11 or 12 for the same mileage. Different EVs have different rates of charge. The cheaper, less ambitious EVs tend to have a longer charge rate. However, if they have less range, from a smaller battery, a rapid charge won't take too long. 30-40 minutes might give you a week's mileage, and you could easily be charging while you are shopping. Then again, if you have a driveway, you can have a proper home charger, which gives you ultra-cheap electricity while charging overnight. Most EV drivers do this, and the driving costs are tiny, and the inconvenience is less than a FFV, going for petrol/diesel. And you will probably never have to rapid charge elsewhere, as you get in the car always with a full tank of power. As other people have mentioned, maintenance costs on a BEV are next to nothing. Changing Tyres, when the times comes, Wipers and Washer fluid, and that's about it. In the long term, brake pads, but that's way over 100K miles. If anyone tells you way less mileage than that, then they are driving a BEV wrong, and not using regenerative braking from the electric motor.

Inevitably, a word on Tesla. They are massively out in front, simply because they were the first and they didn't play about with remaining tiny. Upto a decade or more in certain technologies, which I won't bore you with. Essentially, Teslas are not like other cars. They are a massive look into the future of driving. If you like the idea of that, then there is no other car for you. Teslas can fully charge in 30 minutes on a Supercharger V3 [while you shop or play console games in the car, or watch movies. A Model 3 will pop into a Supercharger station and get 75-80 miles in 5 minutes. And there's no queueing to pay. It's all automatic. No carcinogenic benzine vapour from the pump nozzle, like when you fill an FFV. Put simply, if you are an average car user, and are thinking of purchasing a new car, you will be utterly insane to consider buying a FFV, whether it is diesel or petrol. And I wouldn't consider a Hybrid either. They are/were a bridge from FFVs to BEVs, and their time is already almost over.

If you don't want, or can't afford a Tesla, then you could do what Maddie Moate [video several posts above] looks like doing, which is to buy a Kia Niro or a Hyundai Kona. And they are excellent BEVs, with good range.

 

I agree with what you write TSS but we have looked into an EV and at the moment it just wouldn't work for us, or a lot of other people, at the price point they are at and with the very sketchy charging network there is in this country. Yes things are improving all the time with EV's but it is going to take a monumental shift in things to bring EV's to the point where most people can afford them.

Charging EV's is going to mean we have to change and adapt to a different motoring lifestyle and we are up for that. Unfortunately it's going to be beyond the financial scope for a lot of people to finance an EV at the moment and many won't have the ability to charge at home. Another problem with EV's is that with the technology moving so fast, the depreciation is likely to be substantially higher than IC vehicles of the same age and mileage.

Things are moving in the right direction but if you have ever been sat in traffic on the M3 or M27 in rush hour it's hard to imagine that volume of vehicles being switched over to EV's anytime soon. That isn't being negative, it's being realistic. The volume of traffic on our roads is immense and it's going to take years, decades even, to finally see the end of the internal combustion engine.

It needs to be a balance of things to change the way transport works in this country. If we want to improve things we need a comprehensive public transport system that includes buses, trams and trains that are frequent enough and actually run on time, at an affordable cost to those using it. Getting people out of cars and using public transport, balanced with new EV and Hydrogen technology will bring about a massive improvement in this country.

 

We haven't got a car, living centrally in The Hague makes it an unnecessary expense. Next bit of research is to find BEV hire

 

Which is Tesla’s long-term plan anyway. If you need a car, just order one and it drives itself to your home.

 

May need one to drive us home from here later. https://denhaag.com/en/grote-markt

 

Looks great, the square looks similar to Bruges.

 

It's similar Chilcs the old center isn't as big as that of Bruges or Ghent. Plenty more than Amsterdam to see in the Netherlands.
Edit, no car required public transport and peddle power all that's needed.

 

I see where you coming from Kaito, but let me take those points in order. You don't have to buy a new EV. Already, there is a substantial second hand market. I'm looking at it for later this year myself. Granted, you can't buy a BEV for hundreds of pounds yet. But you can from about £4,000. And that's almost certainly a Nissan Leaf with very good battery life left in it.

42% of homes in the UK don't have a driveway. This is the major stumbling block for home charging - which is the main, everyday advantage of owning a BEV. The residential charging infrastructure in Southampton, for example, is nothing short of pathetic. And the City Council have no plans to make it better, which utterly astounds me [I must find a way to make some real noise about this]. But 58% of home owners do have driveways, and that's where BEVs will start to take over. And that's where the massive secondhand car market will come from. As for secondhand prices, BEVs hold up way better than FFVs. Which actually is a bad thing for people who can't afford new, but that's due to supply.

The reason why BEVs aren't taking over just yet is simply ignorance. And ticket price cost. But if you are able to purchase a new car and are considering a similar price FFV to a BEV, then you are truly insane. Look outside. Do you have a driveway? Yes? OK, stop considering, and start choosing a BEV. They are simply way cheaper in the long run, and they don't damage the environment anything like as much.

You are right about the transport system in the UK. It is pathetic. In Europe it works and is cheap. Guess why? Because most of is isn't in private hands. It's either state owned or private backed up by the state. And it costs a fraction of what it does in the UK. France is the nearest to us, and train fares are half of what they are in the UK. Elsewhere in Europe the prices are sometimes ridiculously small. My Netherlands buddy was astonished at the fare prices, when he came this way. But he's a railway fanatic and accepted it for the short while.

Hydrogen, I only see that for railways and ships. Certainly not for cars and buses. Buses don't do the mileage required. Maybe trucks, but truck drivers don't like going ultra long distances these days [and why should they?]. They tend to hand over a load to someone going that way and come back home with another one. But hydrogen trucks are appearing - the Nikola One is a hydrogen truck with a range of 1000 miles. The Tesla Semi is a BEV truck with a range of over 600 miles, and can be fully charged while a load is being changed.

Yes, it will be a different world, if only people will stop being scared to let go of this polluted one. And researching into the future of transport and living will take away much of the ignorance. Which is the major problem.