Climate Change, Clean Energy, Carbon Netural, Recycle.........

[stevo qld]

Britain's roads could be paralysed by Beijing with electric cars made in China with "major security issues", an industry figure has warned.

Professor Jim Saker, president of the Institute of the Motor Industry, says between 100,000 and 300,000 electric cars in Europe could be immobilised remotely by officials in China.

Saker warned that "the threat of connected electric vehicles flooding the country could be the most effective Trojan horse that the Chinese establishment has" if Beijing wanted to destabilise the UK economy.

Industry analysts have said that 30 electric car brands are preparing to target the UK market before the government's planned ban on the sale of petrol vehicles from 2030 – with many of those being based in China.

Saker said in a report that will go to manufacturers and regulators that he feared it was impossible to prevent the Chinese from including spyware in the vehicles that could be used to bring them to a halt simultaneously.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/beijing-can-bring-roads-to-standstill-with-electric-cars/news-story/1ef6f0e71ce7b3cf836ebef43969ab41

[AlbertM]

The case against green energy is one of shortsightedness, ignorance and commercial greed for fossil fuels.

Green or renewable energy is not meant to stop climate change or revert the climate. It to slow the human impact on the climate. It is to prolong life on this planet for future generations, not our sorry little asses now.

There has been no leap in human advancement that has hurt humanity. If fact technology has made our lives better in everyway. The same arguments against renewables is the same argument had for centuries. We don't need the steam engine, we have the Horse. We don't need the internal combustion engine, we have steam. We don't need electric motors, we have internal combustion...

Kind of ironic that older generations berate the younger ones for demanding instant gratification. Renewable technologies are a slow burn. Just because we haven't figured out every little detail does not mean the technology is a failure or won't lead to better tech in the future.

The space race is a good example. Humanity got F'all from the physical act of landing a Man on the Moon. But the technology it spun from attaining that goal has made us better.

[mikeamerica84]

America's first new nuclear reactor in nearly seven years starts operations

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/31/vogtle-unit-3-nuclear-reactor-long-delayed-starts-delivering-power.html

I'll let you all read it vice posting the article.

Here in the USA back in the late 60s/early 70s nuclear energy was the future.  Zero carbon footprint.  I do not think that term was in use yet but moreso no polluting smoke billowing upwards from the current coal burners.

Unfortunately the technology was not promoted to the public as it could have been.  The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 dealt the business a blow it would never recover from.  The event was totally caused by the operations/operators of the plant vice decades later when a natural disaster tsunami hit Japan.  All construction essentially halted on new plants after March of 1979.  Coal and gas continued to roll on for the USA had huge reserves of both (cheap).

To put the final nail in the coffin, the movie The China Syndrome came out just weeks prior to the TMI accident.  That movie in itself, although not great, turned out to be a blockbuster for it was the only knowledge your average Joe American had about nuclear electrical generation.

My how one event can alter history.

Right now nuclear is still carbon free.  Spent fuel is stored onsite at the plants in dry casks.  Much safer and efficient than trying to store them in a common depository somewhere.  But the US government, jumping on the green bandwagon vice the scientific bandwagon, decided to subsidize wind and solar, putting nuclear costs further out of alignment to keep pace, and now smaller nuclear plants (600-700 MW) are being decommissioned.  The nuclear plant I just retired from was rated at 2300 MW (two twin plants).  That, my friends, is a lot of juice.  Solar and wind cannot even come close to matching that output.

But the cost of trying to go back to a nuclear front is huge.  Private companies will not take the plunge.  The feds have to get involved and a standard model of a plant has to be decided upon.  Back in the 60s and 70s there  were utility companies with multiple nuclear plants but of different designs - General Electric, Westinghouse, etc.  The decommissioning of smaller plants does not help.

If one thinks nuclear is not safe enough, so be it.  Electric cars are less polluting.  Sure they are.  But you have to charge them.  How?  Coal and gas? 

Always remember in this debate:  Nothing is free.  Choose your weapon.

[AlbertM]

Nothing is free.

Never truer words spoken. And the toll is more than just money.