Electric cars.

Fair point, however with all of this renewable power and the need for storage beyond batteries there is no reason anything should be off the table? Just because we haven't done something to date, doesn't mean we shouldn't?

Again, accepted - however it is not impossible to work with and store; leak detection would be an issue for sure, but then surely if only on a relatively large scale? Amounts in the microscopic measurements would rapidly disappear in air. Could there be a compound of hydrogen that is safer to use in a fuel cell for example? No rule that says it has to be a combustion engine. Again, just because we haven't doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't.

Glyphosate, yes I do use very occasionally (very sparingly when I have exhausted all other avenues - having spent this weekend getting torn to bits hauling brambles out rather than hit them with weedkiller, I would say I am justified in saying sparingly. You may use used motor oil to paint your fences, but I wouldn't recommend it - I prefer a low VOC stain myself.

They did say in the article that it is battery technology overall and not just cars - mobile phones, tablets, PC's, almost everything has a battery in it nowadays; given the saturation of batteries in our lives, to have 5% as the 'best' we can do is pretty disgusting to be honest. Yes, I accept that there is almost certainly development to be done but now is the time it should be ramping up - - not when we get 10 years down the line and all of a sudden find ourselves awash with batteries. Even stationary storage will not use up all of those batteries at 70% capacity. We cannot laud something as being a green solution whilst at the same time kicking the environmental dangers and issues that come alongside it into the long grass.

 

40 years ago when I was in Brazil they were running their cars on ethanol made from sugar cane. They have changed that now to being able to run on ethanol or petrol and they're called FFV's (flex fuel vehicles) and I understand that 75% of cars are now in that category.

 

Until 18 months ago there was a fairly rigid restriction on growing the cane in the rainforest so up until then there was a big plus for using it. That idiot Bolsonaro has now scrapped that law. The system is good but the implementation is bad.

When they originally started producing the cane for fuel they changed the use of fields and moved sugar cane to where the wheat fields were (it grows better in the lowlands) and the wheat was moved to the hillier areas where it could grow, but then they had the problem of travelling further to bring it to the mills. It was still a win for the environment.

If they kick out Bolsonaro I don't know whether they would be able to effectively bring the restrictions back in.

 

Although I agree that it's now a worse problem than it was they have always had a water problem there. Their main, almost only, income is from chemical extraction from the salt flats.

Some useless information:- Chemical extraction from the Atacama has been a major industry for 150 years. Around the 1870's the twin settlements of Humberstone and Santa Laura were built to extract saltpetre/nitrates from the desert and weren't closed down until the 1960's. This closure was only due to Germany producing artificial fertilisers. Humberstone still stands as a World Heritage Site.

The area used to be part of Peru until the War of the Pacific (known as the Saltpetre War or the Ten Cents War). There are some interesting stories about it. It was between Chile and the coalition of Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia started the war but never took part in it . The conflict lasted five years from 1879 but the final settlement wasn't until 50 years later.

Peru lost a lot of their land to Chile and the locals still refuse to call the desert in their country the Atacama Desert because that is what the Chileans call it! The Peruvians just call it The Desert.

 

Pre pandemic that had been discussed, briefly, in Parliament but got lost in the confusion over coronavirus. I still think it's a good idea.

 

I think the latest discussion was about whether to make sure the noise can't be switched off - which is allowed at the moment. Why they only limited up to 'speeds' of 12 m.p.h. is beyond me. Why put in a safety device and then have it switch itself off?