Off Topic The Environmental & Pollution Thread

I have been to Japan a fair number of times and the family I stay with have a Hydrogen powered car and mini pickup truck. They work flawlessly and the only emission is water. Japan and other Asian countries are really pushing the development of Hydrogen powered vehicles and machinery.

This video shows that Hydrogen can be another alternative power and energy storage source, and Hydrogen could replace petrol and diesel at conventional fuel stations. That is one way to get around the problems of charging electrical vehicles on long journeys and it also does away with the pollution created in manufacturing batteries.

 

I’ve long held the belief that hydrogen may be the way forward rather than battery technology. Making batteries takes massive amounts of energy and resources, and then you have to use even more energy to charge them, whereas producing hydrogen from water by electrolysis takes pretty much the same amount of energy as you gain by burning it.

 

You are probably right.........Although this new battery type they are talking about 1500 mile duration etc maybe a real solution. Hydrogen can be a bit explosive and Im not sure they have sorted natural protection out properly yet. The manufacturing side environmentally possibly similar?

 

On a simplistic topic to help cut down on the use of paper, companies, such as the one I work for, must change the way they receive deliveries.
Every driver has to report to the Goods In desk, prior to unloading, where he/she has to present paperwork detailing the load contents.
No paperwork means no tipping “until a manifesto is electronically received”, and then the load can be tipped.
IMO all delivery details should be sent electronically, but some companies just don’t want to let go of old and unnecessary systems, thus using reams of paper.
Also, pretty much everything is wrapped in plastic, of which we recycle the clear plastic but don’t recycle coloured plastic, of which there is quite a substantial amount.
A simple rule change insisting on the use of clear plastic would at least enable it all to be recycled.

 

I'm with you there Badger. The technology is around to go totally paperless. Goods scanned in, signed for etc. The workflow is also a lot more efficient.

One of my future things I am working on (once i get made redundant) is with a company in the US that have developed a chip that if mass produced will cost about 5 pence per unit. This can be integrated into a label and be tracked anywhere - You can also use it for locating an item in a warehouse etc. The GPS side is nearly there - they have patented a way to find a chip without the need for power using the atomic clocks in cell towers. Exciting stuff. You can also add this chip to every part of a product so you can locate all the items of the finished product if you get what i mean. Also means returned items to retailers will have to be the actual items not the case of "I'll buy another and return the one i broke"

 

Surely though most deliverers are already computerised. If a parcel is delivered and requires a signature I usually have to sign a mobile or similar. Even the Post office do it this way now don’t they?

 

Yep I think Badger is talking about internally in his company. Probably has a goods in and there is company paperwork etc.

 

Considering getting solar panels and a storage battery for the house from a company called Project Solar UK and energy from Social Energy (who sell your excess electricity back to the grid when its required). Looks promising - not necessarily from a monetary position (though I’ve calculated payback at 10 years or less dependent on how much electricity prices rise) but it’ll be true green power and I’ll look to converting my heating to radiant panels, thus reducing my home gas usage. Fingers crossed!

 

You won’t regret it Dave, I promise you. When I retired I spent a chunk of my lump sum on just such a system. In those days of course you got a decent feed-in tariff from the government which has sadly vanished but you should still get enough back to offset most of your electricity bill.

It’s win-win of course, because I added on the cost of the solar system to my asking price when I sold the house, despite the estate agent telling me not to, and ended up just £5k short!

 

Yeah talking about the company I work for.
Paper is still God and it’s not just the paper manifesto but the amount of paper labels on the individual pallets as well. It is just a waste of paper, as the paper often gets put in with general waste and not into recycling bins.

Edit.
My department receives anywhere between 650 and 1000 pallets everyday, and the overall total of pallets, for the depot, regularly exceeds 2500 per day.
If each pallet contains just one sheet of A4 paper (some have 4-6) you can work out how much paper can be lost to recycling each day.
Also with that number of pallets per day try and get your head around how much shrink wrap is used, not just on the pallets received but also on pallets sent out to the shops everyday.
The euro pallets we use are 1200cm x 800cm, so going round it once adds up to 4 metres, and depending on how flimsy the boxes on the pallets are, you could be using in excess of 100 m of wrap per pallet (they can be stacked quite high so the expression “wrap the **** out of it” is a basic guideline).

 

Mate I have solar panels..........My roof is facing SSE........I do quite well. I expect they should pay for themselves in 6.5 years. I didn't do the battery route.........may do in the future.

Edit.....forgot to mention they do heat my water when there is enough light to save gas.

 

Cheers, Beddy. I face ENE so they’re going on the front of the house. Have calculated worst case scenario, so hoping payback is less than 10. However, primary reason is not really financial. I’m retired so, some of my lump sum has gone to it and I’m doing it for my granddaughter.
Will be interested when it’s running to see how it goes - I get an app which shows me real-time usage, battery storage etc. I reckon I’ll be getting quite OCD about that, lol!
When I get my EV they’ll install a charger for free too

 

Petition signing time folks. Ask Boris Johnson to stop subsidising the fossil fuel industry. Remember, globally they get $6.7 trillion dollars in annual handouts. Just share it afterwards:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petiti...t2020-01-13&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email

 

Done.

 

There's a few things wrong with using hydrogen as a fuel. One, you have to make it, and it isn't that easy in quantity. You can steam recover it from Methane [our old friend Natural Gas] or through Electrolysis. It has been calculated that an amount of hydrogen, that provides the same miles as petrol/diesel, will cost the same as those. For me. that's not an improvement. However, it uses all the same/similar infrastructure that fossil fuels use, so the FF companies would provide it. That's also a step sideways for me. I want to be free from them, if possible. In making hydrogen you have to use quite a bit of electricity. So why not put that straight into a battery?

Here is the excellent Real Engineering Youtube channel which provides a very balanced comparison. This is from July 2018, so the odd fact is out of date. However, calculations of efficiencies are still valid:

 

Ocean temperatures hit record high as the rate of heating accelerates .....

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...it-record-high-as-rate-of-heating-accelerates

 

Yes, this gamble with keeping global temperature increases down to 1.5 Celsius by 2030 is beginning to look like a real long shot. Even 2 Celsius looks doubtful. That's a lot of heat power put into the global ecosystem.

 

Signed and shared on FB.

 

You know what? Heat pumps. Pump the heat out of the water [reverse process of a refrigerator] and heat our homes with it. I like heat pumps.

 

Why not use the natural heat that is under ground like they have in the centre of Southampton that heat a couple of thousand council homes???