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Not As Environmentally Friendly As Promised

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‘Nudge to behaviour change’ all buy electric cars most people can’t afford and there’s no infrastructure for.

‘Leader of Hillingdon Council Ian Edwards said: "ULEZ is the wrong solution in outer London as it will have negligible or nil impact on air quality but will cause significant social and economic harm to our residents."’

This is so true. It’s ridiculous. Plug the money gap with people who can’t afford it and don’t have the transport options of those in inner London.
 
ULEZ may actually have the effect of causing people to leave London for good. Businesses in London will fail because of a labour shortage.
 
ULEZ may actually have the effect of causing people to leave London for good. Businesses in London will fail because of a labour shortage.
This is my assertion of why HS2 is still a 'thing'. So, it knocks off 20 mins from London to North. Reverse that - it knocks off 20 mins from North to London. It's mainly to serve the middle management commuters who want to buy cheap residential property while continuing to work in London. People will only leave London if they can afford to, leaving London unaffordable to those who can't afford to move ... if you see what I mean. Thus, they'll be 'encouraged' to work 2,3 or even 4 jobs at pittance wages.
 
This is my assertion of why HS2 is still a 'thing'. So, it knocks off 20 mins from London to North. Reverse that - it knocks off 20 mins from North to London. It's mainly to serve the middle management commuters who want to buy cheap residential property while continuing to work in London. People will only leave London if they can afford to, leaving London unaffordable to those who can't afford to move ... if you see what I mean. Thus, they'll be 'encouraged' to work 2,3 or even 4 jobs at pittance wages.
Well housing in the south east is ridiculous. So if you can move you’ll save a fortune there.
 
For the moment. House prices in places like Canterbury and Whitstable are rapidly increasing, thanks to 'downfers'*

* Downfers = Down from London
 
Oh, come on: encounters between southerners and northerners can be interesting:

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maximus otter
Can we feed into stereotypes here children? ;)

Full disclosure: I was born and bred in S.E. London up until I was 11 years old. After boarding school 'forced' my exposure to foreign types, including kids with divorced parents, I'd lived and worked all around the UK. Getting on in years, I've found myself settled in rural N. Yorkshire.
Trust me: I find the 'southern' attitude to the North as distasteful and parochial as the North's attitude to southerners.
 
Extinction Rebellion's Biggest Funder Has 3 Billion Euros Invested in Airbus

Chris Hohn is the single biggest individual donor to Extinction Rebellion, who are famously fond of blocking airport runways and London ambulances. “Humanity is aggressively destroying the world with climate change and there is an urgent need for us all to wake up to this fact,” Hohn claimed when he was revealed as XR’s main funder.

Hohn’s TCI fund has a €3 billion investment in Airbus and is a long-term holder of the shares. Airbus creates machines that emit millions of tonnes of carbon every day.

https://order-order.com/2023/02/23/...invested-in-airbus-jet-aircraft-manufacturer/

maximus otter
 
Extinction Rebellion's Biggest Funder Has 3 Billion Euros Invested in Airbus

Chris Hohn is the single biggest individual donor to Extinction Rebellion, who are famously fond of blocking airport runways and London ambulances. “Humanity is aggressively destroying the world with climate change and there is an urgent need for us all to wake up to this fact,” Hohn claimed when he was revealed as XR’s main funder.

Hohn’s TCI fund has a €3 billion investment in Airbus and is a long-term holder of the shares. Airbus creates machines that emit millions of tonnes of carbon every day.

https://order-order.com/2023/02/23/...invested-in-airbus-jet-aircraft-manufacturer/

maximus otter
Sounds like Hypocrisy!
 

Electric vehicle drivers get candid about charging: 'Logistical nightmare'

Charging on the go is neither easy nor fast.

YouTube personality Steve Hammes leased a Hyundai Kona Electric sport utility vehicle for his 17-year-old daughter Maddie for three reasons: it was affordable, practical and allowed Maddie to put her cash toward college, not fuel. Now, the upstate New York resident has a dilemma many EV owners can relate to: finding available charging stations far away from home.

"We're going through the planning process of how easily Maddie can get from Albany to Gettysburg [College] and where she can charge the car," Hammes told ABC News. "It makes me a little nervous. We want fast chargers that take 30 to 40 minutes -- it would not make sense to sit at a Level 2 charger for hours. There isn't a good software tool that helps EV owners plan their trips."

John Voelcker, an industry expert on EVs and the former editor of Green Car Reports, said he's seen little improvement in the nation's charging infrastructure in the last four years and frequently hears complaints of dead chargers and sticky cables.

"The incentive right now is to get stations in the ground," he said. "It's not making sure they actually work."

Tony Quiroga, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver, has been forced to wander the aisles of a Walmart in Burbank, California, while the EV he's testing that day sits and charges. He's become a familiar face at a Mexican restaurant in Mohave, California, where a Tesla charger is located. A coffee shop recently opened nearby that caters specifically to EV drivers.

"I imagine an ecosystem will be built around charging stations eventually," he told ABC News. "Longer trips bring up flaws with EVs. People are leery of taking them on long trips -- that's why older EVs don't have 40,000 miles on them."

Quiroga's team of reporters has to carefully plan and calculate how far EV charging stations are when they conduct comparison tests among manufacturers.

"These comparisons tests are a logistical nightmare. We plan meals around recharging the vehicles," he said. "We need to have the battery at 100% or close to it to test a vehicle's performance. We have to time everything -- it requires more work."

In December, Quiroga was in Florida driving BMW's luxury i7 all-electric sedan. He watched as its range dropped from 240 miles to 220 as soon as he turned on the heat.

"You use the luxuries ... and the range plummets," he said.

Sandwich chain Subway announced Wednesday it was partnering with GenZ EV Solutions to build "Oasis Parks" at select dining locations. EV customers can expect charging canopies with multiple ports, picnic tables, Wi-Fi, restrooms, green space and playgrounds to make the charging experience more "seamless," Subway said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bro...y-charging-electric-vehicle/story?id=97389275

maximus otter
 

Electric vehicle drivers get candid about charging: 'Logistical nightmare'

Charging on the go is neither easy nor fast.

YouTube personality Steve Hammes leased a Hyundai Kona Electric sport utility vehicle for his 17-year-old daughter Maddie for three reasons: it was affordable, practical and allowed Maddie to put her cash toward college, not fuel. Now, the upstate New York resident has a dilemma many EV owners can relate to: finding available charging stations far away from home.

"We're going through the planning process of how easily Maddie can get from Albany to Gettysburg [College] and where she can charge the car," Hammes told ABC News. "It makes me a little nervous. We want fast chargers that take 30 to 40 minutes -- it would not make sense to sit at a Level 2 charger for hours. There isn't a good software tool that helps EV owners plan their trips."

John Voelcker, an industry expert on EVs and the former editor of Green Car Reports, said he's seen little improvement in the nation's charging infrastructure in the last four years and frequently hears complaints of dead chargers and sticky cables.

"The incentive right now is to get stations in the ground," he said. "It's not making sure they actually work."

Tony Quiroga, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver, has been forced to wander the aisles of a Walmart in Burbank, California, while the EV he's testing that day sits and charges. He's become a familiar face at a Mexican restaurant in Mohave, California, where a Tesla charger is located. A coffee shop recently opened nearby that caters specifically to EV drivers.

"I imagine an ecosystem will be built around charging stations eventually," he told ABC News. "Longer trips bring up flaws with EVs. People are leery of taking them on long trips -- that's why older EVs don't have 40,000 miles on them."

Quiroga's team of reporters has to carefully plan and calculate how far EV charging stations are when they conduct comparison tests among manufacturers.

"These comparisons tests are a logistical nightmare. We plan meals around recharging the vehicles," he said. "We need to have the battery at 100% or close to it to test a vehicle's performance. We have to time everything -- it requires more work."

In December, Quiroga was in Florida driving BMW's luxury i7 all-electric sedan. He watched as its range dropped from 240 miles to 220 as soon as he turned on the heat.

"You use the luxuries ... and the range plummets," he said.

Sandwich chain Subway announced Wednesday it was partnering with GenZ EV Solutions to build "Oasis Parks" at select dining locations. EV customers can expect charging canopies with multiple ports, picnic tables, Wi-Fi, restrooms, green space and playgrounds to make the charging experience more "seamless," Subway said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/bro...y-charging-electric-vehicle/story?id=97389275

maximus otter
That’s the problem, petrol or diesel cars you fill them up and go electric you have to wait around for hours for it to charge even if you find a charger.
 
That’s the problem, petrol or diesel cars you fill them up and go electric you have to wait around for hours for it to charge even if you find a charger.
I've not seen one advert that gives charging times for electric cars. They may give range but that's about as useful as mileage figures for petrol and diesel. i.e. a range of three hundred miles at a constant 50 mph on flat ground with no lights on, a/c, radio, phone chargers etc. is as useful as 45 mpg at a constant 50 mph etc....
 
This is truly appalling news,

UK government climate ‘aid’ set to displace indigenous villagers in India​

Listen to this article


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1X
BeyondWords

This is the first of a five-part investigation into how UK government climate finance aid is grabbing land, displacing communities, and furthering colonialism in places like Badi, India – under the guise of renewable energy like solar. You can read part two here.

We are saying with folded hands that the only thing that we want is our lands to be saved. And if not land, then at least our houses.
The Canary spoke to a member of the remote Badi village in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. He wished to remain anonymous for his safety and for the safety of his family and other villagers. As a dairy farmer, he grazes his cattle on primarily government-owned land. His community’s main livelihood is agriculture on this shared commons. The village has been around for 600 years, and families like his have cultivated and raised livestock on the commons for multiple generations.

But his is one of at least 20 families set to lose their homes, land, and livelihoods to a solar park. It will be constructed on 1,066 hectares, spanning three villages in the district of Neemuch.

Project documents suggest that the community in Badi village will have less than 60% of their total land remaining.
The villagers include members of Dalit, indigenous Adivasi, and other marginalised groups. A group of twelve villagers spoke to the Canary. They said that:
We are losing all our agricultural land in the process, we are losing [our] entire agriculture.

We will have no option other than moving from this native place and moving to some bigger city to find work or earnings. We will have to migrate.
The project will likely force the Badi dairy farmer, and other villagers not directly displaced, to migrate. This is because they will lose their agricultural lands and land-based livelihoods.

UK climate aid funding a solar park

Across the planet, nations are increasingly turning to solar energy to meet their energy needs. Countries are making the transition to these ‘green technologies‘ to stay in line with the Paris Agreement goal. It states that countries need to make clear efforts to keep global average temperatures well below 2°C, above pre-industrial levels.

As part of the agreement, countries with more financial resources and who historically bear larger responsibility for the climate crisis, are also providing funds to less industrialised nations to help them in their energy transition.

But to meet these climate goals, the UK and other industrialised nations are placing the burden of this energy transition on land-based communities elsewhere. At home, the UK government bans solar parks from farmlands. However, its climate finance funds them on the agricultural and common lands of rural communities in India. It is outsourcing its climate ‘mitigation’ commitments to indigenous communities in the countries least responsible for the crisis.

UK climate aid is partly funding the solar park in Neemuch. It’s financing the project through the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) – a multilateral climate fund. The World Bank set up the CTF in 2008, and it has since received contributions from 15 industrialised nations.

The Clean Technology Fund​

The CTF aims to aid less industrialised countries in their efforts to transition to cleaner technologies. The World Bank acts as trustee and administers the fund. It provided a US $100m loan to the project, split between the CTF ($25m) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

According to the project’s Resettlement and Livelihood Restoration Plan (RLRP), the solar park at Neemuch will physically displace 23 families from their lands and homes. It will also displace the livelihoods of a further 202 households. The UK is partially funding two other solar parks in different districts in the state of Madhya Pradesh through the same CTF project. Alongside the solar park at Neemuch, this will physically and economically displace over 850 households. Overall, this affects the indigenous and land-based communities across twenty-five villages. The eight transmission lines for these projects, which transport the solar power elsewhere, will economically displace nearly 2,000 more families.

The displaced households should receive financial compensation for the acquired land. World Bank policies also state that the projects should offer them new land or economic opportunities. These include employment, support for starting a new business, or training. But this has not always been the experience of the communities displaced by these large-scale solar parks across other parts of India.

Insufficient compensation

Gaurav Dwivedi is associate director at the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) in India. He says that land-for-land compensation is never offered for these large-scale climate projects in India. Dwivedi has studied and produced a report on another solar park in Madhya Pradesh. The same CTF project as the three upcoming solar parks also partially funded this project. Dwivedi says of land-for-land compensation:
In the context of massive land acquisition for renewable projects, India does not have that kind of adequate vacant land. The land required would need to be acquired from agricultural communities. With this constraint it is difficult to provide land for land as per the law to every affected family, resulting in cash compensation to affected families. This also means people lose permanent sources of livelihood.
The dairy farmer who wished to remain anonymous, and the other Badi villagers that the Canary spoke to, confirmed that land-for-land compensation had not been offered for the solar park at Neemuch. To date, they have also yet to receive any compensation. Project documents suggest that compensation should be provided in advance of any loss of access to land, but the dairy farmer says that:
Ten percent of the land is already acquired and the rest of the land is in the process. So 90% of the land is in the process of acquisition, but as of now, we haven’t received any rehabilitation or compensation.
Local administration employees in JCB bulldozers clear a local farmer’s land for the Neemuch solar park in the early hours 28 January 2023, Kawai village (adjacent to Badi).

Even if the financial compensation arrives, the loss of their agricultural and pastoral lands and associated livelihood means that displacement from their community is still a likely outcome. The dairy farmer explained that this has already happened for some in his community, whose land the project acquired early:
The people whose land is already snatched away, those people have no other option except to work in factories or in construction.


https://www.thecanary.co/global/202...et-to-displace-indigenous-villagers-in-india/

 
go electric you have to wait around for hours for it to charge
I'm no fan of EVs and doubt I will ever want to own one, the caveat being that 'unless a new battery technology is found that means you can charge to 100% in under 3 minutes and have a range of over 600 miles'.
However, that being said, the amount of time it takes to charge does vary considerably from 'all night' to as little as about 30 minutes, depending on what charger is being used, and what vehicle you have (it still isn't as quick as filling with fuel in an ICE car though).
Also, EVs would be much easier to live with if a Hydrogen filling network was as extensive as traditional petrol/diesel filling stations are/were, and instead of batteries the use of Fuel Cells was commonplace.
 
Also, EVs would be much easier to live with if a Hydrogen filling network was as extensive as traditional petrol/diesel filling stations are/were, and instead of batteries the use of Fuel Cells was commonplace.
Don't get too excited about hydrogen. Volume by volume it has about a sixth of the energy potential as petrol, so think in terms of 10 miles to a gallon (my diesel does 60mpg), plus the tank will need to able to stand high pressure (700 bar) condensed hydrogen, so will be both large and heavy. As a car fuel it's not that practical...

Sabine Hossenfelder tells you why in detail:

 
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Volume by volume it has about a sixth of the energy potential as petrol
That's for burning it though.
In a fuel cell it is used as a reactant to create electrickery.
Simple explanation of a fuel cell here.
And 20 minutes of her explaining why "Hydrogen useless" is probably overkill sponsored by the petro-chemicals companies (I'm guessing).
 
About 30 cars park in my road overnight.
There is ONE electric vehicle charging point.

Most of the people live in flats with little driveway space for charging points.
Yes - this is one of the reasons why no-one can be forced to get an electric car any time soon, despite the paranoia on another thread.
 
About 30 cars park in my road overnight.
There is ONE electric vehicle charging point.

Most of the people live in flats with little driveway space for charging points.
Invest in extension flexes now folks :)
 
Well they are going to stop making ICE cars so eventually people will be forced.
Yes that’s the plan - used petrol cars will still be around for some time though surely..

Infrastructure simply isn't there for all-electric without massive investment/upgrades. I could be wrong but can't see this happening any time soon countrywide.
 
Yes that’s the plan - used petrol cars will still be around for some time though surely..

Infrastructure simply isn't there for all-electric without massive investment/upgrades. I could be wrong but can't see this happening any time soon countrywide.
What concerns me, that is never mentioned, is when they catch fire (which they still do) they burn very hot for a very long time. The fire brigade has an even harder job to put them out and what about the state of the road underneath them?
 
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