IMAGE BY ROBBI NEWMAN
*all blogs and the views expressed are entirely the writers own and Living Ocean waives any responsibility for views expressed, even if we believe them to be true. "It feels like the future, and the longer I own it, the more the idea of burning fossil fuel seems like the past" The future is fast, silent and exciting. Just over a year ago I was in the market for a compact modern hatchback for zapping around Sydney, and on an impulse test drove a 2015 BMW i3 with 26,000 k’s on the clock. About 100m into the drive, I was hooked and ended up buying it. This is the effect it has on every passenger or driver due to the effortless and silent power. It feels like the future, and the longer I own it, the more the idea of burning fossil fuel seems like the past. Since then I have completed 14,000.km’s, for a total cost in electricity of $560, charging exclusively from a standard 240v power point in my garage. The range is about 120k which rules it out for long trips, but it handles every journey I ever want to do within the Sydney metro including to the airport and back from my home in Avalon. The 2019 version now has more than double the range which provides an indication about how quickly battery technology is improving. One of the advantages of EV’s is their simplicity. The motor has one moving part, and the one speed gear box has only a few, so the total is small compared to the hundreds in the typical modern ICE ( internal combustion engine ) drivetrain. And the brakes don’t get used much as lifting off will slow the car to a complete stop while recharging the battery. All of this is reflected in the running costs which are significantly less. My i3 recently had its’ annual service and all that it needed was new brake fluid, and a window washer bottle top up. The main appeal of EV’s is zero emissions, but you can’t brag about that if you are using coal fired electricity, so I switched over to Power Shop which provides 100 % renewable power. Plus the factory where they are made in Germany also runs on 100% renewable energy, so bragging rights are preserved.  This is the second age of electric cars as they dominated car sales in the early 1900’s competing against petrol and steam power. In New York alone there were 15,000 EVs running around and charging stations through out the city. Even Grandma Duck had one !  At one stage Henry Ford and Thomas Edison teamed up to form the Electric Car Company, but petrol took over once the US government started building roads to connect the major cities.  1920's electric car. Thats over 100 years ago! Fossil fuel barons buried the concept. Speaking of driving between major cities, last Christmas I drove from Munich to Nice with my son in his Tesla model S which is about 1000 k’s. We did not attempt to maximise the range, and hit 200 a few times on the autobahn, but charging did not add any time to the trip as we topped up at Telsa fast charging stations at mid - morning , lunch and mid - afternoon. In each case we did not stop any longer than we would have in an ICE( Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle. The i3’s battery is warranted for 8 years, but overseas experience is showing that the batteries are lasting a lot longer than any one expected. I read a prediction recently that the battery in my car should be good for 20 years or 800,000 k’s, but I haven’t researched that thoroughly yet. End of life is defined as a 20% drop in charging capacity, so the battery will probably last longer than me. At present EV’s are much more expensive the ICE vehicles, but that will change rapidly. VW are planning on releasing 30 new EV’s between now and 2025 in every category ( including a super cool Kombi ), and their stated aim is to sell them at the same price as the ICE equivalent. Every car manufactures is jumping on board as most major cities are going to ban ICE cars in the next few years, there will be no other way to meet new emission and economy targets . Some may think that EV’s will be boring, but this is the best car I have ever owned including a couple of 911’s.  Norway races ahead because they made a fortune from fossil fuels and invested in a sovereign fund that has allowed them to now rapidly divest from that industry and go 'green'. The irony is Australia isn't even on the chart below. To add insult to this fact, Norway is having one last slurp of black gold here in the Great Australian Bight so they can afford to make the transition to electric even faster. 
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 Distinguished conservation biologist. Award-winning author & broadcaster. Eco-stress physiologist Reese Halter specialises in Earth life support systems. The whales, turtles, manatees, dugongs, albatross, ravens, hummingbirds are his brothers and sisters. Visit DrReese.com *all blogs and the views expressed are entirely the writers own and Living Ocean waives any responsibility for views expressed, even if we believe them to be true.  *Earth is roasting right before our very eyes. The heatwaves in Siberia and Lapland have begun with fury, again. Alaska recorded its hottest spring on record. It’s warming at 2.2C (3.96F), or, twice that of continental United States. The more fossil fuels burned, the faster the globe heats. That means less polar ice and more global heating methane and laughing gas from the thawing soils. A deadly feedback loop.  The second heatwave in three weeks is parked over Siberia. Image credit: Twitter At the melting North Pole, researchers have linked Man-made heat from fossil fuel combustion with the jet stream’s erratic sinuous behaviour. In the past, the six-mile high tropical, mid-latitude and polar jet streams reached wind speeds averaging 300 mph, powered by the difference in temperature between the tropics and Arctic. Today, the northern hemisphere jet stream winds repeatedly sputter. Instead of tightly hugging tropical, mid-latitude and polar bands, huge jet stream waves are stretching across the northern hemisphere. Climate instability has broken loose. Not just in the winter.  In USA the March 2019 prediction that two-thirds of the lower 48 faced flooding for months, came true. Image credit: NOAA Epic flooding across the U.S. this spring has prevented farmers from planting corn and soybeans. Some estimates predict as many as 10 million acres were under water or too soggy and late to plant. 125-year flooding records were squashed and there’s more flooding ahead. Heatwaves and droughts are wreaking havoc amongst Earth’s emerald crown, its largest remaining tracts of ancient forests. It’s tinderbox dry across northern Canada. Firestorms are raging. One out of control monster, the Chuckegg Creek Fire, is roaring near Alberta’s fossil fuel tar sands. It’s 50 percent larger than last year’s record breaking Mendocino Complex Fire in California.  As many as 11,000 people were evacuated from their homes as firestorm embers spewed over parts of northern Alberta. Image credit: CNN Across Canada, 87 wildfires are scorching the land and incinerating wildlife. 6 million acres are charred each year. It’s doubled since the 1970s. The fires season is beginning sooner, burning hotter and lasting longer into the autumn. Human fossil fuel fingerprints are all over this crime scene. Forests are the lungs of Earth, vital climate stabilizers. The more subsidized fossil fuels that are combusted, the faster atmospheric oxygen tumbles.  Greenland’s melting ice will flood coastal megacities around the world, from New York to Sydney, as sea level rise accelerates from burning fossil fuels. Image credit: Henry Patton Further south, along the U.S. eastern seaboard, Gulf coasts and elsewhere, intense polar heat is very evident as sea level rise is also killing the forests. Greenland is melting almost six times faster than the 1980s. It lost two billion tons of ice on Thursday. Unprecedented.  On the other side of the world, India a nation of 1.3 billion humans is broiling. Earlier this week, the capital of New Delhi broke its all-time high of 48C (118.4F). A day later, a merciless heat dome smothered many millions of people as the mercury soared to 50.6C (123.1F). India has a water shortage. How will they contend with the next decade?  This 32,000 square-mile Antarctic sea ice hole was detected in September 2017 from satellite imagery. Image credit: NASA In the middle of winter, the South Pole, too, is melting at an unprecedented rate. Vast holes the size of South Carolina and larger are splitting open sea ice. There’s so much fossil fuel heat stored deep within the Southern Ocean, it’s begun to surface and devour sea ice with vengeance. Earth is losing its white reflective surfaces everywhere. While these Man-made telltales are flashing code red, rapacious bankers are instructing corrupt politicians to greenlight more fossil fuel plays and disregard all scientific warnings. For example this week in Queensland Australia, the government rubber-stamped a water permit enabling the Indian-based Adani Group to drain a rare oasis, the Doongmabulla Complex Springs, for a new behemoth coalmine. If that isn’t heartbreaking enough, the Carmichael coalmine contamination will seep into the Great Artesian Basin, the largest aquifer on Earth. That ancient freshwater is vital for all life especially as the climate gets hotter and drier in Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and South Australia, or, 22 percent of the area of Australia. To poison that sacred life-sustaining water and knowingly fricassee our only home is deranged ecocide! We must all do our part to protect our glorious planet and our brethren, the animals. |
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