Rolls-Royce all-electric aircraft takes to the skies

Sean wrote:

“”I suspect you don’t believe in climate change though, so it’s clearly facts aren’t sufficient to change your opinions.””

Well you suspect wrong, I’ve always been of a green mindset (something to do with how smoke from coal fires give me Asthma) and I have gone out of my way to ensure I do more than my bit:

1) Got rid of the car
2) All LIFX LED light bulbs (Including the security lights)
3) All Eco white goods (As in Meile)
4) Loft lagged with German insulation
5) When it gets cooler, we wear extra clothing and lower the thermostat
6) Why we even stopped buying butter in plastic tubs and purchased a glass dish so as to use butter in wrapping.

The problem we have in the Uk, is leftwing wonks subscribe to this view that the UK (which produces around 0.9% of the worlds emissions) is the biggest culprit and we should go further, I mean the idiots have been blockading the UKs biggest milk distribution centre in the Uk for weeks demanding they change over to plant based foods 100% by 2025.

The high cost of energy in the Uk is down to Green levies , which is going to get worse with the bringing forward the dates for the imposition of Electric cars, Heat pumps, as for Nuclear, the idiots want to stop that as well. Instead of using a common sense approach, The PM dances to the tune his new dog blow’s on his skin flutes.. Oh and by the way, want to know which country across Europe has made the biggest cuts in emissions this past 20 years, Yup the Uk, meanwhile the EU has seen its emissions actually rise

Instead of berating the Uk, these ECO nuts should be protesting at the likes of China, India, Iran who whilst very high polluters, managed to gain developing country status at the Paris accords, which allows them to continue to pollute until 2030 no questions asked yet all 3 have space programs, 2 have nuclear weapons and the other is on the cusp of getting them. But for some reason they don’t I mean the BBC actually knocked out an article defending China the otherday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58584976

I do recommend watching the moving chart regards CO2 emissions.

I’ve always believed that one of the characteristics of the British is to do the right thing, regardless of the cost. That’s a difficult ideal to live up to, but one I think the U.K. has with regards to tackling climate-change.
(So I find it absurd that the likes of XR protest here instead of tackling laggards in Europe or China – thought we know it’s also because of their militant left-wing agenda.)
So I don’t have a problem with the U.K. being the leader, just so long as other nations follow us at a decent pace.

Green levies (or rather subsidies) have been applied to make renewable resources economical. However with regard to offshore wind the U.K. has become so proficient in the technology and production scale that the costs have plummeted to the point where the green levy/subsidy for wind power can be dropped. Congratulations to the U.K. for becoming a world-leader in this form of energy generation!

Wrong the government does not want to stop nuclear power. It’s involved in fusion research and is encouraging companies like RR in the development of mini-reactors. Plans for large stations have funding issues, but that’s due to the huge cost of traditional large stations – which mini-reactors built on production lines seek to avoid.

I’m undecided on heat-pumps. Their introduction would test the capacity of the national grid and they are expensive. However, air heat-pumps can act as air-conditioning and I think this will become essential in British homes as temperatures rise and we get pandemic levels of death due to heat-exhaustion.

Obviously you haven’t always been of a green mind-set, you had a car. 🤷‍♂️
I’ve never owned one, but am being tempted by Tesla…
Originally decades ago my decision was based on the sheer ridiculous inefficiency of the internal combustion engine and owning something that was used briefly twice a day, and would spend the rest of the day doing nothing but depreciating in value.
Personally I’d bring in the ban on ICE car sales sooner, and instigate a programme to make every lamp post in the U.K. into a charging point.
(And yes, my lighting has all been LED based for over a decade, I don’t do annual foreign holidays, internal flights, etc, etc.)

We won’t be able to do away with petrol/ diesel/ aviation-fuel completely for a long time. But their use should be reserved for those situations where there is no viable alternative – eg for military use.

Bring in self drive vehicles quicker
They will reduce congestion and reduce the energy required to make a journey be it electric or ICE by upto 25%. That’s 25% less green enrrgy capacity we need to consider.

Oh I so wish they would!! But given the time taken to do the trials for electric scooters it’ll take the politicians and law, years to catch up with the technology.

(Disclosure- my company has worked on self-drive technology)

Yep we don’t even have self drive trains which have be operating overseas for years.

We have self-driving trains on the Tube; Central, Victoria and Jubilee lines. However the unions would cripple London with strikes if drivers were removed. So they’re retained to open/close doors and make announcements 🤦‍♂️

If that’s the case it’s very sad state of affairs. But then again I’m unsurprised

Yeah, we’ve yet to have a London Mayor who’ll stand up to the unions 🤷‍♂️

I now it bonkers, it will take us 30 years to produce what China produce in a year. In fact longer as our emissions are dropping whist their’s are rising.

Unfortunately Farouk there is one very significant truth in what you say, the U.K. is pretty irrelevant in regards to warming, it’s the US China and to an extent India that will really make the difference if our grandchildren get live reasonable lives or not. To be honest I’m not that optimistic for most of the planet. I agree I think the U.K. is actually trying pretty hard, but what we do as a nation and individuals is just a drop ( like you I’m purposefully doing my bit).

If you going to be brutal about climate change the U.K. will be one of the best off nations, we will have some reduction in land mass, but our growing seasons and food productivity will go up and we will not suffer water stress ( just occasions of drowning). Also it’s one reason we really want to hang on to the BAT as it’s going to open up as the ice moves back and resource rich land is going to be golden.

But and this is big, most of the planet is going to go to shit and a lot of it’s not likely to support human populations any more. that includes previous bread baskets, like the US and China. Some very powerful nations are going to have to look north. So there’s going to be some nations going for it ( China is probably going to have to take a fare chuck of Russia to feed its population and the US will need to come to an arrangement with Canada ( which will become a bread basket). South America, Africa, India etc,well the risk assessments I reviewed around the 4 degree rise used words like not compatible with large scale human habitation and beyond the ability of the international community to ameliorate ( It was a really unpleasant read and from a multi governmental agency, so not tin hat).

Of course that’s as long as the planet does not hit a feedback loop point that turns us to Venus and kills us all ( no one actually knows what temp will trigger those feedback loops, so it’s going to be an exciting century) .

its funny when you think about it, we’ve bummed around for thousands of years without a care in the world ( well apart from only living till your 30s but that personal not species) and within a century we,ve come up with no end of ways to end our species and will probably trigger one ( as a scientist on the manhatten project said, we had not idea if the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and kill everyone….but we pressed the button anyway).

Ah regards the annual lights are going out statement, I forget to insert scare, My error.

I remember the 70s…..you never did know when you would end up cooking on the Parafin heater. Sort of exciting really

Well we produce 1% and falling of global emissions. China is producing 28% and climbing. Whilst historically we may have contributed more by % were unlikely to be the sole cause of us all living on house boats I the future.

But we can hardly hold the moral high-ground and lecture China if we don’t make an effort ourselves…
But we have to hope that the CCP loses grip of power at some point – nobody saw ‘89 coming.

Anyway as they say, every little bit helps. Though I think in the end we’ll need a technology solution – such as a planetary shade at Legrange Point 1 (tricky due to the instabilities).

I agree and the UK has been doing that for decades now. No fan but Thatcher spoke at the UN in the eighties about emissions and cutting them.

Unusually for a politician she had a science background which is why she acted on the issues. Her main focus was actually CFCs and the destruction of the ozone layer. As it turns out the effects of climate change would have been far worse already without the bans that were introduced back then.