A Dutchman took the worlds slowest car trip in hope of stopping storms
A Dutchman completed an epic 95,000 kilometre (59,000 mile) journey by electric car in Sydney Sunday in a bid to prove the viability of such vehicles in tackling climate change.
The average speed here is 3.6 kmph (2.2 mph).
The world would probably cool if he took, say, 1,000 years.
Wiebe Wakker drove his retrofitted station wagon nicknamed “The Blue Bandit” across 33 countries in what he said was the world’s longest-ever journey by electric car.
The trip from the Netherlands to Australia took just over three years and was funded by public donations from around the world, including electricity to charge the Bandit, food and a place to sleep.
Proving EV holidays are viable if you can create a global fan-base by riding on a multinational industrial scare campaign, and have 36 spare months to do what fossil fuels can achieve in 20 hours.
Should catch on with two, three people.
h/t Pat and Tim Blair who says “Non Flying Dutchman wastes 3 years”
UPDATE: If they tried to show how impractical electric cars could they have done a better job?
Given it takes 12 hours to recharge the car from a domestic power point and three hours from a commercial point, he’s learned to live in the moment. The journey appeared to go really pear-shaped in Surabaya, Indonesia when floodwaters deluged his battery pack, rendering it completely unable to hold a charge.
However, the indefatigable Mr Wakker simply set up a GoFundMe page to raise the cash to have a technical specialist ***fly in and fix it…
When Coober Pedy was his next goal 260km away, he waited 12 hours for a tailwind and then trundled along at a power-saving 60km/h, with giant road-trains thundering by at irregular intervals. Despite the conservative approach he still fell 15kms short of the mining town and had to be towed the rest of the way…
— Canberra Times
h/t to Pat, and Stonyground in comments.
“Only two things are infinite: The Universe, and human stupidity; and I am not certain of the former.”
— A. Einstein
280
He missed a bet though. Taken to its logical conclusion he would reduce speed to zero. Instant maximum saving of fuel and minimum charging time and best of all, he could have dedicated his whole life to this important effort instead of just 3 years. Imagine what a scientific proof of this kind could do for his reputation.
Stupidity is a wonderful thing. Among other things it provides the world with a lot of laughter.
80
If someone had set out to prove how impractical electric cars are, could they have done a better job than this guy?
Surely the journey could have been done more quickly and more greenly on a bicycle.
390
Imagine the length of the extension cable…..
160
To put ot in perspective, James Cooks sailing ship, the Endeavour, could average at least 10-15 km/h.
So EVs are taking us backwards, back beyond old sailing technology.
Yeesh….welcome to stone age technology.
280
What gets me is that he needed “a place to sleep”. It’s supposed to be a station wagon fer Chrissake! Or do the batteries take up all the space in the back? Maybe he should retrofit a VW Kombi, it would sure look the part. Damn hippies.
141
Somebody had to say it.
What a Wakker!
120
If someone had set out to prove how impractical electric cars are, could they have done a better job than this guy?
Surely the journey could have been done more quickly and more greenly on a bicycle.
190
But…but…but … … … on a bicycle, he would have had to breathe, causing excess carbon (sic) [dioxide] to enter the atmosphere, causing excess warming from all that extra carbon (sic) [dioxide] pollution, so it is intuitively obvious that he absolutely should have used an all-electric vehicle, to prove his commitment to saving the environment.
Yes; YES!!! Committed, he is.
Or perhaps, ‘committed he should be’.
Regards,
Vlad
261
I’m pretty sure that the CO2 we breathe out is not generated in our bodies but drawn from the miniscule quantities already in the atmosphere. It’s just that we remove most of the the oxygen then expel the residue.
Another freeloader sucking on the CAGW teat, relying on others to sustain him rather than making any meaningful contribution to society.
81
“the CO2 we breathe out is not generated in our bodies “
Well yes, It is.
It is released from the breakdown of carbohydrates etc as we extract the energy for te foods that nature has provided to us.
The more energy we use, the more CO2 we must exhale.
110
Hi John,
Our food is slowly combusted with three outlets for the resultant waste: one outlet produces liquid, the next, a stiff mud and the third, a gas, through our lungs.
KK
91
A stiff mud…………you ought to get that checked
80
I try to avoid looking at it.
71
For comparison
“A friend of mine rode a recumbent around Australia completely unassisted; covering the 15,000km in 49 days. Try to match that in a battery electric car!”
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/04/labor-cars-plan-means-higher-emissions-more-pollution-more-coal-use-threatens-grid/#comment-2124392
230
How long did it take the First Fleet to sail from the UK to Australia?
Oh here it is.
201
so wind power is better than solar?
91
Yes. Yes it is, if you’re chasing unicorn farts for money. At least the First Fleet was serious about its mission unlike some crazy Dutchman messing about with batteries like a schoolkid and proving once and for all that his idea can’t possibly sell.
151
And how long does it take nowadays for the trip in a fossil fuel power boat?
Egg face.. wipe off, little geegee
102
Yep…. and Bunker fuel powered ships are faster than Windjammers. 🙂
120
He should have challenged the solar plane to a race. Would have kept the whole world in suspense for a looong time.
60
Irrelevant,
The problem is corruption, in all shades of the political spectrum.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/04/poll-shows-australians-are-more-skeptical-of-extreme-drought-flood-and-fire-voodoo/#comment-2126356
61
Err, where did it say the Wakker’s car was solar powered?
10
I did 53,000 nautical miles, 98156 kilometres around the Pacific & Oz east coast in 6 years in my yacht.
Apart from some gas for the fridge & stove, I could go for months without even starting an engine, & did not need a power house generating anything either.
At any one time there are literally thousands of yachties sailing around the world, using much less fuel, [power station], than this bloke to do the full round trip. They don’t even ask a bunch of fools to pay for it for them.
160
Hasbeen: “They don’t even ask a bunch of fools to pay for it”. Unlike NZ academics –
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/386638/calls-for-special-fund-for-likely-costs-of-climate-change
“We are talking billions of dollars,” Dr Lawrence said. “Local Government New Zealand have done a recent assessment of the costs and they are talking of $14 billion. We think that is an underestimate of the real cost because there are a whole lot of things that are not included in that… What we haven’t yet decided is how it will be paid for”. I’ve got a few likely scenarios but, then again, I’d only be projecting…
“The comments came from a Wellington academic Judy Lawrence who’s a senior research fellow at Victoria University’s Climate Change Research”. N.B. Hot-bed of Warmunist Indoctrination in our capital.
120
Towing the Flying Dutchman into Coober Pedy, lol. Kinda’ reminds me of Chris Turney, Ship of Fools expedition to the Antarctic.
90
And the thing about Labor’s electric cars policy – and this is in an e-mail I sent to my MP Angus Taylor last night:
Electric cars can’t tow caravans, camping trailers, tradie trailers, dirt bike trailers, firewood trailers, box trailers, boat trailers…
…in fact there is only one EV in Australia that is able to tow a small trailer and for $132,00 to $182,000 (depending on the model) you can purchase a Tesla X SUV.
And that’s only if Tesla could actually ever produce enough to supply even 50% of Australia’s new car market and everyone had an income of $500,000/year under the new socialist Labor/Green Government of Bill Shorten.
I also e-mailed Alan Jones the same thing.
I truly believe this EV-Trailer-Towing-thing can get traction with every normal Australian family and actually change the course of the next federal election.
But it would be up to everyone of us to put the word out that Labor will destroy the fabric of the Aussie Weekend, the Aussie Outback, the Aussie Beach Holiday and the Aussie Tradie.
The Lib’s dropped their balls on this because they have an EV policy too to appease the left.
I’m e-mailing Bolt next.
Shit hope he reads JoNova.
251
Good one.
102
I wonder if they have thought about our fleets of police and emergency response vehicles, many of which are on the ground 24/7. Without swapable battery packs, the number of vehicles each police force, ambulance and fire station would need to have idly charging, rather than quickly be refuelled at the petrol pump, would have to be significantly increased. As it is, my LAC parks its vehicles on the street as there is no parking on site – how would they be recharged?
With the pressure on the grid, blackouts and load shedding will be more common so it is likely those emergency vehicles may not even be charged when the are needed.
I would rather prefer a petrol/diesel powered ambulance to get me to a hospital or respond to a fire any day.
160
I agree William, but would specifically add fire engines. I’d like them to arrive with their diesel pumps if I was in trouble.
Cheers,
Dave B
111
And all those battery fires will need a dependable fire service to help put them out- or is it safer to let them burn?
I seem to recall a recent high rise car park fire- which burnt other vehicles nearby- allegedly started by a battery fault in an electric vehicle which was hardly mentioned by media. Perhaps some contributors have more information?
60
Now we know that an E.V. is able,
If charged many times through a cable,
To reach very far,
As would a Fred Flintstone car,
By allowing a three year timetable.
320
And where did the electricity to power the car come from?
Most electic cars in Australia are actually coal fired cars because the electricity comes from the power stations that reliably charge the grid.
Electric trains in Australia have always burnt mostly fossil fuel via the agency of a power station and electricity wires.
There is nothing inherently ‘green’ about an electric car unless it is powered directly by a solar panel when the sun shines …. and, even in the case of direct generation from a solar panel, there is plenty of room for doubt that it saves all that much CO2, given the embedded energy in the manufacture of the panel.
300
The World Solar Challenge is all about solar powered vehicles. The cruiser class winner in 2017 carried the equivalent of 3.4 people at an average speed of 69km/h (says wikipedia).
51
Your link is to a home page with no information. Carrying 3.4 people (sorry for the 0.4 one) at 60 km/hr sounds good. For how many seconds was that? How far did they get?
80
They travelled from Darwin to Adelaide, so, about 3000km, in a maximum of 7 days. Obviously daylight hours (8am to 5pm only…)
For the purposes of this race, 1 person = 80kg.
the 2019 regulations and requirements are here as a PDF. they seem to be reducing the maximum allowable panel area in each race.
I know solar cars are no real threat to any other mode of transport, but it is pretty interesting, and if nothing else, it gives engineering students something to do…!
120
Well, at least if they are reducing the maximum allowable panel area, that is a lot less toxic waste to deal with at the solar panels’end of life.
91
“Carrying 3.4 people (sorry for the 0.4 one) ”
A pregnancy requirement?
40
.4 was the driver perhaps?
60
And the equivalent of 3 people were the batteries?
50
The 0.4s are very real. I taught hundreds of them in university for 35 years!
80
David, the last line sums it up precisely.
Another related aspect which we here are all aware of is Pollution.
There’s a wide separation between coal fired generators and renewables generators when reality strikes.
The construction of generation capacity for coal fired power has economies of scale unimaginable to the average person when compared to construction of equivalent renewables capacity.
From go to woah for renewables, about 15 to 20 years if lucky, The pollution debt in mining, extraction, refining, for manufacture of equivalent renewables capacity is horrendous.
The EV advocates get over this by contrasting photos of a huge power station with a small solar panel. The real environmental debt is cynically hidden from innocent young eyes.
KK
291
You naughty boy, KK…..
The FIRST red thumber strikes….you…..
80
Now,now all you car enthusiasts, please don’t rush your local EV dealer. Stocks are limited you know.
Remember what happened tod General Motors Chevy Volt. Obama had to force GM product on his unwilling government departments because GM couldn’t sell the Chevy Lemons.
Don’t mess with the FREE MARKET!!
100
Manufacture AND disposal. What do you do with all the toxic waste at the end of their life?
140
you could put it in one of the many abandoned coal mines
58
Then let’s have nuclear and put the waste in the abandoned coal mines.
There would only be a fraction of the waste and much less impact on the environment
Win win
190
Gen4 eats waste (uses the other 95% Gens 1/3 miss) so putting it into abandoned mines is a great ‘waste’ of a future resource, since Gen4 will be inevitable when wind and solar fall over.
80
One pro for EVs is they have the option of charging at a time of day when electricity is cheapest and in surplus.
50
Hi George4,
What you say is true. And, I want to stress that I am not against electric cars. The thing about electric cars is that we have to make sure we remove our rose-coloured glasses and understand the full ramifications on a whole life cycle basis.
It is also the case that, when a huge proportion of people switch to electric cars, then the cheap ‘off peak’ electricity may no longer be available because everyone will be charging their cars while they sleep. It would be like adding a couple of extra aluminium smelters to the grid.
If people stop using petrol and diesel for their cars and switch to the grid, then the entire extra energy demand to be met by the grid would have to be a couple of trainloads of coal per day, or a couple of ship loads of of oil or gas per day, or an unbelievable number of square kilometres covered with solar panels.
There are a heap of unforeseen consequences.
160
Agreed, I would just like to see market forces control any uptake of
EVs.
Not government deciding for us with targets and subsidies.
90
Hi again George4,
I agree.
60
There is a Kris Kristofferson line that goes
“And to fall on your arse on your own”
So EV’s without subsidy and see how they go.
70
None of the advocates of electric vehicles (Labor Party 50% by 2030) have detailed both how the electric power will be supplied not how they will be taxed in order to replace current fuel taxes.
Details, details. Never mind the quality, feel the width and don’t look behind the curtain.
140
You can’t double count here. This time of slack demand has already been claimed by those advocating for the Snowy big battery and household batteries. All that capacity is spoken for. Has Shorten been asked a few basic maths questions?
40
Hi amortiser,
Good point. Hadn’t thought of that.
20
This guy should have taken a leaf out of the story ‘Around the world in eighty days’. I’m pretty sure that even in the 1800s, this epic journey could have been completed in a shorter time.
140
I wonder how he would have gone in a desert…..or somewhere really cold…batteries hate the cold…..
110
And could you imagine doing this trip with the kids Are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there ………..
190
A three day road trip is bad enough but three years????
How many times can you say in three years:
“It takes as long as it takes.”
“We will get there when we get there.”
“You should have gone to the bathroom at our last stop.”
“We will not stop for something to eat until it is time to stop.”
“If you don’t settle down, I will come back there and settle it for you.”
I suspect he didn’t have his children with him. Either that or they were left stranded in the middle of the outback on the fourth day of the trip to fend for themselves.
160
One might hope that someone this stupid and “entitled” doesn’t have any children. A loose interpretation of Darwin.
00
How did he get over the oceans? Was it also amphibious?
00
This reminded me about the Tasmanian Nissan Leaf (early model removed from the showrooms in 2017) EV owner who drove from Hobart Tasmania via the vehicle ferry Spirit of Tasmania to Adelaide South Australia to attend an EV gathering there.
I can’t remember the details but the journey each way took many days of driving and recharging, the Nissan Leaf has 100-125 kms range subject to vehicle load, highway speed, hills, air conditioning and other energy losses. I have driven from Melbourne to Adelaide in one day a few times and from Hobart to the car ferry terminal at Devonport which takes not many hours, but an EV would not make it without a couple of recharge stops. Maybe the latest model Nissan Leaf could get there non stop.
120
I once drove non-stop from Townsville to Melbourne in 33 hours in an old Nissan Patrol diesel. I think I stopped for fuel only three times in the entire journey. A typical trip of ours into the High Country usually involves between 6-8 hours of driving each day, with one fuel stop at the start and one at the end.
I can imagine all those electric 4WDs patiently waiting somewhere in the boonies for roadside assistance to arrive with their generators to get them going again. Or else each one will be carrying a petrol powered generator. And Parks Victoria will have lots of fun with their electric 4WDs.
150
No they wont…unless you sacrifice 2 goats and 12 stubbies( unopened of course…helps the park gaia High Priests you know….) you wont be allowed into the park…..and even then you will have to promise to hold your breath to avoid CO2 “pollution….”
130
My old Pontiac 455cu could only get 250km per tank. So three stops between Brisbane and Rockhampton. I know that feels. But it was a hell fun vehicle to drive.
70
I have a really great idea for a fully renewable energy powered vehicle that will do the same distance in only 6 months!
I think I’ll call it a “yacht”.
180
A man-lifting kite will do it much quicker.
70
PeterS:
It won’t get off the ground, as these days it cannot carry just one MAN but all the other approved sexes.
100
I haven’t got enough money for a “hole in the water into which you pour money”.
90
I ‘think’ it was James Hardy that said “sailing is like standing under a cold shower tearing up hundred dollar notes”. Except these days it would need the Mint to produce thousand dollar ones.
00
Steve Fossett circumnavigated of the globe in a hot air balloon, completed in just under 15 days.
Wind powered.
70
More electric vehicles
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/04/08/we-dont-need-no-flaming-sparky-cars-23/
Term via SDA
“carbq”
70
We dont need no charging station……
We dont need no cruise control….
……..
Insert other lyrics
Music riff…..
…….
Hey, Lefties…leave those kids alone….
All in all… its just another dumkopf brick in the wallllllll….
140
Yeah. The thing about the stupid SJWs is the world will continue to consume more and more fossil fuels regardless of what those fools believe. Many hundreds more coal fired power stations around the world.
90
“36 spare months to do what fossil fuels can achieve in 20 hours.”
was that meant to be 20 days? or are we comparing planes and cars?
90
It doesn’t matter, although Jet-A1 similar to the old “power kerosene” is less explosive than petrol.
80
Stupid is as stupid does. Enough said.
90
Best we all get used to EV’s with the revelation last night that Labor and Libs are on a unity ticket to have 50% of the car fleet in oz electric .
Maybe we can call one of the new models “Smoko” or “Sloco” anything to take our minds off what’s about to happen to us .
90
The ‘Shortstop’ ( or Shortgo ) also comes to mind
As ab excellent name for a Labor government
Sponsored EV
🙂
81
Shortgo and the just released Scomo ,all models will have the hammer and sickle emblem though .
60
Well, distance trips will be out. Looks like I’ll be flying to Mackay instead of driving.
60
.
❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶
❶①❶①
❶①❶① . . . What is the best kept secret in Climate Science? . . .
❶①❶①
❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶①❶
.
Climate scientists want people to know how much they have warmed by.
But they don’t want people to know what real absolute temperature they live at.
Why would that be?
Real absolute temperatures are more fundamental than temperature anomalies.
Climate scientists have to use real absolute temperatures, to calculate temperature anomalies.
But the real absolute temperatures are never shown to the public.
Why would that be?
Could it be, that real absolute temperatures make global warming look less catastrophic?
Will many people discover that they actually live in cold countries? And that global warming might make their country nicer?
That couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
There is only one way to find out. Read the following article:
https://agree-to-disagree.com/real-absolute-average-temperatures
122
The BOM provides the temperature and the apparent temperature. The apparent temp is usually cooler than the temp, but I have seen it higher on the odd occasion. The apparent temp used to be called the feels like temp, and wind chill was mentioned as well. It wouldn’t suit the climate change cause to have a term that suggested cooling but the apparent temp is the one we live in.
61
You might know the real absolute temperature for a few places.
But do you know them for the whole world?
Hint: Australia is NOT the whole world.
Also, the hotter the real absolute temperature is, the more newsworthy it is.
So the high real absolute temperatures get remembered, not the average or low ones.
70
If Australia had an energy policy, we might get some sanity from our politicians. For example we export our light sweet crude, and buy back petrol made from heavy sour crude (it is cheaper). If we were to use our own crude, we would make huge strides in meeting both our own pollution standards, and those of the Paris agreement. We are looking to do the same for LNG, by building two import terminals (AGL in Victoria, and Twiggy Forrest in Port Kembla, NSW).
But no… what do we have, besides an aging coal fired generator fleet, a dog’s breakfast of incompatible technologies, and a subsidy regime which would make a socialist weep with joy.
75
Alternatively, Australia could just leave the Paris Agreement, build new generation coal fired power stations.
It won’t change the weather or climate. Ever. Anywhere.
140
Of course it could, or it could go 100% renewable. Without a policy either is an option.
311
Sounds like 100% renewable is an option for you Fitz. Dare to give it a go and recycle your phone, computer and pretty much everything in your house, shed and driveway, including the house, shed and driveway? Too scared eh.. That’s why we can still read your guff, and I doubt it’s because you’re plugged into a pedal-powered generator.
100
“Without a policy either is an option.”
WRONG again.
100% renewables is NOT an option. It is a sci-fantasy.
I suspect you know that to be the case, and are just attention-seeking again.
82
Andy, you can jump on the point for the sake of yelling at Fitz, but he is correct. As long as people think its an option then it is and money gets wasted chasing it.
In theory a rational well explained policy would set a direction. However in our system driven by ideology and emotion the life of a policy is only till the next lot of pollies with a point to prove. I think are are stuck with crashing multiple times until reality takes hold.
90
Sorry, but 100% renewables can never be a viable option.
82
“Of course it could, or it could go 100% renewable. Without a policy either is an option.”
A policy either way will not prevent 97% doomsday global warming induced droughts, floods, summer heatwaves or record cold days.
81
In fact I have a large pile of old private documents I plan to burn shorty, returning the carbon back to the atmosphere from where it originated and the plants which need it. Just continuing the carbon cycle as Nature intended. It might raise the global temperature by 0.00000000000000000000 F x many billions but I won’t notice it or care.
70
Hey Peter, where have you put pfutz.
That was actually a sensible comment.. I am amazed !!! (thumb’s up)
We used to have oil refineries.
We used to have a good solid reliable electricity supply
We have plenty of gas in the ground.
All this has been decimated or made “no-go” by the green agenda.
112
$14,000 per year?
And sea levels won’t rise?
I’m old enough to remember when KRudd said it would cost $1 a year …
“That is that they calculate that between now and about 2045 that you’d be looking at a total impact … in the vicinity of $45 per person over that period of time or something like $1 per person per year.”
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2076131.htm
Worst apocalypse. Ever …
“Failure to act on [global warming] will expose the Australian people and environment to devastating costs for our economy, society, security, health and environment.
Experts at the ANU, University of Melbourne and CSIRO estimate failing to keep global warming to below two degrees will eventually cost the average Australian household $14,000 per year.
Labor accepts the science of [global warming] and endorses the (UN) Paris Agreement to keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius as well as a more qualified commitment around a 1.5 degree threshold.
In the last summer alone, we have seen record breaking floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves.”
https://www.alp.org.au/media/1692/labors_climate_change_action_plan.pdf
50
All these ABC-proclaimed “experts” at the ANU, University of Melbourne and CSIRO need to do to keep the funds rolling in is continue nodding their feeble heads at the idea that the agreed-upon threshold is 1.5 degrees, unknown if that’s C or F, or if that was even specified. I’d bet good money that none of those “learned” clowns could distinguish that difference in temp going from one room to another.
91
Rudd has quite a collection of things said that he hopes weren’t remembered
But “the internet never forgets”
90
Never mind once the super dooper big windmill gets up on the Tas West coast all will be well and we can rest in peace knowing our problems are all solved
50
Viv Forbes’ American Thinker article:
Breaking Australia’s back
40
more an ad for the new Nissan Leaf, but some own goals from bother sides of the debate:
8 Apr: news.com.au: Energy Minster lampooned over meme as electric vehicles debate gets weird
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor has left many people scratching their heads after tweeting a bizarre meme on the weekend.
by Nick Whigham
VIDEO: 53sec: Driven: The world’s most popular electric car (next-gen Nissan Leaf promo, zero-emissions(?), cost over $50,000, made in UK)
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/on-the-road/energy-minster-lampooned-over-meme-as-electric-vehicles-debate-gets-weird/news-story/4b26ea923bca9cb6752f50e5992e6f3c
behind paywall:
8 Apr: UK Times: Dutchman Wiebe Wakker ends ‘world’s longest electric car trip’ in Australia
by Bernard Lagan, Sydney
Wiebe Wakker, 32, finished the journey yesterday. He said that it was intended to prove the viability of electric vehicles as a means of slowing the pace of climate change…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dutchman-wiebe-wakker-ends-world-s-longest-electric-car-trip-in-australia-0qt6zjgzh
40
Actually slowing the pace of transportation in general.
40
It’s amazing the schemes people come up with to get other people to pay for their adventure holidays.
In a way I admire him and I don’t think it’s really losing 3 years when it is spent on an around the world adventure.
Of course it proves nothing about EV viability, but it is a great advertising and awareness campaign.
60
If anyone going on holidays worked out a way for others to pay for their fuel, food and accommodation it was always going to be a Dutchman.
101
He saved a theoretical 6700 litres of fuel (to do something that wasn’t necessary anyway).
It’s impossible to know what that fuel would have cost him, but lets be generous and say $1.60 per litre. That means he didn’t use $10,720 worth of fuel.
I can’t help but believe that it would have been cheaper just to use the fuel than to go electric. Even the difference in the value of the vehicle would have made up the difference real quick.
70
G’day Greg,
Shouldn’t we add in the lost opportunity cost of 3 years of productive employment? Or do we consider the non-payment of the dole as a benefit?
Cheers
Dave B
50
BBC had Wakker in their half-hourly news bulletins last nite – on BBC World Service at least. said it proved EVs were viable in Australia.
more BBC:
VIDEO: 58sec: Apr: BBC: Amsterdam to Sydney in an electric car
Wiebe Wakker has arrived in Sydney, after driving there in an electric car from Amsterdam over the course of almost three years.
Mr Wakker says he travelled 60,000 miles (95,000 km) across 33 countries “without money”, relying on offers from volunteers for meals, accommodation and charging points.
He says he aimed to demonstrate the capacity and reliability of electric cars, in order to promote them as a way of tackling climate change.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-47849488/driving-an-electric-car-from-amsterdam-to-sydney
***Wakker says it took over “3 years” in his opening statement; BBC’s Lebo Diseko responds, mentions “over 3 years”. summary below says ***”more than 2 years”:
AUDIO: 3min36sec: 8 Apr: BBC World Service Newsday: Amsterdam to Sydney in the ‘Blue Bandit’
Dutchman Wiebe Wakker has completed the longest electric car journey ever recorded – reaching the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney in Australia, ***more than two years after setting out from Amsterdam.
He took the ‘Blue Bandit’ – a converted Volkswagen Golf – across the world to prove the viability of electric vehicles – but says his best memories were of the kindness of ordinary people in Europe, Iran, India and Australia.
He believes that if the car hadn’t been modified to use clean energy, the journey would have consumed nearly seven- thousand litres of petrol.
Wiebe Wakker spoke to Newsday’s Lebo Diseko about the epic journey.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p075t36n
Facebook: BBC News: Worried an electric car can’t do the miles? Wiebe Wakker drove from Amsterdam to Sydney in one to prove a point. VIDEO
BBC Radio 5: Plug Me In Project: Wiebe Wakker, Plug Me In, Interview
MSM all claim Wakker had no money, got help from the little people, but he had plenty of sponsors, which are plastered all over his EV:
Plug Me In Project: Sponsors
includes: Main sponsor – Bundles; Canon, Adobe etc.
https://plugmeinproject.com/sponsors/
15 Dec 2015: Plug Me In Project: I’ve got a car and will be leaving soon!
In March ’14 I’ve had the concept of Plug Me In ready and then I started to work out the details. Finding partners, sponsors, creating the website etcetera. The big deal was to find an electric car. Quite expensive things and way out of my student budget so I had to find creative ways to get one…
In June this year I got in touch with Marcel Peters from Bundles. Bundles is a new way of washing. You don’t buy a washing machine but pay for the service. This way you save money, electricity and because the washing machines have an A-label it’s also more sustainable. I approached Marcel because I saw a good match in Bundles in terms of sustainability and asked him about the possibilities of sponsoring. Marcel was instantly very enthusiastic about the project. He told me that he owns a electric car and might want to provide it to me when the time was right. I kept looking for alternatives, waited a long time and finally last week Marcel called: “Wiebe let’s do this!” he told me. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard it, probably the neighbors 3 blocks aways could hear me yelling…
26 Jul 2018: Horizon Power: Meet Wiebe
Last month Horizon Power received an interesting Facebook message from the traveller asking if the company could help organise energy for his journey around regional WA.
As Horizon Power had just installed new charging stations in the Kimberley, we were only too happy to help.
Horizon Power provided Wiebe with free energy when he passed through the Kimberley, ***helping him travel between Kununurra and Derby…
***”helping” is right. Kununurra/Derby – 9 h 9 min (903.0 km).
30
Legally Tesla.
1.20: Batteries.
We on this show have had some experience with electrical fires in a crash, and this has the same sort of batteries the Rimac had.
1.40: “What people don’t understand is that you crash an electrical car, and it has lithium iron batteries, it could catch fire.
And often the fire brigade will turn up and they’ve only got water onboard, so, as you’re sitting there, on fire, you’re then being electrocuted.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=151&v=_DiGQRaaHvg
50
no interview posted here, so will just post this bit.
“zero fuel” except for what was used to charge the EV, fuel the ships, etc:
6 Dec: Swinburne Uni of Technology, Borneo: Around the world using zero fuel
In this impromptu Science to Society talk, Wiebe will be sharing how he and engineers modified his petrol to fully electric and how he used social media to keep him going…
8 Apr: Bloomberg: Chris Bryant: Fiat Seeks Redemption in Elon Musk
The automaker is paying Tesla so it can avoid EU emissions fines. It’s an economically efficient move. It may even help the environment.
Fiat plans to pay Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars to offset the risk it will fail to meet the European Union’s stringent carbon dioxide emission targets, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
What Fiat is doing feels wrong in view of its unsatisfactory efforts to cut vehicle pollution. But it is doubtless correct that the deal is the most economically efficient way to ensure emissions compliance in the limited time available. By helping Tesla, Fiat is helping the environment, too.
Fiat is by no means the only carmaker struggling to comply with the EU’s ambition to cut vehicle emissions by 40 percent between 2007 and 2021. That effort has become even more difficult lately as consumers shun diesel ***in favor of gasoline cars, which spew out fewer nitrogen oxides but more CO2 (as my colleague Leonid Bershidsky describes here LINK.)
The fines will be levied at a rate of 95 euros for every gram of CO2 over the limit multiplied by the number of vehicles sold by each automaker. The penalties could cost the industry 14 billion euros ($16 billion), IHS Markit estimated last year. Fiat alone faced a fine of as much as 2 billion euros, according to analysts…
Though its strategy is all about defeating dirty fossil fuels, Elon Musk’s company has no qualms about giving Fiat a helping hand. Nor should it.
If Fiat paid a fine, ***the money would probably end up disappearing into the European Commission’s colossal budget…
True, Fiat could have spent the money it is paying Tesla on building its own hybrid and electric technology – ***but there’s no guarantee consumers would have been willing to pay for it, at least not yet. Volkswagen AG boss Herbert Diess pointed out recently that in some cases it is cheaper for the manufacturer to pay a fine rather than struggle to make cars more efficient…
Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of Tesla copycats to help other carmakers avoid fines. Peugeot SA boss Carlos Tavares, who is also the president of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, has warned that emissions penalties would put jobs at risk and open the door to takeovers by Chinese rivals…
Tavares has a point – but unfortunately the planet is warming rapidly and the car industry is partly to blame for that…
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-08/fiat-cosies-up-with-tesla-to-avoid-co2-emission-fines
20
That’s how greedy governments are these days. They create new draconian rules over fråudulent climate panic, CO2 and car/everything emissions and makers who can’t comply because physics says so are fined.
Screw it. Sell the business if you can, blame grabbermint for failure because it was destined to happen under such rules anyway. Eventually the entire Western world will look and operate like Afghanistan through no fault of our own. Now we know who to tar and feather.
40
So… 95,000km?
A quick search suggests to me that the crow flies distance is about 17,000km.
Are we sure he was trying to get to Sydney, or just wanted a three year world wide jolly paid for by gullible subscribers?
If it was the first, then dude, there are these things called MAPS!
If it was the second? Three year world holiday paid for by other people? WELL DONE THAT MAN!
80
Perhaps “Blue Bandit” was an appropriate name for the vehicle. And perhaps he will now write a book and/or make a documentary and make some money
80
Title suggestions for the book about his trip, perhaps :
“I got a 3 year sentence…”
“Where can you buy extension cords around here?”
“Does my sponsorship look big in this?”
40
25 Mar: Bloomberg: What First Responders Don’t Know About Fiery Electric Vehicles
Lithium-ion batteries, once ignited, are extremely difficult to douse.
By Chester Dawson
After an out-of-control Tesla Model S plowed into a stand of palm trees on a highway median outside Fort Lauderdale last month, police rushed to put out the ensuing blaze using a department-issued fire extinguisher. It was a wasted effort. The car kept on burning after the crash, which killed the driver.
The police may not have known lithium-ion batteries inside electric vehicles, once ignited, can’t be put out with chemicals from a conventional extinguisher. The battery fires are susceptible to a self-destructive chain reaction known as thermal runaway, causing a feedback loop of rising temperatures. The Tesla fire stumped a series of first responders in Florida. Firefighters eventually doused the flames with water, which seemed to work, but the wrecked car reignited twice more after being towed away. That prompted what a police report later termed “extraordinary measures,” including a call to Broward County’s hazmat unit for advice on stamping out the fire once and for all…
Safety experts say the only way to extinguish a lithium-ion battery inside a car is with thousands of gallons of water, much more than what it takes to stop a fire in a typical gasoline engine. The other option is to just let it burn itself out. “It’s such a difficult fire because it takes so much water to put out,” said Robert Taylor, fire marshal in Davie, Fla., where the crash occurred…
In addition to fires, emergency responders dealing with EVs face risks from high-voltage cables and silent-running motors. The experience taught Taylor’s team important lessons about dealing with electric vehicles. “For us,” he said, “it’ll be the awareness of auto-ignition of the battery and knowing how long the energy remains in them.”…
One of the first things first responders learn: Never cut an orange cable, a color reserved for wiring in excess of 60 volts. These can be found not just in the front or rear of a car but also running behind side panels. Most gasoline-powered vehicles have no orange cabling at all, since they use electrical charge powered by a standard 12-volt battery. A typical EV operates at closer to a potentially deadly 400 volts. The all-new Porsche Taycan, for example, will boast double that amount of electrical charge when it goes on sale later this year.
Higher voltages are part of a trend designed to maximize efficiency and boost horsepower. “We think you could see a world of 1,200 volts” for vehicles in a few years, said Mary Gustanski, chief technology officer at Delphi Technologies Plc, a major automotive powertrain supplier. But she said advanced componentry could eventually do away with most high-voltage cabling…
Tesla has donated hundreds of vehicles to the local fire department for use in deconstructive demonstrations of the Jaws of Life and other rescue tools. “We’ve cut up 400 to 500 Teslas over the past five years,” said Wilson…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/tesla-fires-what-first-responders-don-t-know-about-fiery-evs
20
Taycan? Who calls a car a Taycan?
Lame….
“My car is a Taycan…..”
“A what?”
“Expensive toy that cant go far”
“oh….a wind up car…gotcha….”
40
Badly pronounced “toy car” or parts of the badge fell off.
30
“Toy Car” is what the Chinese will call it when they plagiarise it.
30
Apr: Canberra Times: When running out of power is Dutch for living in the moment
by Peter Brewer
In his 92,000km drive across the world to Canberra, Dutchman and “social traveller” Weibe Wakker has learned to live with the range anxiety that troubles every electric car driver from time to time…
Given it takes 12 hours to recharge the car from a domestic power point and three hours from a commercial point, he’s learned to live in the moment.
The journey appeared to go really pear-shaped in Surabaya, Indonesia when floodwaters deluged his battery pack, rendering it completely unable to hold a charge.
However, the indefatigable Mr Wakker simply set up a GoFundMe page to raise the cash to have a technical specialist ***fly in and fix it…
When Coober Pedy was his next goal 260km away, he waited 12 hours for a tailwind and then trundled along at a power-saving 60km/h, with giant road-trains thundering by at irregular intervals. Despite the conservative approach he still fell 15kms short of the mining town and had to be towed the rest of the way…
Canberra’s flirtation with electric transport is poised to become a more serious affair in the next few years when as many as 600 of the full ACT government fleet is turned over to electric vehicles.
Not all government fleet tasks are suited to going electric however, with four-wheel drive vehicles and light commercial transport as the obvious exceptions…
Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury, whose portfolios include sustainability and climate change, believes governments should lead the way in introducing electric vehicles…
Hydrogen-powered cars will also join the ACT fleet later this year, with plans underway to purchase 20 hydrogen cars and set-up of a central refuelling station for the vehicles.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6005262/when-running-out-of-power-is-dutch-for-living-in-the-moment/
30
floodwaters deluged his battery pack, rendering it completely unable to hold a charge.
a GoFundMe page to … have a technical specialist fly in and fix it.
and,
he still fell 15kms short … and had to be towed the rest of the way
Wow. I used to live at Roxby. Not quite as far north as Coober Pedy but similar enough driving for me to know that while driving down a single lane highway with roos and unfenced grazing on each side of the road you REALLY need the extra complication of some idiot puttering along at 50kph below the speed limit.
Thank you Weibe for being a hazard to others.
60
Do electric cars double as roo bait?
30
Travel is a little like that. He could have stayed home and achieved exactly the same end result. He is older and the world is no wiser.
How he crossed the world’s oceans though is a bit of a logical problem, but new congresswoman AOC in her Green New Deal in the US says people must use trains for all travel. There is a little problem with this for both.
91
Including, President Trump said, she wants a train to Hawaii.
60
You would think the IPCC would have their conferences by internet, but they always fly 30,000 people in on huge journeys, picked up in limousines and taken to the best restaurants. All to protest flying, driving and eating meat.
121
AOCs own mother is a tax refugee from Socialist New York……
Kinda makes you wonder where it went wrong ….
41
7 Apr: UK Telegraph: Renewables backer targets UK’s nuclear power reactors
By Jillian Ambrose
One of the biggest backers of renewable energy projects is lining up a bid for a multibillion-pound stake in the UK’s existing fleet of nuclear power reactors.
Greencoat Capital is understood to be in talks to launch a new fund targeting the planned £4bn sell-off of a minority stake in the UK’s seven nuclear reactors from EDF Energy and Centrica.
The pair have hired a string of City heavy-hitters to field bids for a share of the 9GW fleet, which generates a fifth of the UK’s electricity, in the hope of clinching a sale by the end of next year…
The fund manager, which holds £2bn worth of renewable energy investments, has emerged as a surprise suitor in the sale, which is expected to begin in earnest later this year.
Investors are understood to have taken part in an early auction round last week to gauge the interest of bidders, which reportedly include Chinese nuclear companies, pension funds and investors…
It would be Greencoat’s first move into nuclear power, despite the strong nuclear pedigree of its senior team. Richard Nourse, Greencoat’s chairman, is a non-executive board member of nuclear enrichment company Urenco…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/07/renewables-backer-targets-uks-nuclear-power-reactors/
30
9 Apr: SMH: Power grid not ready for spike in electric vehicles
By Cole Latimer and Michael Koziol
The nation’s power grid requires swift upgrades to avoid energy shortages from a predicted spike in the uptake of electric vehicles over the next decade.
As Prime Minister Scott Morrison sharpened his attack on Labor’s pledge to massively boost sales of electric vehicles, a new report led by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has warned that preparations must be made now to avoid grid instability in the future.
The report, obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, said action was needed to avoid problems once electric vehicle usage started to spike beyond 2025, but it was difficult to predict the uptake even without changes to government policy…
“The transition to powered electric vehicles has the potential to have a material impact on the electricity distribution network because charges are significant electrical loads,” said the report, due to be released on Tuesday.
“This will require … crafted network architecture.”
The ARENA report, produced in conjunction with the South Australian government and South Australia Power Networks, warns that electric vehicles could create higher than expected demand and that a flood of vehicles plugging in at the end of a hot summer weekday could overwhelm the grid. While the research was focused on South Australia, its stated intention was to inform policy around the country…
Dan Hilson, the report’s author and chief executive of electric vehicle-focused company Evenergi, said that as Australia was a laggard in electric vehicle uptake it could avoid the missteps of other countries…READ ON
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/power-grid-not-ready-for-spike-in-electric-vehicles-20190408-p51c0q.html
30
“a new report led by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has warned that preparations must be made now to avoid grid instability in the future.”
In other words, spend millions of taxpayer $ to upgrade the grid to avoid grid instability in case EV sales reach some target.
50
excerpts found through summary at outline.com and at no2nuclearpower blog:
8 Apr: Financial Times: Nick Butler: Price and the consumer are vital to the energy transition
Despite all the international dialogue around climate change and the Paris accord signed four years ago, the world is no closer to balancing its energy needs against the risks of global climate instability…
In the emerging markets in particular, energy use is very sensitive to price because of the limits on discretionary spending power…
Energy demand continues to rise – it was up by 2.3 per cent globally in 2018 and has grown by almost 20 per cent over the past decade…
Coal may be unfashionable in Europe and partially squeezed out of the US market by low-cost shale gas but worldwide it remains the largest source of electricity and the second largest source of primary energy.
Fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – remain the dominant source of total energy consumption and met 70 per cent of the overall increase in demand last year…
https://www.ft.com/content/05d7e7e6-56bd-11e9-91f9-b6515a54c5b1
via outline.com:
8 Apr: Financial Times: Price and the consumer are vital to the energy transition
by Nick Butler
There have been gains in efficiency but global demand is still growing…
Economically, it can be argued that the benefits will outweigh the costs in a shift to a radically different energy mix. But, as yet, there is no material transition to a lower carbon economy…
An excellent primer on the changes that are taking place in the energy market worldwide – and equally, if not more important, on what is not happening – is the “Global Energy and Emissions Status Report” published at the end of last month by the IEA.
One strong message from the IEA’s report is the impact of prices on consumer behaviour, and the price mechanism is crucial if the energy transition is to become reality. The IEA shows that the strongest growth in consumption came from electricity, which grew by 4 per cent worldwide and by 8.5 per cent in China. ..
The “easternisation” of the energy market continues, with most of the growth in demand in 2018 coming from Asia, where the use of coal continues to increase…
MEANWHILE – BEHIND PAYWALL – ANOTHER TRY-ON BY THE MSM:
8 Apr: UK Times: Young Republicans push party leaders to act on climate change
by David Charter, Washington
Young Republican activists are trying to change their leadership’s rejection of climate change amid alarm that it is so out of step with their generation that the party risks losing elections.
Campaign groups have been formed to push for conservative solutions to climate change to show younger voters that the party cares about the environment as much as they, and the Democrats, do.
Organisers admit that President Trump’s hostility to climate science and green power are hampering their efforts but believe they can get the White House on board…
Young Republicans push party to drop climate change scepticism
Financial Times – 1 Apr 2019
College Republicans Try to Fix the GOP’s Climate Stance
The Atlantic – 28 Feb 2018
10
I think we have seen in other comments on recent blogs, hydrogen doesn’t exist naturally, it can’t be extracted from the air, it has to be taken from compounds, and requires large amounts of energy to extract.
60
Hydrogen can easily be extracted from water, the problem is water is like ash it’s what is left after all the usable energy is gone. To separate the hydrogen you have to put the energy back in it, and you use more electrical energy than is contained in the resulting hydrogen and if that electricity came from burning coal you are worse off.
70
8 Apr: AP: London taxes older vehicles in bid to fight air pollution
LONDON — In a bid to fight air pollution, London has introduced one of the world’s toughest vehicle emissions standards, placing a tax on older, more polluting cars that drive into the center of the British capital.
Starting Monday, the drivers of diesel cars more than 4 years old and of gasoline-powered engines more than 13 years old must pay a 12.50-pound ($16.30) fee day or night when entering central London. That’s on top of London’s congestion charge, which is 11.50 pounds ($15) between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
Non-compliant trucks and buses face a 100-pound ($130) daily fee.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan says the Ultra-Low Emission Zone is necessary since thousands die annually in London alone from toxic air.
***He says “the eyes of the world are on us.”
https://www.apnews.com/717e70eb364e4128aa96c710bed0376b
20
Is Mayor Sadiq going to follow the same logic and introduce a fee on all those who carry a knife in London?
What about acid?
Remember, Sadiq, the eyes of the world are on you, and many of them are looking at the violent crime reports.
50
6 Apr: NBC Philadelphia: Temple Grad Given 30 Months in Prison for $54 Million ‘Green Scam’ by Mantria Corp.
“Many people lost their entire life savings,” assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Livermore said following Knorr’s sentencing
By Brian X. McCrone
One of three people, including two Temple University graduates, behind what is believed to be the biggest scam involving clean energy in American history was sentenced Friday in Philadelphia federal court…
Amanda Knorr, 35, of Hellertown, Pennsylvania, received 30 months in federal prison for her role in a $54 million Ponzi scheme started out of the offices of a small company just outside Philadelphia.
Knorr co-founded a company called Mantria Corp., which with the help of a slick-talking Colorado “wealth advisor” raised millions for a supposed clean energy product called “biochar.”
Former President Bill Clinton personally honored their now disgraced work in a ceremony for the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009. Wragg met with the president of the Ivory Coast to discuss how biochar could transform energy production in the small African nation.
The Clinton Global Initiative, one of the largest international foundations and run by Bill and Hillary Clinton, still has a link on its website about the “Commitment by Mantria Corporation.”
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Temple-Grad-Given-30-Months-in-Prison-for-54-Million-Green-Scam-by-Mantria-Corp-508184021.html
20
8 Apr: NoTricksZone: New Paper: Risk Of Poverty, Lower Incomes, Increased Energy Costs ‘Directly Linked With Renewable Energies’
By Kenneth Richard
An empirical analysis using 2005-2015 data from 15 EU countries indicates that as more renewable energies (i.e., solar PV) are deployed, energy costs increase, household poverty risks rise, and incomes decline…
https://notrickszone.com/2019/04/08/new-paper-risk-of-poverty-lower-incomes-increased-energy-costs-directly-linked-with-renewable-energies/
4 Apr: IndustryWeek: AFP: Export Woes Turn German Industrial Titans to Millstones
By Coralie Febvre
Germany’s industrial firms flourished in a world that couldn’t get enough of their cars and machine tools, but a global trade slowdown combined with sluggish product upgrades and delays in modernizing Europe’s top economy is now taking their toll.
On April 4 saw federal statistics authority Destatis report a 4.2% month-on-month reduction in industrial orders for February…
In the private sector, carmakers are making a transition to battery electric and hybrid vehicles set to prove costly in both investments and jobs, while the country also lags on digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence.
As if that weren’t enough, Germany also has to prepare for exiting coal power by 2038, a major challenge for an electricity-hungry economy already well on the way to abandoning nuclear energy.
https://www.industryweek.com/economy/export-woes-turn-german-industrial-titans-millstones
20
Why not use the uptake of mobile phones? IT would show the same curve. You could also plot the rise of more right wing parties and get the same curve. This is bunk
27
“This is bunk”
WRONG, not bunk.
There is definite cause and effect with renewable energy, as much as you DENY it.
And yes, the rise of the renewable idiotology will likely cause the rise of more conservative parties.
60
Your reply Fitz is further support of Einstein’s hypothesis quoted by Vlad at #1.0.0.0.
The quote is a perler. It comes from Frederick Perls’s “In and Out the Garbage Pail”; known to his friends and fans as Fritz, Fritz. You should read it.
60
O,k so prove it! or are you part of the Blowhard Club (president Kinky)
15
The text from a poster/graphic doing the rounds on the net.
” Worried about cow farts?
In the early 1800’s there were about
60 million buffalo residing in America
There are currently 9.4 million dairy
and 31.7 beef cows in America.
Leftists/ Greens have to prove
Cow farts are more destructive to the environment
than buffalo farts …or admit that cow farts are
nothing we should really worry about”
130
Nice snow job, but… 93.7 just for cows
28
Cow farts , .. cows cannot put out more CO2 + CH4 than they take in as carbon from plant food.
Cows are part of the carbon cycle and are CARBON NEUTRAL, just like any other animal is.
CO2 is a BENEFIT to the atmosphere and all life on Earth.
CH4 breaks down to CO2
Cows do not particularly like snow.
80
Neither do Mung Beans.
70
more cows, 988.6 million worldwide today, I’d say cow farts are a problem
06
I wander how many power point adaptors he had to take with him.
60
worth a read:
8 Apr: WUWT: Anthony Watts: The new 350.org climate strategy – convince small towns to make “Climate Emergency” declarations
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/08/the-new-350-org-climate-strategy-convince-small-towns-to-make-climate-emergency-declarations/
From Sweden to India, school climate strikes have gone global
World Economic Forum (blog)-18 Mar 2019
The strikers are calling for a global state of climate emergency to be declared…
never underestimate the role of BBC:
15 Mar: BBC Newsbeat: Climate strike: What is a climate emergency?
By Lindsay Brown
Dozens of towns and cities across the UK have declared “a climate emergency”.
There’s no single definition of what that means but many local areas say they want to be carbon-neutral by 2030.
Some councils have promised to introduce electric car hubs or build sustainable homes to try to achieve that goal.
It’s a much more ambitious target than the government’s…
Last night Bath became the latest local council to declare a climate emergency…
Why declare an emergency?
The United Nations says we could have just 12 years left to limit a climate change catastrophe.
Bristol councillor Carla Denyer first put forward the idea of a local area declaring a climate emergency and in November the city council passed the motion.
“We are acknowledging we are in an emergency situation,” she told Radio 1 Newsbeat…
“It’s the first step to radical action.”…
What has all this got to do with the climate strikes? …READ ON
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-47570654
20
hilarious, on a number of levels:
9 Apr: ABC: Victorian Greens former MP Nina Springle quits party over ‘cultural issues’
By state political reporter Richard Willingham
Another former Greens MP has walked from the party after losing her seat in Victoria’s Parliament, criticising the party’s failure to deal with “deep-seated cultural issues” and declaring it is no longer a vehicle for social change.
Nina Springle’s departure represents another blow for the Victorian branch of the party in the lead-up to next month’s federal election and follows two other high-profile resignations and an internal review that criticised infighting and poor strategy.
Ms Springle was a Victorian Upper House MP from 2014 to 2018, and was among five MPs who lost their seats in November…
“At this present time I just can’t perceive how they [the Greens] are that vehicle for the profound social change that we require at this juncture in our evolution,” Ms Springle said in a Facebook post…
Ms Springle said the Greens had always been a vehicle to tackle “the pressing environmental and societal inequalities and abuses that were so obviously consuming us and our planet.”…
A campaign post-mortem found the Greens were also subject to “a relentlessly negative campaign” from Labor and poor media coverage…
The internal fighting has damaged the party’s chances of winning the renamed Batman, now called Cooper, off the Labor party, as the Greens now focus federal efforts on three seats south of the Yarra…
Earlier this year, the party recruited high-profile barrister Julian Burnside to run in Kooyong against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
His campaign was left embarrassed in its first week after it was revealed he was a member of the men-only Savage Club…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/nina-springle-former-mp-quits-victorian-greens/10984118
30
with public anger raging over the “vegan” stunts, theirABC gives massive space to….VEGANS & THEIR FELLOW-TRAVELLERS.
oh, they have asked the Meat & Livestock Australia for a comment!
9 Apr: ABC: Veganism is growing in Australia, but we’re still some of the world’s biggest meat eaters
ABC Science By environment reporter Nick Kilvert
Is Australia’s future vegan?…
Many protesters held signs stating their profession and the length of time they had been vegan.
“I am a doctor. Vegan: 5 years,” and “I am a general manager. Vegan: 7 years,” were some examples.
The underlying message was that veganism is mainstream — not some radical fringe lifestyle as it is sometimes cast.
While the methods of yesterday’s protest were controversial, the message is becoming less so.
Health experts have been warning us for some time that Australians need to cut down on the amount of red meat we eat…
Now according to new market research, it seems we may be getting the message.
Market researchers IBISWorld looked at changing food trends in Australia.
While they found that the range of products and sales of vegan-friendly foods have soared over the past five years, red meat has stalled and is predicted to start going downhill.
But the reasons aren’t necessarily because “meat is murder”…
“We found the main reason was the cost of beef,” (IBISWorld senior industry analyst James) Caldwell said…
If the cost of red meat and vegan alternatives are near parity, Mr Caldwell said people are increasingly choosing the vegan option.
Improvements in the range of meat replacement products and investment in flavour development are also believed to be factors, according to PETA spokesperson Emily Rice…
The executive director of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Eric Schmidt, listed developing plant-based proteins as the most important trend in technology at a conference in 2016…
The market research cited concerns over greenhouse gas and water footprints, as well the as rising fitness culture in Australia, for the trend…
China’s rising middle-class is demanding an increasingly Western, meat-rich diet.
And it’s coming at an environmental cost.
Research published in Nature last month predicted millions of hectares of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest was in danger of being logged to grow soy to feed China’s beef cattle…
The greenhouse gas cost alone of Australia’s red meat industry is more than 10 per cent of our total annual emissions.
It’s going to take more than a few McVegan burgers to turn that around.
The ABC has contacted the MLA (Meat and Livestock Australia) for comment.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-04-09/vegans-australia-red-meat-declining/10980270
40
meant to note the disrespect in the headline on ABC’s “Just In” page:
There’s a growing vegan trend in Australia, but we’re still some of the world’s biggest ***meatheads
ABC Science By environment reporter Nick Kilvert
70
Kilvert is a serial hard left greentard .
51
9 Apr: SMH: ‘Make the best of what we have’: Labor rules out sweeping NBN overhaul in new policy
By Fergus Hunter
Promising to “make the best of what we have” as a result of the Coalition’s $50 billion NBN rollout, Labor’s communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland has committed to a review of the vexed project and $185 million in spending to boost some Australians’ internet connections…
$125 million of the money will fund improvements for up to 750,000 people by fixing in-home wiring problems. $60 million will go into trials providing another 20,000 people with high-speed fibre connections, exploring a “pathway for future upgrades” over 10 years funded by joint public-private investment…
The approach is a stark contrast with the original NBN model launched by the former Labor government a decade ago, which would have rolled out direct fibre connections for 93 per cent of premises…
“The cash flow story is what concerns Labor the most. The ongoing cost to run the NBN has gone up. The ongoing cost to remediate the NBN network has gone up. The revenue potential has come down. The result is that the cash flows of NBN Co have been materially reduced,” she said…
Labor has indicated openness to a write-down of the network’s value, suggesting the revenue capacity does not support the $50 billion valuation on the books…
The government has the power to direct NBN Co to lower wholesale prices but the company has warned that major drops would risk the viability of the project. It has also rejected the push for a write-down, backing its current valuations…
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield seized on Labor’s announcement, calling it the “final admission the Coalition’s plan to use a range of technologies to see NBN completed six to eight years sooner, and at $30 billion dollars less cost than Labor – has worked”…
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/make-the-best-of-what-we-have-labor-rules-out-sweeping-nbn-overhaul-in-new-policy-20190408-p51bzj.html
$50bn? cheap compared to what Labor’s EV would cost the economy!
8 Apr: AFR: Optus slams NBN quality, calls for 5G replacement
by Jame Fernyhough
That is the view of Singtel Optus chief executive Allen Lew, who on Monday called for the private sector to be brought in to replace ageing NBN technology with ultra-fast 5G fixed-wireless broadband…
https://www.afr.com/business/telecommunications/optus-slams-nbn-quality-calls-for-5g-replacement-20190408-p51by9
20
My street will finally be getting NBN next year.
I have been looking at plans and it looks like I will save a lot by ditching NBN and going mobile 4G wireless modem, with better speed than what I now have with cable.
NBN – another Labor expensive wasteful screw up.
Broadband could have perfectly well been handled by private enterprise and user pays.
This would have saved taxpayers a fortune.
70
Yep.
About $74 billion, last time I looked. And,that doesn’t count the Opportunity Cost.
60
I’m still using 3G wireless interwebs. Why?
I needed to upgrade my bandwidth in this 1.5-horse town and Telstra the useless white elephant couldn’t come up with anything except try to sell me some exorbitantly expensive wireless dongle thingie that nobody in their right mind would buy, except the Jones’. There’s no NBN here yet despite the endless promises over the last 4 years. I couldn’t be connected to ADSL2 as the system here is too archaic to handle it, so I had to wait a month to be apprised of that knowledge. Another month passed and they couldn’t even plug me in to ADSL1 as there were no free slots in the exchange anyway.
I eventually went a decent deal with Optus but 4G here seems stuttery and overloaded because of all the smartphones and other 4G connected impedimenta. I switched the thing back to 3G and “whoosh” it said. Never looked back because it still gives me the 12mb/s I’m throttled at.
I’ve had numerous threat letters from supposed well-meaning interwebs suppliers warning that local interwebs services will be switched off, but why should I care when I’m going right over their heads?
50
About five and a half hours left.
Keith
41
A person of conviction would know that there is only positive in this.
To let it go will show a lot.
Even five or ten chocolates would maybe not have much effect on the blog proprietor but could lead you to greater understanding of the world.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/04/worst-and-deadliest-droughts-in-india-were-before-1924/#comment-2126559
Keith.
61
So electric cars now take 4 times as long as what petrol cars did 90 years ago!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Birtles
60
top story on ABC news bulletins last nite; if Minister bows to pressure, it could stop Adani’s Carmichael mine (or similar) was the intro. am sure it didn’t say postpone/slow down whatever. EDO spokesperson was quoted:
9 Apr: ABC: Coalition senator’s reported threat to Environment Minister could spark Adani appeal, lawyers say
By political reporter Melissa Clarke
Environmental lawyers are examining reports of a threat to the federal Environment Minister from a colleague over the Adani coal mine, which could open avenues for appeal if the project is approved before the federal election.
Media reports detail LNP senator James McGrath threatening to call for the Environment Minister Melissa Price to be sacked if she does not sign off on the final Commonwealth approval for the controversial project.
Lawyers “have their antenna up,” believing such a personal attack could influence the Minister, Jo-Anne Bragg, the CEO of the Environmental Defenders Office in Queensland, said.
“Such a political threat puts a cloud over Minister Price’s possible decisions on Adani,” she said.
“That’s the sort of cue that would cause us to really dig in and look at the evidence and basis of any decision that she’d make.”…
There are already court cases underway challenging other aspects of the approval process, with further legal challenges a real possibility.
“Here we’ve got a blatant political threat being made,” Ms Bragg said.
“It’s not the usual case where members of the public or stakeholders or industry point out the benefits or the risks of the project.”…
“It is quite clear that this type of political pressure could make this decision, any decision, that the Minister makes vulnerable to legal challenge,” Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said.
Senator Hanson-Young wants the Coalition to leave the approval until after the federal election.
“It is just madness for this minister to make any decision on this now. She is clearly not able to make it independently,” she said…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/lawyers-eye-coalition-threat-as-grounds-for-adani-appeal/10982834
just posted:
9 Apr: ABC: Adani coal mine a step closer with Environment Minister endorsing groundwater approvals
By political reporter Dan Conifer
Updated 6 minutes ago
Environment Minister Melissa Price has given the green light to the project’s groundwater management plans…
The Environment Minister was under pressure from Queensland colleagues to sign off on the plans before the Government calls the election and enters caretaker mode.
Ms Price said in a statement that she had accepted the advice of the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, which both gave the green light to Adani’s revised plans…
The Queensland Government is yet to approve construction as it seeks to protect a colony of black-throated finches around the mine site.
The project still requires nine more approvals to be granted from the Queensland and Commonwealth governments before mining can commence…
Government scientists unhappy with Adani’s modelling
The CSIRO and Geoscience Australia said the modelling used by Adani was “not suitable”, and also cast doubt over the company’s plans to protect important environments.
“A number of limitations were also identified in the proposed monitoring and management approaches, indicating they are not sufficiently robust to monitor and minimise impacts to protected environments,” the agencies’ report said…
The Australian Conservation Foundation said Australians should be “deeply sceptical about the process that led to this decision”…
Environmental lawyers flagged appealing against the approval, saying such a personal threat could compromise the process.
“Such a political threat puts a cloud over Minister Price’s possible decisions on Adani,” Jo-Anne Bragg from the Queensland Environmental Defenders Office said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/adani-gains-commonwealth-groundwater-approval/10984134
20
Listening to ABC leftist radio and they talked to some Putz who was doing his Masters in climate change , he was just as innumerate as the trolls here .
When questioned on Adani he went on with the 97% usual ideological drivel but aside from the usual non science lies he told of increased emissions at the mine site and transporting the coal to India which is a line that I’ve never heard before .
60
9 Apr: AP: Global warming is shrinking glaciers faster than thought
By SETH BORENSTEIN
A new study shows they are losing 369 billion tons of snow and ice each year, more than half of that in North America.
The most comprehensive measurement of glaciers worldwide found that thousands of inland masses of snow compressed into ice are shrinking 18 percent faster than an international panel of scientists calculated in 2013.
The world’s glaciers are shrinking five times faster now than they were in the 1960s. Their melt is accelerating due to global warming, and adding more water to already rising seas, the study found.
“Over 30 years suddenly almost all regions started losing mass at the same time,” said lead author Michael Zemp, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (LINK) at the University of Zurich. “That’s clearly climate change if you look at the global picture.”…
Since 1961, the world has lost 10.6 trillion tons of ice and snow (9.6 trillion metric tons), the study found. That’s enough to cover the lower 48 U.S. states in about 4 feet of ice…
A separate study Monday in Environmental Research Letters (LINK) confirmed faster melting and other changes in the Arctic. It found that in winter, the Arctic is warming 2.8 times faster than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Overall, the region is getting more humid, cloudier and wetter.
“It’s on steroids, it’s hyperactive,” said lead author Jason Box, a scientist for the Danish Meteorological Institute.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education.
https://apnews.com/89bdd96ba86a445b93a53df09db784b4
20
This is a good news story.
The ice loss equates to 1mm of sea level rise. It is stated that it can only go on till the end of the century:
So worst case is 80mm of sea level. Not really anything to worry about or give me hope that my house 30m above current sea level will ever have water frontage.
91
I couldn’t see any mention of Antarctica in the article, perhaps it was left out for a reason. And as discussed in earlier posts, while the experts may have measured, or estimated all the ice, any of the ice below sea level that melts won’t cause the sea level to rise, sea level already accounts for that ice
41
Yeah, look, it’s off topic I know, but I’ll bet not many of you thought that daylight savings time (DST) would have much of an effect on power generation, eh!
The nature of power consumption is that people hardly change their habits. They get up in the morning and have their breakfast, readying for work and school. They go to work and school during the day. They come home after work, and have their dinner at around the same time every day.
All of this shows on the Load Curve for power generation, the morning and evening peaks at around the same time every day. Those Load Curves have not changed since I saw my first one back in the late 60s. And despite calls for changing habits, that hasn’t happened, and it won’t to show any appreciable change no matter what they try to get you to do.
The nature of power generation is that it is instantaneous, so all data is recorded at the one time in every State of the five States in the AEMO, Queensland time, and that State has no DST.
So, even though the people still do their things by the clock, that means that, especially at that evening peak, during DST, then the individual peaks in those five States are at differing times with respect to the one time data recording of the AEMO.
That changed on Sunday when DST finished, and was most evident on this first working day of the week, Monday. On this Monday, the average power generation across the day was only slightly lower than it was on Friday. However, the peak on this Monday was 2100MW higher. On Friday, the peak was at around the same time, barely 5 minutes later in fact at 6.40PM, usual for this time of the year. The peak on Friday was spread across a little more than two hours and showed at that time almost as a flat line on the Load Curve. The individual five States had their peaks at around the same time (on the clock) but with DST, that was spread out over that longer time.
However, on this Monday, the peaks in those five States were all within 5 Minutes of each other in actual clock time, as expected, and as normal, and as an instantaneous data recording, it showed as a definite Peak on the Load Curve 2100MW higher than on the Friday.
The supply from natural gas, hydro, and those smaller Other sources also peaked right at the same time as well, also higher than on the Friday.
All due to DST.
For a further in depth analysis and accompanying Load Curve images, well that’s at the following link for the daily data for yesterday, that Monday, and that’s at the following link, and it’s down in the text for this day under the daily graphs.
Australian Daily Electrical Power Generation Data – Monday 8th April 2019
Tony.
110
Hi Tony,
Lots of duck curves in my AEMO charts, up to 31Mar19
Demand and price for each state, two series per chart per state
http://redcentresoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/AEMO_Demand_and_Price_by_State.xlsx
Demand comparing all states, 5 series per chart
Price comparing all states, 5 series per chart
http://redcentresoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/AEMO_Demand_and_Price_All_States.xlsx
From your comments, it looks like I should consider DST splits.
50
Both links are useless – time out after 90 seconds!
30
That’s a shame – they open for me in a few seconds at most. Win10, Edge browser, but it shouldn’t make any difference – it’s just a vanilla link to a remote file. Do you have Excel installed?
50
Tony,
Just wondering if you have seen this new site by the QLD GOVT!
On Natural resources (energy, land, mining etc)
Have a look at the energy section?
https://inventory.dnrme.qld.gov.au/energy
Their potential is living in fairy land!
60
Royalties received by the Qld Government in 2017-18 for oil and gas ($186m) and coal ($3.7 billion) would be reduced or lost if the Greens were to ever get their way and have energy from 100% renewable sources
50
Melissa Price signs off on Adani, the battle lines are now drawn. Popcorn anyone?
120
So we can export it but we can’t use it……Jesus f
40
Something went wrong Jesus f%%$##g wept
30
There was a race in the USA between a T model Ford and a Tesla over about 750 miles from Detroit to New York , Tesla’s home town . The Tesla won by about one hour as the T model Ford had to travel further on a slightly different route because it was too slow to drive on the freeways.
70
That is 100 years of progress!
I did my graduate thesis on electric vehicles. One of the slides I made for the presentation was a cartoon of a big battery with 4 little wheels and a guy with a steering wheel perched on the top edge of the battery. That was 46 years ago. Lithium batteries were not even on my horizon then. However the situation has not changed much. Useful battery electric vehicles are still some way down the track.
The vehicles typical of the Solar Challenge offer greater prospect, in my view, for Australia. Lightweight, aerodynamic construction covered in solar cells might be practical compact transport.
70
And its kangaroo handling capability?
60
Camels
50
Yeah but then turn around and go back the other way and see what difference that makes , the Ford would beat it .
30
Do-not-git-btw-me-‘n-me-Ford,-hit’-the-road-jack-in-god’s-own-countree,-clear-skies- ahead,-right-ter-free-movement-in-me-own-nation-state,-as right-ter-free-speech!
Jest sayin’…
60
How much fuel did it take to fly the expert out to Indonesia to fix his batteries, and did he also have to change the batteries?
That would need be set against the 6700 Pittsfield saving.
80
D… Autofill.
..the 6700 litre fuel saving.
50
That’s AI for you.
50
Haha, his “technical” assistant had to FLY in to Surabaya to help him!
In the interests of purity fo the experiment, shouldn’t he have waited for a solar-powered aeroplane?
60
An overnight contemplation for Tony
“Renewables are a better investment than carbon capture for tackling climate change”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/09/renewables-are-a-better-investment-than-carbon-capture-for-tackling-climate-change/
20
6700 litres?
In 2000; a VW Lupo circumnavigated the globe in 80 days using 1000 litres of fuel. In an unmodified car.
The Volkswagen set the record with its Lupo 3L TDI: In 80 days the car travelled 33,333 km across 5 continents using only 792.57 litres of fuel. An average or 2.38 l/100km at an average speed of 85.6 km/h. It passed through Perth before crossing the continent; at times using less than 2 l/100km on outback highways.
There are still a few “live” links to the exercise like this one but alas; the official http://www.lupo80days.com/ site is long gone.
70
Redirects to a Chinese gaming site. Make of that what you will…..
10