Litter at the entrance to B&Q

I visited B&Q recently to buy some paint and other DIY stuff. Whilst walking to the DIY store I looked down the embankment between the road entrance and the motorway bridge I spotted anormous amounts of Fast Food takeway litter.

The fact is a lot of it is in a location that would imply that it was thrown there by people in cars visiting the store and not cars passing the store heading for Leigh Park or Walmart.

The packaging is from a variety of sources including Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds.

It is sickening, especially as I believe the store provides bins in the car park.

I think authorities need to put in temporary cameras that will capture licence plate numbers and catch the culprits responsible.

As well as that I think the Fast Food businesses identified by the packaging along with B&Q need to get the mess cleared up.

Robert and Jonny talk electric vehicles and rapid charging

Robert Llewellyn and Jonny discuss the Geneva car show and rapid charging EVs.
Have to say that Fully Charged has grown from a small niche video channel into a mainstream automobile video channel, with Rob and Jonny getting invites to discuss and review Electric Vehicles and low carbon tech all over the world. It is amazing how electric vehicle technology has developed in the 11 years this blog has run. Technically it was inevitable, but politcally it is surprising how much has changed. The main problem is Trump and his nationalist policies to desperately prop up the outdated American car industry. But I think (and pray!) that it will be a minor moronic glitch.

Anyway, here is the video:

Upgraded street lamps become EV charging points

A German company has developed street lighting technology that allows Electric Vehicles to be charged at adapted street lamps. When street lighting is upgraded to low energy LED technology, the cables that supply the lamps with power are effectively under used. This is where the EV charging technology comes in. Ubitricity can install the EV charging technology in any style of lamp post, retro or modern.

Once a street lamp is installed all an EV owner has to do is to sign up with Ubitricity, the owner then receives a special cable from Ubitricity which monitors electricity usage of the owner. The user is then debted the cost of the electricity. The cable has an inline small box with buttons and a display, so I presume that it is password protected to prevent possible mis-use. However I assume that if the cable were stolen, it could be reported and the account suspended until a new cable were supplied.

No additional load is put on the local electricity cables because they were originally designed to take a bigger load than the LED lighting puts on the system.

Robert L explains in this video how it works and interviews the local council that has installed the lamps as well as a representative of Ubitricity.



https://www.ubitricity.com/en

I like classic cars, especially when they are electric

A classic car:

Robert Llewellyn electric car talk at Chichester

Robert Llewellyn - the android Kryten in Red Dwarf - is talking about electric cars at Chichester Inn, West Street, Chichester on Tues 2nd Sept, at 7.30pm.

The title of the talk is 'Electric Cars Are Rubbish Aren't They?'

Tickets are £5.

More info:
http://chichester.skepticsinthepub.org/
Also watch Roberts videos on Fully Charged

Sainsburys chop down trees for a petrol station

As Waterlooville is being turned into a building site (thanks to the Conservatives dumping any ideas of being environmentally aware) Sainsburys is duplicating Asdas actions by chopping down green things so that they can build a petrol station. This time it is trees that were originally a part of an old and established hedgerow that ran along the original path of Hambledon Road.

As a part of the plan to build a big store, Sainsburys is 'upgrading' the roundabout, thus allowing more cars to interfere with the pedestrian route into Waterlooville. Both the petrol station and roundabout developments have resulted in numerous trees being felled and ground being laid to waste.

Both Asda and Sainsburys seem to have plans for increasing green house gas emissions in the area, supported by the Brown party, namely The Conservatives.

Asda put fuel sales before plant life

In the race to supply fossil fuels to the public and with the prospect of Sainsburys building a petrol station to compliment their new store, Asda has built a petrol station in the car park near the Asda store.
The car park has had thick vegetation and trees planted around the perimeter to visually hide it from public view and this has worked for many, many years. The West of Waterlooville has been quite green with vegetation for a long time now, but it seems that marketing, bad planning and profiteering is overriding common sense.

The 'hedgerow' that once surrounded the car park has now been thinned out, but not thinned all around the car park, just the bit that was hiding the Petrol station from public view. From the photo you can see the vegetation at the back is thicker than in the forground. To the right you can see the roof of the petrol station, the vegetation has been cleared so that cars approaching Waterlooville along the dual carriageway can see the Petrol station.

It's sad, but this imitates the larger picture we have today, where the environment is not integrated into economic, community and political thinking. A large American corporation is putting petrol sales and the production of green house gas emissions above wider community interests and the environment.

The silly thing is that it is far more noticeable because they only thinned out a section that was clearly blocking drivers views of the Petrol station!

It's a pity that Asda can find the money to chop down bushes and other vegetation, but can't find the money to pick up the garbage dropped by it's shoppers and is a direct result of their operational policies.

But then their corporate mentality and the people they employ at the top are not interested in integrating nature into their business model.

Robert Checks Out The Latest Nissan Leaf

Robert checks out the new version of the Nissan Leaf and visits the Sunderland plant where it is manufactured...

Robert Llewellyn test drives a VolksWagen e-UP!

Renault Zoe test driven by Robert Llewellyn

In a new series of videos for the Fully Charged YouTube channel, Robert Llewellyn test drives the Renault Zoe, due to go on sale this year. He explains the new technology used in the car and how the batteries are leased:

Walk a mile? Waterlooville is closer than you think

How long does it take to walk a mile?
The answer is 15 minutes (at a brisk pace), that's 4 miles an hour.

Is this slower than driving a mile to one of Waterloovilles car parks? Well not really, if you think about it, taking into account the traffic hold ups at lights, junctions and roundabouts, then finding a parking space, fetching a ticket and then walking from the car park to the centre, at best you might shave a few minutes off the journey and would have added some weight to your waist!
On a bad day it may very well take longer than walking. Also when the West of Waterlooville MDA is finished, traffic will get worse, why not start walking today!

So what is the point of driving, when walking costs nothing, rebuilds some muscles you lost, and loses you some weight.

How far is a mile, you may well ask?

It's about 1 mile from:
1. Hart Plain Avenue/London Rd junction to Waterlooville centre.
2. Hambledon Parade to Waterlooville centre.
3. Purbrook to Waterlooville centre.

Basically many thousands of people live within a 15 minute walk from Waterlooville. Do yourself and others a favour, walk to Waterlooville.