Trump can't stop progress

It is now inevitable that electric road vehicles, boats and even aircraft will replace our fossil fuel transport. I really don't think anything can stop it now, certainly not the ignorant Trump.
Bloomberg this week reported on research about battery technology reducing in price in the next 4 years to the point that Electric Vehicles will likely be cheaper than diesel or petrol engined cars.
Cheaper maintanance as well, with so few moving parts in EVs.
Robert in this video says a company is installing super fast chargers in the UK that have the capacity to charge the batteries of a suitable EV in 5 or 10 minutes. An Israeli company has developed batteries that might take that charge.


Anyway here is Roberts latest video:

Empty Shops of Waterlooville in May 2017

Council approve demolition of The Wellington pub

The state of Waterlooville. The Wellington pub boarded up. The pubs name reflects the relationship Waterlooville has with the Battle of Waterloo. It was originally built in 1867.

The pub has been approved for demolition by our Tory led council, yet another example of the long standing destructive attitude Havant Borough Council has had regarding Waterloovilles heritage and history.

Tories out, Tories out, Tories out, out, out

Those of a certain age will recognise the chant in the title of this post.

I am no great fan of the Tories, largely because of many supporters and MPs that have shown little understanding of renewable energy and climate change/science.
The trouble is they are going to far with their ideology and are lying their heads off about the miracle change they are going through, suggesting that they are going 'mainstream'.

The fact is their manifesto is full of the same ideological attacks on British life and everything that we know as being British.

The NHS is falling apart under their watch. Lack of funding has resulted in the IT meltdown this past week. Although I do not work in the NHS or have anything to do with it, but the incident has directly impacted on my work.

Our retirement prospects are gradually deteriorating as the Tories gradually bring in more 'liberal capitalist' policies (cutting state costs) sneaking them by us in a sugar coating and claiming that they are 'mainstream'. When you wake up you will realise that nothing that we built since 1945 still exists, the sum total of all Tory policies will be a Britain with a 1930s (or earlier) feel, including all the injustices and inequalities of those times, supported by intrusive modern technology.

Their Social Care policy outlined in the manifesto will mean many of us will pay for the care of a parent in one way or another and the economics are false. The government will probably end up paying for care even if they do not do so directly.

Take time off work to care for someone and you have less money to spend and you pay less tax, you are also investing less for your own retirement and that in turn means you may need government support or will have less to spend in your retirement. If you don't take time off work and you get government help to pay for care for a parent, that will cost you during the care period or later when the government claim assets from your parents estate.

If you live with your parents, then you may be forced to sell your inherited property to pay for the care, that in turn will reduce your prospects and may result in you needing government support including social housing or council housing. In many cases the government will probably end up paying down the line anyway, if not the all a families wealth could be stripped away over a number of decades.

Many people do the best they can, work and earn money, do what they can to improve their lives with little dependency on government help. But the Tories still go out and try and penalise our efforts, with reduced pension guarentees, higher taxes, reduced health care support, poor financing of our defence forces, reduced social care support and scrapping free school lunches.

Isentropic lives!

I have blogged about this company a number of times. They got into trouble a while ago and went into insolvency, however their energy storage technology was world class and cutting edge, so they have risen like a phoenix and live again.

Based in Fareham, they are now supported by Newcastle University and the grid level energy storage demonstrator project is now being commissioned and will start being tested at a sub station this summer. This is an important project as the technology is both cheap and efficient.

To read more about this great project visit the Isentropic (now the National Facility for Pumped Heat Energy Storage) web site:

http://www.isentropic.co.uk

Ugly block of flats proposed for Waterlooville

Havant Borough Council appears to be determined to allow the ugliest buildings to be built in Waterlooville. The proposal for Wellington Way probably beats them all, some 8 storeys high and the design looks like a typical 1960s block.

https://www.havant.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/briefing%20note.pdf

When will we ever learn in the UK?
We know cheap well designed energy efficient buildings are possible, yet councils allow appalling crap to be built. British bodging dominated by cowboy developers and builders.

If you would like a say in this proposal, the council consultation will be on 24th May starting at 6pm at Havant Borough Council offices (The Plaza as they now call it).

https://www.havant.gov.uk/planning-and-environment/development-consultation-forums

Progress tackling climate change?

So many good things have been achieved over the period since I started blogging. The fact is humanity is brilliant at finding technological solutions to problems that climate science throws our way, including solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, electric road vehicles, electric aircraft and electric everything!  However politicians and vested interests do what they can to slow down the inevitable technological change. We are going through such a period now. Political Luddites try to reverse policies that achieved great things all in order to support an unsustainable economy and gratify voters that have been lied to by political ideologists and propagandists.

The fact is the science remains the same, the planet that we live on is warming at a faster rate because of human produced greenhouse gases. The Arctic is warming at the fastest rate which is exactly as predicted by mainstream climate science. There are literally thousands of other signs and facts that support mainstream science, yet there are people that choose to find alternative theories or more often than not they do not even know (or want to know) that the world around them is changing.

So what has been achieved?

Electric Vehicles

This is a growing success story. The revolution probably started around 2000 when Toyota started getting serious about hybrid cars (Prius), then around 2008/2009 Tesla started producing the Roadster. Since then the pace has picked up, with huge improvements in last few years in battery development and vehicle design. This development is also linked to automation features in new vehicles, such as self driving cars.

One unexpected path has been the growing field of electric car racing, including drag racing, Tesla car racing and the more formal yearly Formula E season. There is a long way to go, but the fact is 'range anxiety' is gradually fading and the incredible performance of electric vehicles along with low maintenance costs means the future is bright for electric road transport. Worldwide there are about 50 electric models on sale in 2017 and Tesla are launching their first electric truck later in the year.

Solar Energy

Another success story, largely driven by common sense and foreign uptake of the technology. The success of solar photovoltaics is largely due to automated mass production capabilities, enabling economies of scale. The more installations there are across the world, the cheaper the technology gets.

This is why solar energy is predicted to be cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels, these old (Victorian) technologies can not compete with the reliability, low maintenance costs and low life cycle/energy costs of solar energy.  

Wind Energy

Wind energy has been more controversial as a result of lies and myths (many discussed on this blog) regarding wind farms. There have been campaigns to discredit wind energy for purely political purposes and to prop up ailing fossil fuel energy businesses. Nearly all of the British countryside is industrialised by agriculture, so the idea that a wind turbine is going to industrialise natural habitats is largely a result of a poor understanding of the British landscape.

Energy Storage

This is a growing area for investment and it is sad that Fareham based company Isentropic went into administration. However the good news is that the development of their Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) system continues with the support of Newcastle University at the Sir Joseph Swan Centre and work continues at the Fareham site. According to the new web site the grid scale demonstrator is being commisioned and will be going through performance testing this summer.

Apart from Insentropic the current popular technology is the battery and the improvements in this area as a result of electric vehicle development is spilling over into grid and domestic energy storage.
Tesla is again a leader in this field although there have been many other companies less well known that have been developing battery technology for a number of years. Energy storage will help to remove power stations from the grid, allowing renewable energy to be stored when there is excess and to be distributed when there is shortage.

I think Elon Musk the founder of Tesla, Space X and Solar City deserves a mention. Musk is a modern day Thomas Edison which is ironic considering he named his company after Nikola Tesla a rival of Edison (Teslas AC electricity distribution system was superior to Edisons DC system, but Tesla ended gained little for his efforts). Musk is a visionary engineer and business man, he cofounded Pay Pal, sold his share and used the money to revolutionise road vehicles and the space transport industry. He knows that climate change is a serious problem caused by our carbon emissions.

St Georges Font vandalised

Photo of font at Easter, before vandalism,

I have been made aware that the font at St Georges Church was vandalised at the end of April. Basically it was pushed over and as a consequence was smashed to pieces.

If you would like to help with donations for the font repairs/replacement and to improve security at the church, visit the church web site:  http://www.stgeorgesnews.org/

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/our-region/waterlooville/vandals-smash-church-font-to-pieces-1-7928389