Planet-saving, global warming etc

[D9020 Nimbus]

I wonder how the energy involved in using Skype compares with the additional energy used by a train carrying one extra (not especially heavy) passenger?

[mcowgill]

On 15/05/2019 at 18:37, APOLLO said:

This is interesting. I doubt whether I will ever own an electric (or hybrid) car.

 

Europe switching to electric cars would only help to reduce global CO2 emissions by 0.4%, expert claims

 

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7031771/Electric-cars-Europe-cut-global-CO2-emissions-0-4.html

 

Brit15

 

While it's possible that the CO2 emissions might not change much that's only part of the problem.  30 years ago we switched from leaded petrol to unleaded to help remove poisons from the roadside, electric & hybrid vehicles do the same.  They no longer generate NOX / CO & soot particulates at the roadside, the car being far cleaner at the point of use, so all the parents in their cars sitting waiting for their kids outside school with the engine on to drive the aircon aren't slowly poisoning everyone at the same time.

 

You also have control over the fuel being used, instead of burning fossil fuels within the vehicle it can be generated either from fossil fuels burned more efficiently in a modern power station or preferably from the various renewable sources which will make more difference to CO2.

 

Ideally we should be aiming to reduce car ownership, particularly in urban areas, and replacing it with public transport / shared car services etc.  That's a better way to cut emissions long term.

 

Martin

 

 

[Nick C]

With the power of the internet, telecommunication can reach vastly more people than face-to-face. Imagine if she'd given one of her addresses to government over a video stream instead of in person, opening with "I'm doing this over the internet in order to save the environmental cost of travelling" - and that had been streamed over youtube etc - you'd potentially have millions of people hearing those words...

 

However using the train instead of flying still sent a very good message - whereas Thompson just looked like an utter hypocrite.

 

IMHO a lot of savings can be done with clever marketing - e.g. "hey, big company, think how much money you can save by using Video Conferencing instead of flying - and it looks good for your eco-pr too!"

 

Similarly, the issue of developing countries needing to emit more to catch up is misplaced too - we (the developed world) can, and should, be using our technological knowledge to help the poorer countries to improve their standards of living without increasing their emissions, simply by avoiding making the same mistakes we made. For example, much of the developing world is in warmer areas - so we should be helping them to build solar power plants to create their new power networks, skipping over fossil-fuel plants completely. This has already been successfully done in Africa with telephony - a lot of African countries totally skipped land-lines, and went straight to mobile - and that's made a huge difference as people in remote areas now have vastly more access to information, communications, banking etc than they did before.

[Metr0Land]

3 hours ago, mcowgill said:

 

Ideally we should be aiming to reduce car ownership, particularly in urban areas, and replacing it with public transport / shared car services etc.  That's a better way to cut emissions long term.

 

Martin

 

 

 

One thing that's always struck me as odd is the fact we quite happily accept that child fares stop at 14 or somesuch.  No green lobbyists have ever suggested govts funding bus/train companies to keep young people on public transport throughout their 'childhood' up to 18.  Surely there's some benefit to this? 

[ess1uk]

I had a free bus pass to secondary school until I was 16

[Two_sugars]

I've got a free bus pass now!

 

 

John

[Metr0Land]

12 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

I had a free bus pass to secondary school until I was 16

 

Yes but presumably not for other journies and not covering 16-17

[Mike Storey]

5 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

 

 

I am no fan of Chairman Pussycat, and the implementation of that policy in common with practically everything he did was deeply flawed, but it is action on this scale that is really required, and not 'tinkering'. Good debate on how we might quickly attain a stable population, now that would be something. The effect of improving education and healthcare appears proven in encouraging smaller families, it is what comes next that matters. Quite how to swing this one politically, I have not a clue.

 

I agree with the sentiment, but you ignore the huge issue in which it has resulted - too many old people, with not enough young people to support them. Hence the unpopular policy of later and later retirement ages.

 

You can easily stabilise the populations of individual countries - you just stop immigration completely in the case of most developed nations (a notion currently in vogue, or so I hear) - but that will not stop the total world population expanding. So the issue of climate effect does not go away, and neither does the demographic problem in those nations who have stopped immigration, where their domestic birth rate has already declined below 2.2, nor will it stop even greater attempts at illegal immigration, introducing even greater societal incohesion.

 

As you say, politically, a nightmare. 

 

 

[ess1uk]

6 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Yes but presumably not for other journies and not covering 16-17

No.

i was in a he army within weeks of leaving school at 16!!

[Ian J.]

Regarding Greta Thunberg using a train instead of a plane, I think it should be remembered that many of our public transport services run to a timetable, regardless of how many passengers are actually on board. So in many ways, she was using energy that was already being used. Planes are different of course, as sometimes they will cancel a flight if there aren't enough people for it, or at least use a smaller plane.

 

Regarding economic change, IMO there will need to be a paradigm shift in what we call an economy. We can't just consume our way ahead, we have to find a system that doesn't drain the world of resources. The first thing that needs to change is the use of 'fashion' to sell things - not just clothes, but technology, furniture, cars, etc., etc. Making money off selling something to someone just because they've been told it's the 'latest must have' has to go.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Ian J.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

I wonder how the energy involved in using Skype compares with the additional energy used by a train carrying one extra (not especially heavy) passenger?

How long is a piece of string?

 

It is going to depend. What is the length of each train journey and most importantly, how many stops does the train make? How level is the track? Most of the power is needed to accelerate and decelerate the train. There will be a fixed and finite amount of energy required to stop and start the extra passenger (plus the incremental contribution to overcoming rolling resistance). This is pure physics.

 

What is the duration of the Skype call? The actual energy consumed by all the computers (including all the routers at the end points and in datacenters and all the HVAC required to cool the datacenters) will add up. But you would need to amortize this over the millions (billions?) of other transactions that all that infrastructure is doing - much the same way as you are looking at the incremental load to the train.

 

Without doing any maths, I would suggest the actual total incremental energy is vastly smaller for the Skype call.

 

Another factor to consider is the HVAC for the meeting room. Depending on how large the meeting is, the energy cost for the meeting room might be considerable.

 

All this aside, humans are social creatures. Skype (which in my opinion is truly awful - even before Microsoft bought them, I will note that I am required to use it almost daily) is no substitute for direct human to human interaction when you need to encourage or inspire someone.

 

 

Edited May 17, 2019 by Ozexpatriate

[Nick C]

In yet another act of totally un-joined-up thinking, the government are increasing the VAT on solar installs from 5% to the standard 20%. Coal, however, stays at 5%...

 

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/halt-the-solar-and-storage-vat-hike

[jcm@gwr]

On 24/05/2019 at 11:54, Nick C said:

In yet another act of totally un-joined-up thinking, the government are increasing the VAT on solar installs from 5% to the standard 20%. Coal, however, stays at 5%...

 

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/halt-the-solar-and-storage-vat-hike

 

I hadn't seen that one, 

I've signed it now.

[kevinlms]

Sorry if this has been on here before, but a cheap solution to a big problem, with other advantages too.

 

 

[spikey]

Now if only there was an energy-efficient way of processing all the plastic waste so that it could be used to fill all the potholes in the nation's roads ...

 

[kevinlms]

12 minutes ago, spikey said:

Now if only there was an energy-efficient way of processing all the plastic waste so that it could be used to fill all the potholes in the nation's roads ...

 

There is work being done on using old tyres (another major problem) to build roads.

 

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/turning-old-tyres-into-new-roads

[kevinlms]

2 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

There is work being done on using old tyres (another major problem) to build roads.

 

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/turning-old-tyres-into-new-roads

But then you read of stuff like this and wonder why anyone bothers! A-holes!

 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/massive-illegal-chemical-dump-found-buried-on-bush-block-in-country-victoria-20190719-p528y9.html

[melmerby]

44 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

There is work being done on using old tyres (another major problem) to build roads.

 

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/turning-old-tyres-into-new-roads

Unfortunately that has already been called out as a source of pollution as when tyres (which contain plastics as well as rubber) are abraded they create micro particles of plastic & rubber which are even worse than complete tyres!

Edited July 19, 2019 by melmerby

[kevinlms]

12 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Unfortunately that has already been called out as a source of pollution as when tyres (which contain plastics as well as rubber) are abraded they create micro particles of plastic & rubber which are even worse than complete tyres!

In Oz, we have had a couple of major fires caused by illegal stockpiles, with others identified. The question is, what is worse? I don't see tyres not being used, for years to come. 

[melmerby]

12 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

In Oz, we have had a couple of major fires caused by illegal stockpiles, with others identified. The question is, what is worse? I don't see tyres not being used, for years to come. 

Proper recycling?

Surely they can be re-used for something that doesn't involve being shredded and mixed with road surfacing?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

6 hours ago, melmerby said:

Proper recycling? Surely they - scrap tyres - can be re-used for something that doesn't involve being shredded and mixed with road surfacing?

The bulk material is pretty intractable with a limited range of possibilities for recycling. Possibly the best thing to do is burn them for power generation, distilling off any fractions that can be reused by utilising the energy released (the upside is that the raw material, mainly mineral oil, is utilised for an essential purpose, and then burned for energy: rather than burning oil that has not been used for at least one other purpose first) recognising that the scrubbing required to clean up the combustion products is going to be pretty demanding.

 

No ducking this one. We have been very ingenious in exploiting the materials we have found on earth, and there are now any number of unforeseen consequences to clean up.

[PatB]

I'm aware of at least one research project in WA seeking to develop a method of extracting everything chemically useful from old tyres. Whilst I'm not party to details, those undertaking the work appear to be technically qualified rather than being dreamers or charlatans. 

[PatB]

I'm aware of at least one research project in WA seeking to develop a method of extracting everything chemically useful from old tyres. Whilst I'm not party to details, those undertaking the work appear to be technically qualified rather than being dreamers or charlatans. 

[monkeysarefun]

 

 

[DIW]

Hmm, that's a good recycling use. I see that the factory is in Mildura - approximately 140km from the nearest passenger station! (Swan Hill). Is that a still-in-use goods-only line that runs past the factory? What are the chances of the factory siding (shown disconnected on street view) being reinstated? It would be a good advertisement for their sleepers.