ULEZ Zone London Clean Air reality? - The Heathrow effect - where the ULEZ argument falls down and fails....

 

The reality of the 'ULEZ Clean Air Zone is obvious here - 

why are airline's exhaust pollution output not mentioned in the ULEZ 'publicity'?

It is all very well congratulating yourself as Mayor incumbent for cleaning up the air in London streets up by reducing road vehicle emissions, but the real problem is obvious. It is in the sky. And that hasn't really changed since the 1960's package holiday travel boom.

Exhaust emissions might have reduced on the streets, but nothing is being done about the skies and the airlines that on takeoff, blow their dirty exhaust emissions and unspent fuel particulates right back over the London environs, just cleaned up at street level and are now supposedly 'clean air zones'. Something approaching hypocrisy I say.

How does that scenario figure in the 'air quality' measurements and statistics thrown at us? Anyone?

Did you know that an airline taking off expends the same emissions as a family car's average produced by driving over 10 years? - yes that's 75,000 miles worth of emissions in total, pushed out by one airliner taking off - just in getting that one aircraft off the Heathrow airport tarmac and into the sky.

And that output goes for just about every one of the planes taking off at 90 second intervals from Heathrow airport.

You may call my argument simplistic, but in pollution terms that's a lot of shit being pushed back into the 'clean' air and being blown back across a city claiming to have been cleaned up and a clean air zone, is it not?

Some Heathrow airport workers are now finding that they pay the ULEZ fees to be able to drive to Heathrow to work, yet the airlines pay nothing in emissions tax is that correct? Is that fair?

Road vehicle owners pay 80% of the cost of their fuel as duty, they may also have to pay a £12.50 Congestion charge and the ULEZ charge to drive to places like Heathrow. Yet the aircraft flying in and out pay nothing in respect of duty on their fuel?

The Heathrow airport expansion plan was said to be 'good for business' but not apparently the case for the people living under the flight path getting more pollution from more aircraft movements surely?

Talk about mugs being taken for a ride.

Is COP26 a Cop out? - Why not do this meeting by Zoom conferencing? Here's how we can actually fix the Climate...

 

COP26 - Good Cop or Cop out?

We already have the tools to fix the problem...

The bottom line is that unless China actively takes measures to reduce emissions now then the COP26 is just going to be a talking shop and we might as well not bother.

Are we facing an artificially created 'Climate Crisis'? Can we fix it? Yes we can...

The solution is that humans abandon their individualistic, nationalistic policies and start to work together as a collective species, putting aside religious beliefs and politics and strive for a common good. That's the theory. It could be achievable if the will was there.

But, here's what needs fixing...

Weather has been able to be manipulated for decades by humans which is a fact. 'Cloud seeding' to create rain in Deserts is nothing new. 

Satellites can be used to start fires at ground level by use of lasers, as has happened in California - where fire investigations show houses burned but not the forest around in many cases. Satellites can possibly manipulate the weather too from above.

HAARP Weather control, in use for decades can also influence weather, so can keeping weather patterns localised and ramped up, to create localised hot, cold or wet conditions, thus 'creating' a climate problem. As in Greece recently.

The 'climate change solutions' on offer being promoted in the media to fix that but, someone is making a profit from that or have you not worked that out? Is it a simple case of 'create a problem, show you have a solution and divert attention from what is really going on behind the scenes'?

When the wind turbines don't work and its too dark or cloudy of Solar, Diesel generation is used to supply power as an adjunct to Nuclear. Did you know that?

The gulf stream affects weather - the holes in the earth plates allow heat from the earth's core to escape and heat the ocean able, causing bands of warmer water, this makes the weather change and move as the plates of the Earth close over and new places emerge allowing the warmth to escape. This is natural climate change.

The Earth is subject to the Sun. In AD0001, the Romans were able to grow grapes in Britain, it was warmer then than now and didn't have the fossil fuel burning we do with a 60+ million population. In the 1500's Grapes could be grown at Hampton Court Palace. It was again, warmer than now. The ice caps are artificial, as the fossil data will show you when the ground is uncovered. 

Boris Johnson, the great history buff allegedly likened climate change to the fall of the Roman Empire. The empire fell through internecine warfare and a collapse in society not because of a few degrees of warming. Quite the opposite, when the cold came to Britain, the Romans left.

Clean and free energy has been available to humans since 1954

Yes we have had access to this since 1954 ask Dr Stephen Greer. We are kept into being an oil based commercial economy and to give away 'free' energy means you can't tax it or make money selling it. 

But we would all benefit from this clean, free energy which exists and is being suppressed for the above reasons. Greed.

COVID19 and travel - the Zoom phenomenon

Covid19 has been a welcome game changer in some ways, we can now work from home in some cases blowing that myth out of the water that this was not possible (prior to Covid 19), which saves us travel costs, travel emissions, not having to associate with people we would rather not and being work better and more productively. We don't waste time travelling either. Or pollute.

So why not conduct COP26 by Zoom? 

A big question and I am not really buying 'the need for face to face contact' argument, surely one to one appointments can be sought delegate to delegate by Zoom? 

Or is that too simple? Lead by example, not dictate and do the opposite.

EV's - Battery Electric vehicles - are they a big swindle?

You might feel 'pious in your Prius' as you drive, but the real costs of Green motoring are literally costing the Earth's finite resources.

A Battery powered vehicle costs half as much again as a petrol or diesel vehicle to buy. With the right spares backup, the liquid fuelled vehicle could last 40 years. The battery one 7 years, before its battery needs replacing and the car is likely scrap as the battery cannot be replaced in the car without pulling the structure apart. So, you balance the damage done by making 6 battery cars to equal the life of 1 fuelled car. Do the math. 'Green' doesn't add up here.

But, the charging of the electric cars is the next issue, besides the lack of points that are available or work, is the cost of charging. Some tariffs can cost you the same to charge your battery giving you 200 miles of range if you are lucky, as a tank of petrol or diesel taking you 400 miles. 

The real cost of charging, once there is a sizeable volume of electric road vehicles will hit hard because there is nothing stopping the battery chargers being changed to charge your wallet more to charge your battery. You will not be in control of the charging prices for what electricity you receive. Vehicle excise duty lost to your 'Green' car will be recouped by road pricing and through the charger. You will likely not have any option than to pay up or peter out.

China now holds control over much of the manufacturing and mineral resources concerned with motor vehicle battery production. What is to stop them raising the price a they see fit to whatever level they choose once the fossil fuelled cars are not on sale? Bet they didn't think that one through.

We could switch to synthetic petrol and diesel fuels which ARE carbon neutral. The folly of going down the battery vehicle route will soon become apparent. It grabs headlines and in time hit you in your wallet like an electric version of Dick Turpin. Highway Robbery for the 22nd century.

We can make synthetic fuels from Algae, we cannot make new Cobalt, Lithium or other rare earth metals and elements used in electric car batteries. If we can't recycle these car batteries we will have created yet another fiasco like the Fridge Henge. Why cannot people see through these simple things?

Liquid fuelled motor vehicles using petrol or diesel are the cleanest they have ever been and will get cleaner almost producing no emissions. This is the future. Battery may work in cities, it is not the answer for our needs.

The UK issue of emissions

The UK produces less than 1% of global emissions, China 25%. The place to reduce emissions is obvious. Recently a coal mine project in Britain was halted, it was to produce Coke for Steel making - British steel used by Volkswagen for instance, due to its quality, is well regarded. The mine isn't going ahead I believe, thanks to 'Green' pressure here.

So that means the jobs and the production will go to China which opens 1 coal fired power station a week and uses Coal in their Steel production. An industry which overproduces and 'dumps' cheap steel on the market.

Our British furnace might have been partly powered by renewables or nuclear which would be less damaging to heat up. Go figure. The UK Coal use would be minimal compared to China.

The UK has reduced CO2 output by over 40% it is now time others did the same before the UK is forced down  by using hobbling measures whilst other major nations pollute and do little or nothing. The UK is just looking stupid by trying to set some mythical example it has no real hope of achieving because of costs for one reason.

Burning Wet wood is banned on domestic Wood burning stoves. Yet, a power station can burn wood chips which are wet and this is 'Green' despite as a result producing enormous amounts of CO2 - likely more than efficiently burnt coal would produce. 

Plus these wood chips are from American forests being felled to feed this situation. Add in the shipping from the USA and the Green dividend looks questionable. Who thought this was a great idea? Dunces cap awaits... You could not make this up.

British manufacturing 

Covid has ramped up transport costs especially from China and this means that Britain is now viable in some situations as a manufacturing base again. But we are hobbling ourselves by introducing stringent carbon neutral and net Zero carbon policies foisted on us by eco zealots whilst China still creates large global emissions unchecked. 

Promises from China of mending their ways need to be put in place now not some arbitrary future date.

We cannot have 'real carbon neutrality' - we all breathe out CO2 for a start. Go figure. 

We live in a commercial world, we consume, we have done since the time of the Atlanteans.

At the time of the Dinosaurs the climate was far warmer than today so that the large dinosaurs could exist and the proportion of CO2 the atmosphere contained was far greater than today - the fossil record of plants shows that too. 

In year zero a millennium ago Grapes were grown in Britain as they were in the 1500's - if it was that warm then, it was warmer than the '1.5 degrees catastrophe' that people say will cause problems. Its called science. The sun dictates how warm this planet is. 

Heathrow airport expansion

Do we need this? Of the Heathrow airport expansion - 'Good for business' Mrs May said - but not good for the environment. Covid has knocked a lot of air travel on the head. Most of it was a luxury and not necessary. Our environment has benefitted from less air travel. We can keep that dividend.

E10 Ethanol Petrol - Dump this 'not Green' fuel for Synthetic fuels - these are not the future.

A big con - E10 Petrol is not green at all. 

E10 is less volatile than the old unleaded petrol meaning you need to use more fuel to gain the same performance how can this be 'Green'? The Ethanol in E10 combines with water to damage fuel system parts in some engines. It is worse performing for your engine than E5 by a long while. we proved that in an old car from 1930.

The Ethanol in the E5 and E10 is derived from Sugar Beet cultivation, which makes its own CO2 problems and denying sugar  and food growing land to local populations, potentially creating local food poverty problems too. 

Factor in clearing CO2 absorbing trees for growing this Beet and it just looks like more lunacy on a plate. It will be like Palm Oil all over again, clearing fertile ground, often forested areas to make a product that is not needed.

Creating a big carbon footprint of making the Ethanol and delivering it too is lunacy.

Untreated (with enhancing additives) E10 fuel older than 30 days will need to be disposed of as its usable volatility diminishes, so do councils have the facilities at their waste management plants to collect and store this hazardous fuel in great quantities? Treated with additives, E10 fuel can last 3 years plus and remain usable.

Millions of litres of untreated fuel as a consequence, are likely to be ending up being wasted each year from surplus unused fuel purchased for use in garden machinery alone. A percentage of all the Fuel having to be delivered to petrol stations may have to as a consequence, be 'dumped'. This is hardly green. This is stupidity on a grand scale.

Wild Boar introduced illegally as 're-wilding' measures in the 1980s create the same amount of CO2 that 1 million cars do, as their foraging releases CO2 stored in the earth. 

Rather than the 350,000 cars worth of emissions reduction the RAC claims E10 fuel introduction will make (a figure which I am personally not buying), why not get rid of the Wild Boars, a much bigger problem? Do the math, 350,000 against 1,000,000. And the E10 fuel that will need disposal. 

We are no longer in the EU, let us dump E10 and go back to E5 a better fuel that causes less problems and is more Green and more efficient. A compromise but worth it. On this note, petrol and diesel engines burn more cleanly than ever. They can only improve but not by E10 and Adblue which drastically reduces Diesel vehicle economy.

China and production

China has become the big manufacturing base of the world, it has become a commercial consumer society itself and raised the standard of living of their citizens in recent decades. 

But it also makes a lot of crap we consume and don't need to consume, because our markets create artificial demand for this stuff as part of our 'consumer society'.

We can do without the single use plastic stuff produced for 'Secret Santa' and 'Halloween' events, which are just commercial opportunities. This is the stuff that gets sent to landfill sometimes unused. Why the hell are we doing this? 

Developing countries

Countries that are not currently at 'western' levels of development - should these be encouraged not to develop and given aid not to advance? Can the world's resources cater for their new needs and materials demands if they advance? Do they need to develop?

Since 1970 our world population has almost doubled. That's part of the problem.

As a planet run along commercial lines, unless we find ways of doing that in a better way, we will not make any progress towards the ideals that this sort of conference aims to employ.

We will also run out of resources. Like the elements needed for batteries, whilst Algae we can use to make synthetic fuels is infinite. Go figure.

Are Electric cars and Carbon Neutrality a big con - and is climate change just another political bandwagon to hitch a ride on?

Are we being conned over electricity and the Green agenda?

We have had access to free energy since 1954 but we are denied it. Why?

Electric cars are being toted as clean and green and the future. Far from it. 1 in 5 Californian electric car owners are trading their electric cars back in for gasoline cars - because the range isn't there, nor is the quickness of charging time or availability of charging points.

Motor manufacturers are currently engaged in an apparent race to the bottom by not planning or introducing new models of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles as governments career headlong into a potential fool's paradise of no having no new ICE vehicles sold as of 2030. The future is not electric cars. It is not battery cars. It is bio fuelled cars.

In California, they are apparently falling out of love with Electric Cars!

Modern vehicles are infinitely more efficient and cleaner and they have ever been, the future for transport is bio fuels not the direction being navigated down the battery route. Battery power units are not at a development stage that means we are going to get a really good range or power output then there is the question of the battery charging rate that will differ between batteries and of course the costs to charge a battery. We likely don't have the source power to charge the batteries required.

Battery cars are driving the wrong end of the problem - they drive the wheels directly, losing 25% efficiency there due to frictional forces, plus the load on the battery. Why not use the battery to drive a brushless generator and create through rectification more power than you put in, thus your battery car would go further and quicker for long operations such as motorway driving, perhaps a 70mph motorway cruise range of 400 miles could be achievable this way, not the environmentally heavy demanding theoretical ranges now in place.

As I predicted, this battery technology is quite new and what happens if like computers, one system quickly supersedes another? You are going to have Apple envy and a divisive battery car snobbery, with entry level vehicles looked down on, rather than a level playing field battery system.

What happens to old batteries? Can they be recycled, what happens to the rest of the vehicle which less the battery is about valueless except for scrap? Because the battery is built in to the structure in current vehicles and is not easy to remove.  

Slowly, some proponents of the carbon neutral folly are removing their green tinted spectacles and starting to see that China effectively now controls the majority of materials needed for battery cars and renewable energy. 

A lot of these resources are situated where China has invested in their extraction and controls the materials holdings in the regions. If China holds considerable access rights to these materials, it can dictate the price to supply and even if it wants to supply other nations. 

The risk is that when 2030 hits and people cannot buy ICE cars perhaps because of battery cost just for example leave alone the availability factor, what then? Some people could be looking mighty stupid as the rest of us say 'we told you so'. 

The risk is that having lost 10 years of development on ICE cars which may be even more cleaner then and possibly using greener by development, and use of bio fuels, we will be doubly disadvantaged. 

The Covid situation has meant more people can work from home and are choosing to do so, thus a 'commuting less workforce' saves the environment by cutting car use painlessly. This will probably achieve as much as this battery vehicle folly might in CO2 reduction alone.  

In 2030 when we are standing around wanting batteries or materials, we are going to look like a load of fools when these are either not available or priced at a premium rate many will not be able to afford. This is akin to the largest schoolboy error in the history of our species occurring, within plain sight. A real slow motion car crash if ever there was one. 

So then in addition, how does using child labour in some countries to extract Cobalt and other rare earth minerals sit with the typically left-leaning, climate change wokesters bent on sending us down the electric and renewables route? 

These are the sort of people who spout on media platforms on black lives and slavery issues, yet seem strangely less vocal when effectively both of these issues these days can involve their pet causes, such as obtaining materials for their beloved electric cars in some cases? Strange that.

Face the facts - in the United Kingdom alone, 33 million vehicles will need replacing with electric ones, plus the charging point infrastructure and the generated power required to fuel these items to be in place in less than 9 years, it is probably not achievable in the timescale nor practical. Nor likely affordable to the average motorist.

Yet some politicians and activists are intent on careering the motoring population down their sanctimonious road to a situation that is probably the wrong road. (We have been encouraged to adopt private transport by governments of all persuasions in the past.) Many people can't afford the alternative to ICE vehicles, the savings of these electric cars are lost in other costs - the worst cost is to the planet. 

Covid 19 has slashed air travel, much of which was a luxury, unnecessary and a colossal waste of resources. A large jet aircraft for instance generates on takeoff the equivalent of one automobile's total CO2 output for 10 years of average driving during that 10 minutes of takeoff activity. Multiply that with every jet leaving Heathrow in a day and you'll see the obvious savings to the planet. by reducing air travel alone.

How are we going to have a net CO2 output with air travel operating at previous levels?  Have these people not thought this through? How can you have a commerce based economy without generating CO2? It is not presently possible. 

With Covid starting to recede in some areas there is a rush to get air travel going again - how does this square with the same politicians clamouring for switching to electric vehicles on environmental grounds trumpeting a return to flying? You could not make it up. The hypocrisy is both obvious and risible. Wanting one pie in the sky ideal and another highly polluting one simultaneously. 

Around Heathrow airport a new low emission zone for road vehicles is in force whilst the same airport is planned for massive air travel expansion dubbed 'good for business'. Road vehicles (who use the is new zone) pay 80% of the cost of their fuel purchase price already as tax, aircraft fuel is devoid of tax I believe? What is the logic here? Pollute massively for no cost, pay to pollute and be charged twice?

Free energy you are asking? Yes. It exists, we have been standing on the basis of it since our species first stood on this planet. It is under our very feet. 'We have the means to take ET home' it has been said, so that means we already have very advanced power systems available to us, far in excess of what we mostly know of today, which we could be using to subvert climate change perhaps with clean energy.

'We have had the potential for 'free energy' since 1954' - we have also been told - but you can't tax free energy or control it unless you control the technology that can utilise it. We could have changed our way of living more than 60 years ago it seems for the better, for cleaner and quicker travel - but it's all about control - control of resources, control of energy, control of political power, revenue, taxes from things we use and lastly control of the population. 

How much of our atmosphere is made up of CO2? a small percentage, less than half of 10%. In the time of the Dinosaurs, CO2 made up a far bigger proportion of the atmosphere than today. This is one reason why trees and vegetation grew so large in those times, not to mention the creatures. Less gravity was a factor too, of course.

Hydrogen as a usable fuel is a pipe dream today, it can be used but it is not feasible at present -  by more efficient use of fuels we have, use of bio and synthetic fuels which will capture CO2 in their growth will help, as will reduction in the human population are the solution. Even the ecologists agree on this last point.

Like racism, climate change has been stoked up into an emotive subject that some see as a means of making a career from, or a bandwagon in some cases to jump onto. 

We live in a commercial world based on trading, manufacturing and commerce - like it or not since the last industrial revolution at least. That world needs resources, fuels and energy at a minimum to operate on. Free energy isn't in that equation today, but it should be.

We do not live in a 'one world society', we do not enjoy a civilisation that is geared to a common set of ideals to maintain the population and its future for one population, living in a harmonious and forward thinking situation. 

We exist in a world divided by factions, religious and political outlooks, one where the forces of nature - dog eat dog et al, operate. We really need to change society, change who we are as people to change the world and that isn't going to happen all the time that there is money to be made from societal division, warfare, where a supply and demand commerce situation exists and is actively helped to exist.Whilst beliefs differ, so will outcomes. You only have to look at the Palestine situation to see the rocky relationship there.

Ask yourself who really gains from Carbon neutrality? Who has their fingers in the Green pie? Sure as eggs is eggs, a lot of the same movers and shakers in commercial business will be taking their fingers out of one pie and sticking it into the eco industry one. As the saying goes, 'where there's muck, there's brass.' This applies here to this subject.Carbon seen as muck, there's money in a solution - the brass. 

The frightening thing is how school children have as a result been scared and mentally damaged by the climate change doom and gloomers, into thinking the world is going to end in 10 years or less. 

How does business work? It is basically making a profit by taking care of someone else's problem and providing a solution for the problem at a cost - Carbon neutrality is that problem being promoted today and there are probably plenty of organisations lining up to take care of it and present their invoices for doing so. 

Sure, they will have skilled public relations messaging and content to soft soap the population into accepting how 'good' this low carbon solution is for our world, but you can be darn sure that there are those looking to make big money from the 'problem' by being part of the 'solution.' That's how business works. Think about it for yourselves and ask yourselves where is the smart money being made today? 'Solving' the climate issue.

At the moment, unless we change to the potential free energy situation and re-evaluate what we are doing and where we are going as a species, we are prisoners of Doctors who seemingly allow infection to continue but also provide medication to help cure it every so often.

The question you should be asking is why not change the world beyond this issue? Can you not see that replacing one mode of transport's motive power is not the end of the problem. There are a set of problems to conquer. Not just one.

The world's outlook needs changing. Who we are, who we want to be in the future, do we need this type of world or society? What is the human future, what should we be doing for mankind's future? The problem is that we are all such different people, that it  is unlikely to work or for people agreeing to a common plan of action.

These are the type of questions that need to be asked. Just messing about like kids in a sandpit pushing toy cars about and pretending yours is electric powered and is going to save the world, is just a diversion from what really needs to change and why. The species has to fundamentally change to make this truly work.

The bottom line with business is making a profit. Until humanity is put on the spot to redefine their future and come up with a workable plan, it is likely to just be business as usual.

 

The Petrol & Diesel vehicle production ending fiasco - is it a case of gesture politics and the Carbon neutral farce?

 

Going electric is perhaps more damaging and less green than we are being told.

Yes folks, the rollback of Petrol and Diesel vehicle production ending from 2050 to 2030 and the switch to battery vehicles is fraught with problems - it is unlikely achievable but panders to the Green lobby and I don't see any real benefits in exploiting the planet and encouraging slave labour to obtain the batteries.

Governments like consumption, they can tax it - and as they are now realising to their cost, zero emission electric cars will rob them of £40 billion a year in revenue.... They didn't think that one through before dumping this agenda on us did they?

Don't be sucked in by the bullshit marketing of trendy eco politics. We just need to use what we already have smarter, rather than damage the planet with futile battery use.  As a contributor of 1.2% of CO2, it isn't going to make much difference if Britain goes Carbon Neutral, it will only trash our economy if we go down this ridiculous road -   Read on.. 

Covid19 has meant more people working from home, with the benefits of less commuting, more time saved on travelling and air travel slashed. This has had a knock on effect in making the air cleaner. Its proved we don't need to travel as much and don't need all the commercial office space we have. 

It has cost High Street jobs, but the High Street was due to change, Covid just made the change happen sooner.

But.... the lesson here is that if we consumed less all round and travelled smarter, then we could reduce emissions and demand on the finite planet's resources too without having to waste effort on the futile battery powered Green Agenda. 

We waste massive resources at times like Halloween and Christmas buying tat we don't need. Much of it made of plastic. If we cut back to essentials buying, we could save the planet too. Why spend shedloads of money on credit card, pay it off over the next 11 months only to buy a ton of shit we don't need the following year every Christmas? It's just madness.

Forget the guff about 'electricity being largely provided by wind turbines'. The fact is that the electricity generating industry uses Diesel generators to take up the slack caused by the removal of Coal powered generation from the source. 

Germany still has coal power stations, it is only because we signed up to an EU agreement that we in the UK can't have them.

Powdered Coal is quite efficient and low in CO2 output, when burned as cleanly as possible it is highly clean and efficient - most power from coal is derived from turning steam turbines to generate electricity involving heating water to make steam to drive turbines in simple terms. Nuclear and Coal both do this. Heating giant kettles in effect to create steam energy for powering turbines is about the nub of it.

Cutting down American forests to make into wood pellets and then transporting them across the Atlantic ocean by ship and burning them 'green' is another big con. We would be better off burning Coal which would produce less CO2 and nasty chemicals than green wood. And why cut down trees? Madness. What idiot thinks this is Green?

We were told the expansion to Heathrow airport was 'good for business.' But the CO2 output from that would be colossally damaging, yet they introduce an ultra low emission area around Heathrow? You couldn't make it up... 

Covid 19 has shown that we can do without most air travel - that is in the main, the holiday trade. Why fly less than half than empty airlines to the same place? 

Zoom meetings mean meetings can be done cheaper and greener, it does mean the hotel trade suffers, but is that a price worth paying?  I was told years ago that airlines were obliged to fly routes even empty, or lose the route. Madness!

An airline taking off produces the same amount of CO2 on take-off that a family car produces in 10 years of average motoring.

In the time of the Dinosaurs, the environment had many more times the CO2 than today. It was a lot warmer too which is why the vegetation was so lush and bigger then. Also, there were no polar ice caps, they came with the ice age and are a 'false construct' as such. They froze, they melt, it goes around.

Battery technology is limited - Electric cars are a dismal waste of energy and resources let alone the human cost of digging the minerals out to make into batteries often done by child salve labour. 

According to Dr Steven Greer, we have had since 1954 the means to have free energy (that could power our homes, industry and airlines). (We have been denied it in fact, because we are an Oil based economy and oil is big business.) The same power source Doctor Greer mentions is we are told 'could take ET home' -  as has been quoted elsewhere. So why can't we use that energy which is free? The reason is it can't be taxed.

How long will a Tractor in a field run on a battery to plough a field? Not much. If we used vehicles with very efficient petrol or diesel engines we reduce the emissions emitted in use. 

In the 1980's and before, vehicles were far dirtier in their emissions. The population was less in all countries and we now have more people and less harmful emissions in respect of the advancement in technology. Vehicles are cleaner now than ever.

Jobs are being lost to automation at a big rate, as many are finding out thanks also to Covid 19. Old industries like hospitality are shrinking. Many outlets were probably feeding a demand that was false and as a result the trade is gone, in brutal terms. Perhaps a form of employment natural wastage is taking place.

I predicted 5 years ago the High Street's days were numbered as it existed in the format then which is about the same as now. We now find the perfect storm of the job losses from automation compounded by the losses from Covid - this means that the trade growth is on-line, not on the High Street. 

Again, automation is taking jobs due to on-line ordering, means you don't need high-cost staff to handle sales and with Amazon automation, sometimes to pick and pack the goods. I know one company that has a fully automated warehouse where no humans work. The system handles all aspects from soup to nuts from order receipt to dispatch.

If you want a job you need transferable skills - things a robot can't do, or to have a range of skills to offer. Even the 'safe' jobs of accounting and law are in the sights of the robots and jobs are going to the robots that were once thought safe. 

People in those previously mentioned trades who are 'one trick ponies' need to wake up and adapt. Those useless degrees are also as worthless now as they ever were now the non-jobs are at last vanishing.

So, a carbon neutral situation by 2050? Posturing bullshit? Gesture politics to appease the Green element? With Britain's exit from the EU we need to build industry and manufacturing for the UK. We need to reappraise education to match the future, get people who can work with their hands and train them for the future so we can fulfill the jobs like house building we are falling short in filling.

The 'sausage machine' one size fits all education model based on a 1950's world is dead. It has been for years. The world of work is changing and we need to rethink who we are as a species and where we are going. 

Just exporting the emissions problem of manufacturing to the Far East where they have less consideration for waste products is not the answer. We need to consume less here, we need to change our business model - why do we need to work like we do, is this a hang over from the last industrial revolution? We need to rethink society and our needs across the board.

Using more efficient vehicles and less is the key - working from home suits many and I suggest that over 70% of those working from home want to continue indefinitely. 

This saves emissions and reduces demand on overcrowded commuter systems. We haven't the space to build more commuter transport - so working local or at home is the obvious answer to overcrowding and the rush hour or staggering working times would help.

The fatuous argument against home working that 1st jobbers 'won't know what an office environment is like' is crap, it doesn't matter, its an outmoded model as we have seen recently.  Cities are finding the big companies can scale down their office footprint with home working.

The way we work has been step-changed quicker than we anticipated and it needs to do so, so we can migrate to a situation where many will not work because automation will have taken their jobs and a Basic Income payment system will have to be brought in.

Retirement at 60 must come with a 55-60 years range Basic Income dividend bond paid to those retiring in that 55-60 years age range. They should then not lose out in the future. This will free up jobs too for other people.

The Furlough scheme is little more than a Basic Income Payment situation that any right thinking government is going have to embrace and sooner than planned. 

The gesture politics of the green lobby are a smokescreen. A diversion. We need to have the bigger conversations about the human future and now. 

CO2 is getting in the way. Eco politics is trendy. But the people who are in the mainstream media don't talk for the people in the public domain. We can't afford £30k electric cars like the media types with their £100k salaries in the media.

One thing is for sure, I do not see countries like Russia stopping production or use of fuelled vehicles, so will we still import them into the UK, even if we don't make them ourselves?

I am of the opinion that reasonable consumption is the way forward, not dramatic sweeping chapter changes done for impact and not thought through. As the loss of excise duty on fuel hasn't been realised until now? It just shows its all done for show, it seems to have little substance. No one thought it through did they?

Petrol & Diesel cars no more? Well, what about aircraft, they are never mentioned as polluters!!

The biggest single source of CO2 in the UK -

Heathrow Airport airline traffic

You Couldn't Make It Up!

When the Heathrow airport runway expansion plan was passed, it came to light that Heathrow was the largest single source of CO2 produced in the UK.

So, if you're a true Greenie, then you'd surely be in favour of reducing air traffic.

The 'answer' to increased CO2 and other pollutants from Heathrow aircraft exhausts was - to introduce an ultra low vehicle mission zone around - yes Heathrow airport as one area.

This has the effect of charging motorists vehicle excise duty, duty on fuel, congestion charge and perhaps an extra levy in certain zones. Four 'consumption taxes' when the aircraft flying above them enjoy tax free fuel do they not? 

Petrol & Diesel distillation

Petrol and Diesel are by products of the 'distillation' of oil in simple terms - at certain temperatures, Petrol and Diesel separate out from the Crude oil product. Essentially, these are products that can be sold and if not used, well what are you going to do with it?

Electric fantasy

Petrol / Electric and Electric never found fame in the early 1900's because the electricity wasn't there as it is now in the form of mains coverage, for those using batteries, the batteries were heavy and less efficient and didn't last long.

Petrol electric - where a petrol engine drives a generator and the current fed to a motor fared better, but the cheap cost of petrol meant this faded out.

Battery is wrong, wrong,wrong

Using a battery to drive a motor is the wrong way to go about the job - the frictional losses of 25% of efficiency through transmission coupled with the weight of the car render this an ultimately futile exercise. Coupled with the draw on the current starts to deaden the battery as you use the power it contains.

Petrol and Diesel have great calorific value for their size. If you get me. The potential energy they contain is truly enormous.

Politicians love the idea of electric cars, but I doubt few of them have any idea of how cars work or the toxic sludge that is created when your 'green' battery is made.

So, where is all your electricity coming from to make the power for these batteries? Nuclear, Coal, Gas? Not very clean are they.

Ok, the windmill or two and the solar panel may help, but how long are you going to sit by the side of the road waiting for the solar panel to give you enough volts to get to the nearest town?

Realities

Vehicles are cleaner and more fuel efficient than thirty plus years ago. Government officials rarely have the 'nous' to know what they are talking about when it comes to technical things like vehicles, being in the main career politicians and yes men and women who rarely have any grasp of the subject they are in charge of in government.

Where else in the world could a complete amateur be given a job they know perhaps little or nothing about?

Rather than go down the LPG route for cleaner vehicles, the getting rid of internal combustion engines (which are about the best current solution to meet our transport needs) is folly.

How will your sales rep doing 30,000 miles a year manage with an electric car?

How long will a battery make a big Tractor go for?

Or your articulated lorry hoping to make a delivery to a supermarket and the power goes, so does the cooler and the produce goes off.

Why not tax aircraft for the damage they do?

The bottom line is no one in the media or government EVER mentions aircraft emissions.

It is about as galling to endure as seeing a grinning politician without a clue, 'welcoming' emissions reduction when we all know that the plan is not workable and they are only the mouthpiece.

This is what happens when you put unqualified people in charge.

Like Robotics, we need an up front educated debate about things that will impact on our future -  headed by people who know their subject, not wallies.

A time to rethink Vehicle Excise Duty – the return to a lower overall blanket fee is overdue and fairer.

The Vehicle Excise Disc may have disappeared, but change to the system is needed

The welcome change back to a rolling 40 year VED exemption system by the last government was good news for our hobby, but why not adopt the French system of 25 years as a qualification where both the MOT and VED are exempt? The Road Traffic Act defines a vehicle over 25 years old as 'vintage.' Why do we not change to a fairer system of 25 years for nil MOT and VED?

When I was in the Police service, there was always this argument for doing away with the road fund licence disc and putting a bit extra on fuel cost. The Police argument was that a lack of valid disc displayed on a vehicle often hid things like no MOT, no insurance, which was a valid point.

But now that the requirement to not have to display a valid disc on the vehicle is the situation, we can look again at doing away with the duty or making it less costly to run a vehicle. We are stuck with having to use motorised transport as public transport is lacking unless you live in a town.

Indeed, when did you last see an 'F' prefix plate car on the road in daily use? Next time you are on the road, look around and see what the oldest car on the road is being driven. Likely it will be something from the late 1990's.

The MGB currently can be either exempt from VED or not

The anomaly is further compounded when you have a 1976 MGB that is currently tax exempt, yet a 1980 example, essentially the same car, has to pay £215 a year. Likely, the 1980 car is occasionally used like the 1976 car and may do less than 3000 miles a year, as might the 1976 one.

The current CO2 calculated VED rate scheme is unfair. It does not take into account the actual mileage covered annually, it is an ownership tax. So, by comparison a small car paying nil VED can do say 60,000 miles a year at no VED cost, yet a new Ford Mustang GT500 would pay likely £515 a year, £1520 if a first year registered car, yet it might only do 2000 miles a year, with the result of far less CO2 being output by the larger car, paying more because it might pollute more, but in real terms might not.

The real factor here is fuel usage and that is something that you pay for at the pump, the more fuel you use the more you pay in tax. There is no environmental argument for unfair VED when you look at aircraft, which pay nothing.

The Heathrow Expansion project will create more CO2

yet a Low Emission Zone for vehicles in the area is proposed

When it was suggested by a previous government to tax aircraft fuel, there was a hoo-hah about it and M.P.'s said that aircraft would avoid landing in the UK if they had to pay taxes and the lid was put on that suggestion quickly because it would have a financial penalty.

The recent Heathrow expansion will allow thousands more aircraft take-off and landing movements in the Heathrow airport area, which is ALREADY the UK's largest single source of pollution.

You couldn't make it up, but as a sop to the increased aircraft traffic, Transport for London (TFL) proposes a new low emission zone, in this same area, which applies to road vehicles only. Not aircraft, the main polluters.

Low Emission Zones - it has to be fair to all users

Lets do some maths shall we? A large airliner fully loaded can use up to 7 tons of fuel per take off. That's 1568 gallons, at 10lb to the gallon weight.

Now, your average MGB could at say 25mpg use that amount of fuel to travel 39,200 miles, which as a limited use classic, may give you ten years worth of travel.

The problem we have is that many of our classic cars such as the MGF and MGTF unfairly fall into the full tax bracket, although most of these are not in daily or high mileage use.

In which case, a half way compromise would be to peg any vehicle 15 years or more older to say £100 a year VED until it reaches the nil duty historic threshold, which I believe should be changed to a rolling 25 years entitlement from the current 40, as it effects relatively few vehicles from the 32 million or so currently on the road.

With the more fuel you use the more tax you pay, the VED should be set at a blanket £100 a year for other cars not currently CO2 level exempt. As all vehicles are banded by CO2 output on the DVLA system, it would be a simple matter to administer. The more you pollute, the more fuel you use and tax you pay, it is that simple. Or is that too simple?

Using the Heathrow pollution example, the argument for taxing vehicles for climate change reasons is fatuous and indeed unfair, when massive polluters do not pay.

Climate change farce - Part 2 - Heathrow can pollute for free but power stations can't and are shutting, forcing a reliance on wind power.

Didcot power station - sacrificed to the greens

So what will meet the power requirements?

We inhabit a modern, consumer driven world which requires a demand for electrical power is met.

Historically, Nuclear, Gas and Coal were the methods of fuel for the demand. We use too much electrical power. Every home nigh on has devices such as computers, televisions, smart phones, you name it, likely to need power, to charge or run it.

Against that is a ridiculous set of so-called 'climate change' reduction measures. Well, they had to change the name from 'Global Warming' because it was actually 'Global Cooling.'

600 jobs in rail freight are being lost as Coal is phased out

Thanks to the ridiculous EU superstate, we are now saddled with extreme CO2 reduction demands. And whilst Germany is BUILDING Coal fired power stations, we are closing them.

The stupidity of this is that the proposed Heathrow Airport runway extension plan will make the biggest sole polluter of CO2 in the UK - Heathrow airport, an even bigger polluter with all the extra flights and aircraft movements to come besides the construction required.

Untaxed fuel still emits massive amounts of CO2

Worse still, is that the aviation offenders use duty free fuel.

This is one of those 'you couldn't make it up' stories, if only it were so, unfortunately, it is real.

We are being forced in to a reliance on Wind Turbines, those hideously inefficient, costly and subsidy parasitical 'clean' energy producers that are around 27% efficient, if you are lucky.

The biggest killers of Bats and birds? - Wind Turbines.

Just exporting CO2 problems to far Eastern shores such as China, Vietnam etc by relocating manufacturing, is not the answer.

We need clean, reliable and immediate power in the UK, Coal can provide that. We cannot afford to piss about with Windmills. The lights will start to go out soon if we are not careful.

Donald Trump recognises this. He knows about Business and making it work, not hobbling it with stupidity, which is what he is fights against.

We can burn Coal fairly cleanly, we have 300 years worth of supply underground, this can help provide British jobs.

Why not? It is a risk worth taking, better than the risk of no power!