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Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. Humans are curious creatures but have made it their business to fiddle with anything and everything, usually with catastrophic consequences. Add to that a sense of discontentment, stupidity and irresponsibility, you have an animal that can inflict untold damage.
EVs are no answer – they are part of the problem. You still need to extract FF to make plastics and to mine rare minerals for those vehicles. No FF = No modernity. I don’t know the reserves of oil are presently, but have seen good studies suggesting at the rate of current extraction and consumption, we have 25-30 years of oil left. But let’s say a century – that’s just two generations away, Michael – and then?
Is it really a good idea to disturb the deep ocean for compounds that could possibly treat cancer when we desperately need to reduce the global population back to the planet’s natural carrying capacity of around 1 billion?
Shibboleth, thankyou, I don’t think plucking a few corals from the oceans to see if they hold medical secrets is a dangerous idea.
I think it was Jim Lovelock who once said that the Earth can only truly accommodate 500,000,000 people at any tone time.
I think we are heading for eight billion.
Politicians never talk about reducing human numbers but force people to buy EV and force them to eat poor quality foods, that will be right, then.
If we get the politicians we deserve, you end up with Ed Milliband, They are like young children, incapable of joining any dots but wanting what they want instantly, without any care for anybody else.
It seems that in Europe the wheels are coming off the electric vehicle market, many plants shutting down.
https://www.politico.eu/article/volkswagen-eyes-closure-three-german-plants-says-works-council/#:~:text=Volkswagen%20intends%20to%20close%20at,be%20closed%20or%20relocated%20abroad.The wise old owl sat on the oak,
The more he heard the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard,
Wasn’t he a wise old bird?Michael, you contradict yourself repeatedly. Presumably you can’t see this yourself or you’d stop. Your thinking is obviously confused. I really don’t like saying things like this, but someone has to tell you. Your time would be better spent learning something (in detail from others who have studied it, rather than superficial, disjointed soundbite claims from populist ‘news’ websites) than posting here.
I strongly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre; it teaches how to think clearly, and how to tell true claims from false ones. It’s also a really good laugh, especially the bits about politicians 😀
Clark, I doubt I have ever been rude to you.
Over the last few weeks I have been gaining a little insight into corals, I have found this very interesting.
You may recall that many nations are expecting to strip metals from the seas, this in order to make batteries for battery cars. Some countries are coming to understand, this may not be a good idea.
The Darwin Mounds
The Darwin Mounds is located approximately 160 km north-west of Cape Wrath, Scotland, at the north end of the Rockall Trough. The site consists of a large number of coral-topped ‘sand volcanoes’ composed of sand overlying mud. The individual mounds are up to 75 m wide and 5 m high and are morphologically unique in U.K. waters. The mounds themselves are unusual geological features that are thought to have been formed by fluid expulsion from the seabed.
https://jncc.gov.uk/our-work/darwin-mounds-mpa/#:~:text=The%20Darwin%20Mounds%20is%20located,composed%20of%20sand%20overlying%20mud.The wise old owl has been quiet for some time, no doubt getting wiser by the day. Hope you’re ok.
Yes indeed, hope you’re ok Clark – it’s been a while.
I see you’re still the saint of lost causes – and if there ever was one, it’s trying to get MN to widen his viewpoint by as much as an angstrom. If a viewpoint isn’t fit for a Mail / Express opinion leader, MN isn’t interested in it.
This could be better news
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wlj8l8kr7o
Norway will no longer let its sea bed be mined for minerals.Quote BBC
“the crisis facing Orano in Niger represents a significant practical challenge for French energy supply.With 18 nuclear plants, totalling 56 reactors, which generate almost 65% of its electricity, France has been ahead of the game in containing carbon emissions from the power sector.
But the country’s own limited production of uranium ended more than 20 years ago.
So, over the past decade or so, it has imported almost 90,000 tonnes – a fifth of which has come from Niger. Only Kazakhstan – which accounts for 45% of global output – was a more important source of supply.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjd70mzge2o
I understand some Uranium for Europe comes from Russia.The U.k. might end up supplying almost a quarter of electricity made using Uranium, yet the U.K. does not mine Uranium.
If part of the mix for the world is to be Nuclear Power, getting hold of the Uranium, might prove increasingly difficult?Michael:
– “Clark, I doubt I have ever been rude to you.”
Michael, you haven’t been rude in the sense of swearing, insulting or name calling; in those senses you have been an unusually polite contributor. However, ignoring other commenters’ points and not reading the information they link to is also rude; you seem to assume that your own knowledge is superior, and that others’ points are therefore irrelevant. You have also accused others of having been brainwashed, thereby again assuming your own superiority; if they are susceptible to being brainwashed, how would you know that you haven’t been?
I am disappointed that you found my criticism rude. One of the things about “political correctness” is that telling someone that they’ve got something wrong is now often construed as abusive.
Shibboleth and glenn_nl, hello and Best wishes to you both. And to you Michael.
Shibboleth, I didn’t mean to imply that I’m a Wise Old Owl; rather, I was trying to hint to Michael that he might learn more were he to post less and listen more.
Glenn_nl, I’m healthy enough, but despondent. A year of protesting for the Palestinians, and little to show for it. I’m giving up hope for humanity. I’m now suspecting that the sooner some crash or catastrophe comes, the less suffering overall will be caused, because the political-economic system seems to be digging us deeper and deeper.
I should have added modest too. The implication was mine – and I do wish you well. I know exactly how you feel, Clark. And I suspect the calamity may not be too far away after all. There’s a lovely documentary on iPlayer about Ken Smith – the Hermit of Treig. There were a few like Ken in my youth – older men who were self-appointed custodians of mountain bothies, self-sufficient with fishing and snaring rabbits and small deer – their modest hut ‘fee’ kept them going in whisky no doubt. And I was fortunate to meet one of the evacuees from St Kilda – a young girl of 13 at the time. We spoke on several occasions and she regaled me with stories on the island as a small girl and then in Ardnamurchan on a Croft.
Without exception, they were all fine, educated, content people with an appreciation and love of mother nature our current generation have mostly, sadly lost.
Worth a watch – as is Nae Paseran that I posted on another thread.
Conflict mining.
Quote BBC
“The authorities in France and Belgium will now look at whether there is enough evidence to take the legal action further.In a statement, external, the lawyers for the DR Congo talked about Apple’s supply chain being contaminated with
“blood minerals”.They allege that the tin, tantalum and tungsten is taken from conflict areas and then
“laundered through international supply chains”.“These activities have fuelled a cycle of violence and conflict by financing militias and terrorist groups and have contributed to forced child labour and environmental devastation.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8g540wz3joI suspect it will not just be minerals for lap tops or smart phones, it will also be minerals for electric vehicles.
Demand for electric vehicles has softened in other regions, such as the U.S.A. and Europe, creating challenges for many carmakers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36edjp1l9ko
Tesla now second to BYD.I really think the answer for battery cars, is small vehicles.
To have a smallish battery, with a small internal combustion engine.
A basic hybrid.
This seems the better solutionBritish Telecom were thinking of installing 60,000 on street EV chargers.
So far they have installed, just one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75zwyeq3v9oHowever, the scheme has now been scrapped with the firm saying it will be focussing on “the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding EV’s” instead.
“It’s disappointing that it’s not going to proceed,” Stuart Masson from automotive website The Car Expert told BBC News.
So what is the British government going to do, to get millions of street EV charging points?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr8lzyg299o
This is rather shocking.
The United Kingdom has a massive pile of Plutonium currently stored at Sellafield.
Previous governments wanted to eventually transform this residue into new nuclear fuel for our future power generation.
Now it is to be petrified and disposed of deep underground.Hang on a minute, hasn’t nuclear power been sold to us as renewable?
“Hang on a minute, hasn’t nuclear power been sold to us as renewable?”
I don’t think so Michael. It was promoted as “clean” energy, as in it doesn’t produce carbon dioxide or other green house gases, not renewable. I think we were always aware of the waste problem.
I think nuclear has to be part of a solution but I’m not well enough informed about processing of nuclear fuel or waste to refute concerns about their management and disposal.
Government seems to be trying to reduce costs of waste management from the article you posted. I don’t really know enough to decide if it’s a bad idea to dispose of it rather than reuse it as fuel.
Anyone know of good information on the pros and cons of processing nuclear waste into fuel?
A multibillion-pound plant to process plutonium is expected to bring thousands of skilled jobs in the coming decades, the Labour government has said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm27m8d5mjdo
It would then be placed in an underground structure called a geological disposal facility (GDF),
which is yet to be built.The government said work on the processing plant was likely to start towards the end of the decade.
So, this essentially, is a next to nothing announcement.
Something might happen but not for at least five years.
Labour will be out of government by then.
If we are to have six new reactors, two at Hinkley Point, then four others, that will mean about one third plus of our electricity supply will come from Uranium/Plutonium.
We don’t mine Uranium in Britain, we will have to get it from the Ex-Soviet Union states or possibly Australia or Canada or Greenland. We will be getting through a lot of Uranium, all brought in, unless we reprocess the waste.
https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2025/january/altrad-sellafield-strikes-off-as-workers-celebrate-huge-pay-winLong-running strikes by Altrad Services workers producing steam for Sellafield have been called off following an improved pay offer.
The workers, who are responsible for access and maintenance of the Fellside site which produces steam for the wider Sellafield site next door, began strike action in October.
They voted last week to accept an offer from Altrad that will see the company register to work with the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry (NAECI) to set annual pay rates.
Engineering construction workers at Fellside will see their annual wages increase between £1,100 and £6,000 from April 2025 due to coming under NAECI grades.
Meanwhile, painters and supervisors will receive pay increases from April 2025 of 7.5 per cent and 11 per cent respectively
I see the government is hell bent on expanding as many London airports as possible. How does this sit with our carbon footprint, net zero, and cutting the burning of fossil fuels?
I wonder how many Brits are beginning to realise they voted for the Trojan Horse party, and in place of right wing Tories, we have slightly less right wing Tories masquerading as the Labour party.
Oh, and another thing. I found out why Trump wants to annexe Greenland – in addition to the oil and gas underground there, large deposits of lithium are said to be under the ice sheet (which is melting quickly).
Who might have guessed that?
It also shows why American billionaires are not the slightest bit interested in cutting global warming – they want all the ice to melt so they can plunder more finite resources.
The irony is that by pursuing that policy, they will probably be responsible for sea level rises which make billions of coastal dwellers homeless, including those in New York and Miami.
Quote BBC
” The U.S.A. lobbied an Australian mining firm not to sell Greenland’s biggest rare earth project to potential Chinese buyers.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d5jwvw9nlo
We’re looking for gold, copper, nickel, and rare earths.Greenland has incredibly old rocks.
Stromatolites
These fossils are found in Greenland and Australia and are thought to be 3.7 billion years old. They are made of layers of cyanobacteria, a type of single-celled organism.Outside a cave in Somerset I helped excavate, we have fossil Stromatolites, we have no idea how old they are,
the same rocks have traces of gold, only known valley in Somerset, with gold.
Thought to be hot liquid minerals, coming up from huge depth, a very long time ago.If we are to have a third runway for Heathrow and extra runways for other airports, that will mean a lot of cement will have to be manufactured and then used.
5-8% of the human released Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is said to come from cement.
Cement is made of minerals – Calcium carbonates and Gypsum, essentially Limestones.
This is Carbon that was subducted hundreds of millions of years ago.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/ordinary-portland-cement#:~:text=Ordinary%20Portland%20cement%20(OPC)%20has,and%20a%20prescribed%20mixed%20material.
There would be no modern society without Iron or Coal or Limestones.
The Limestones are used in road building. The Limestone are used in manufacturing Cement. The limestones are used in the manufacture of Plasters.
The Limestones are used in making Steel.
Coal is used in all these processes.
All these processes release Carbon dioxide.
Yet our government obsess about fossil fuels.
They don’t mention Steel/Roads/Buildings.
How would we have shipping, without steel?
How would we have shipping without cement, how do our government think docks are made, perhaps they think they are made of wood, like in Roman times?
How would we have hospitals?
How do they think we would have Nuclear Power Stations or Hydroelectric plants or flood defence schemes?
Coal – Iron & Limestone.
There would be no modern civilization without Iron, Limestone or Coal.
Our Governments are being disingenuous if they only focus on fossil fuels.
