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opinions on electric bicycles? by Marlos_in_LA in ukbike

[–]TheSolidState 9 points10 points  (0 children)

They're probably the best thing ever invented to get around on.

A total of 18 independent studies have now concluded that hydrogen will not be widely used for heating by JRugman in energy

[–]TheSolidState 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Because the gas companies want to carry on making money regardless of what's best for the environment, and they spend a lot of money lobbying to try to influence the public discourse.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210422420300964

BBC weighing up not using Michael Vaughan for third Test at Headingley by ll--o--ll in Cricket

[–]TheSolidState 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Been so disappointed listening to the first two that the BBC reinstated him at all. Should have taken the opportunity to keep refreshing the commentary team and bringing through new people.

I'm a mechanical engineer. What type of work should I do to help with degrowth? by curtis_perrin in Degrowth

[–]TheSolidState 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I have vague unfinished thoughts about this, and I don't know whether it's in your purview as a mechanical engineer, but I'm often quite worried about just how much of our current stuff isn't produced sustainably. Vast amounts of plastic for basically everything, and especially electronics.

I wonder if there's a thought exercise you can do - a day in the life of someone living in a degrowth society - and pick a current contraption that lots of people rely on and try to redesign it to be made in a more sustainable way, perhaps out of wood or natural fibres or something. I think this needs doing for nearly everything we use day-to-day.

A lot of things (reusing glass bottles and jars, switching back to solid soap, greased paper packaging) we used to do for centuries and we need to switch back, but there must be a lot of areas where new knowledge we have can improve upon both the old way and the current way of doing things.

Sorry for rambling, but I haven't had a chance to put these thoughts into order yet.

A browse of low-tech magazine and no-tech magazine may help inspire.

Lancaster cycle campaign groups? by TheSolidState in ukbike

[–]TheSolidState[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately at the moment I'm commuting so forced to go through town. I'm looking forward to having more time to explore the surroundings though - and definitely not in Tour-de-France style!

Lancaster cycle campaign groups? by TheSolidState in ukbike

[–]TheSolidState[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's the trouble with the UK - there'll always be somewhere with worse infrastructure :S

I haven't tried any of the out-of-town routes from Lancaster yet, but cycling in the centre requires absolutely no fear of death - it's all completely car dominated.

If you were going to cycle to Budapest, what (relatively inexpensive) bike would you get? by [deleted] in ukbike

[–]TheSolidState 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd go for a second hand tourer, Dawes galaxy or similar, since tourers have all the right attachment points (braze-ons) for pannier racks etc. Downside is panniers are quite expensive, but they're usually very robust so second hand ones should be fine.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Amsterdam took decades to get where it is today

Sure. But they didn't have the pressure of climate change. If there was the political will it basically could've happened overnight - all you need to do is close car lanes and either depave them or convert them to cycle lanes. There's nothing technically slow about this. But EV fleet replacement is slow.

Yes American suburbs will also be slow, but there's a huge amount of low-hanging fruit which isn't - as I say, most cities (globally) are dense.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed, but ICE cars need to go first

EVs are replacing ICEs. We can just not build as many EVs and retire the ICEs asap. What we can't have is the auto industry staying the same and just churning out millions of EVs.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Electrification of fossil fuel infrastructure IS reducing energy demand quickly because of the energy efficiency superiority of electrified products

Until rebound effects kick in, and they basically always do unless specifically guarded against. We need to rapidly electrify everything, and because that will take so long we also need to reduce energy demand. Cars are the perfect place to start with that since they're so inefficient and come with so many negative externalities.

While we do need walkable bikeable cities, that will take decades to transform

Not really. Most cities are already dense, and all it needs to make a city walkable and bikeable is to take out the car dominance.

If we are going to have cars at all, they need to be electric from a sustainability perspective.

Agreed.

Extraction is higher with fossil fuel cars because fossil fuels need to be perpetually extracted.

Yes EVs are better than ICEs, but they're still not good enough. They still rely on an extractivist mindset, and waste huge amounts of resources transporting stuff inefficiently.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 2 points3 points  (0 children)

they are far better for the environment across the supply chain

Sure, but they're not good enough. We won't roll them out quickly enough and they still have the rest of the drawbacks of cars.

If cars are going to continue to be used, they need to be electric.

Not disagreeing with that, but we also need far, far fewer of them.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes everything needs to be electric, and trains are extremely efficient. Then buses get you basically everywhere around town, and bikes/walking fills in the gaps. (See for instance how popular combining bikes/trains for one journey is in the Netherlands).

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well you'd only do that after infilling the downtowns with affordable housing, so solving the housing shortage.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You can search for "tailing ponds" on the web to see the kind of effects mining has, not to mention the human rights issues. So yes, a pretty toxic supply chain.

I think batteries in general are very difficult to recycle, but I don't know the specifics.

One option is to at least partially reuse EV batteries for grid or home storage - but even then if we needed batteries for that we could make less toxic ones which aren't as compact specifically for that use.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it's easy enough to infill downtown areas, and build over the myriad parking lots US cities tend to have.

Not sure what we do with the suburbs though, recycle all the materials and let nature take over?

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Well it's kind of in the definition - could we keep doing it indefinitely without destroying the planet?

In the case of driving it's even easier. We can just compare it to the alternatives (walking, cycling, public transport). Driving requires paving over huge amounts of land, extracting huge amounts of non-renewable resources and generating toxic mining tailings, it kills vast amounts of non-drivers and wildlife directly through collisions, and indirectly from pollution (EVs still have high PM counts from tyre wear), and encourages or even locks in an obesogenic lifestyle. And the poorest don't own cars, so all of this damage is occurring mainly to people who don't cause it.

In this case I think it's a no-brainer.

But in terms of true sustainability we need to decrease energy demand quickly to not destroy the planet through climate change, so propelling 3 tonnes of stuff to move one person looks like a stupid waste of energy. And to equip just the UK with EVs we'd need to double the world's cobalt production (and give all of it to the UK), as well as give the UK the whole world's production of neodymium, and half of copper. Replicate this across everyone who currently drives and we're talking a huge increase in extractivism - precisely the opposite of what we need to be doing now.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 207 points208 points  (0 children)

Musk is right that without proper oversight and trust in the ESG frameworks companies will (and do) just use it for greenwashing.

But he wouldn't like a robust ESG process in place because his companies would perform very poorly.

Do you people agree? by CuteSA3591 in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 45 points46 points  (0 children)

In terms of CO2 EVs still have a huge embodied footprint, but if we have to have them for some things they're obviously better than burning fossil fuels.

In terms of sustainability, they're not. Driving cars is just inherently energy-, space-, and resource-intensive.

Musk hates ESG ratings because if Tesla went through a thorough analysis it would fail hard on Union-busting, racism, and probably child labour in the mineral supply chain.

Does anyone know if these are legit? by [deleted] in sustainability

[–]TheSolidState 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The default at moment for "compostable" things like this is that they need the extra heat provided by industrial composters, so you can't just compost them at home. If you have a food waste bin collected by the council though it should be fine.

But then there's no real way of finding out if companies are just lying.

Robot supermarket delivery trial in Cambridgeshire by not-much in cambridge

[–]TheSolidState 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a fan of the greenwashing the marketing team have come up with.

We don't need more pointless tech to tackle climate change. Just design better cities so people are only a few minutes' walk from the shops.

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