Experimental 5 1/2 minute Green video

[Brian Ellis]

You may remember, a few weeks ago, I published a credo on my thoughts about the future of this planet at http://credo.bnellis.eu and I know that a number of you have read it. I appreciate that it is heavy going, covering a lot of ground.

I thought I would make a 'light' version in the form of a video, which I appreciate goes through the 20 odd subjects like a dose of salts, but essentially summarises each of them in a few seconds. I don't think anything like this has been done before and I have no clue as to how it will go down.

Initially, I'm publicising it on this forum in the hopes of getting feedback from you. May I please have your comments?

This video has been published at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6qIQcZ1U9E

Thank you for your cooperation

[Dr Mordrid]

You'll never get rid of road shipping in geographically large countries like the US, Canada, Russia, Austrailia or perhaps China.

Many cargoes are too wide or long for trains or too high to fit through rail overpasses or tunnels. Many areas are also not well serviced by rail - cargoes go to a regional rail yard then are trucked to delivery.

Example: a Falcon 9 first stage is almost 150 feet long and most US trains can only handle 50-89 feet. It's trucked from California to Texas for testing, then to either Florida (KSC) or back to CalIfornia (Vandenberg) for launch.

The longest rail freighters are Schnabel cars (30 in the continental US) and they're limited to 113 feet. Too short for F9 and other long cargoes.

Also: house/building moving and other large freight.

[Brian Ellis]

You'll never get rid of road shipping in geographically large countries like the US, Canada, Russia, Austrailia or perhaps China.

Many cargoes are too wide or long for trains or too high to fit through rail overpasses or tunnels. Many areas are also not well serviced by rail - cargoes go to a regional rail yard then are trucked to delivery.

Example: a Falcon 9 first stage is almost 150 feet long and most US trains can only handle 50-89 feet. It's trucked from California to Texas for testing, then to either Florida (KSC) or back to CalIfornia (Vandenberg) for launch.

The longest rail freighters are Schnabel cars (30 in the continental US) and they're limited to 113 feet. Too short for F9 and other long cargoes.

Also: house/building moving and other large freight.

Doc, thanks for your input; the examples you choose are almost as rare as hen's teeth compared with the millions of tonnes of ordinary freight carried by road over long distances. Referring back to my original credo, it states

Reducing transport of goods by road vehicles: I believe that all goods should be transported by rail, except in a local radius of, say, 100 km. This would make a significant improvement in the speed, safety and freedom from pollution of the transport of goods. At the same time, highways would have less traffic, making them more pleasant for other users.

This implies hubs close to the cities. The important point that I am trying to make is that a good rail infrastructure requires to be built in every country. We are fairly close to that in Western Europe but it is unfortunately not used enough for goods and freight. The high-speed passenger trains are well used and are viable, but the rails are rarely used at night when goods could be transported easily at 300 km/h over distances of 1000 km or more. Why then do we have this weakness? It is a question of cost; diesel fuel is far too cheap. The problem with rail is that, at least in Europe, handling is badly organised and the rail trucks are difficult to load and unload logically, implying inordinately high costs.

One potentially interesting possibility is being done on the north-south axis over the Alps in Switzerland and Austria. Road trucks from Germany are driven onto trains at Basel and transported by rail to Domodossola in Italy, where they are offloaded. This is financially viable, particularly in winter, for the transporters a) because the costs are somewhat subsidised by the Swiss government and b) because the road infrastructure through the St Gothard pass and tunnel is somewhat inadequate and causes undue pollution along a specific valley.

In short, the whole problem is economic and political. The terrible pollution which is generated by road traffic is literally killing (an Indian sub minister of transport cites 5 million deaths per year from road pollution and anyone who has visited large cities in India can well believe that!). As long as road transport is cheaper than rail transport, it will be used, no matter the consequences. It is up to the individual countries to develop rail systems that are as convenient and low-cost for the users. And finally, remember we are talking on the timescale of 2014 to 2050 in my credo. I believe that it could be done.

[Brian Ellis]

It has been pointed out to me that there is a problem with the audio. The music I chose was licence free (Scottish blood!) and I had not realised that it was peppered with a voice-over giving the URL of the source. On the desktop, with reasonable speakers, the bass is such that it is almost inaudible. Somebody pointed out to me that on a laptop, the bass is almost non-existent and cannot drown out the noise. I checked this on my tablet and I agree that it is awful. I shall try and overcome this but, unfortunately, I cannot edit YouTube, so that means I shall have to replace the whole caboodle, which is a bit of a bugger. I'll also take the opportunity to correct the spelling mistake (did you notice it?).


Please tell me what you think, whether negative or positive.

[Brian Ellis]

I've now sorted out the music problem, corrected the spelling mistake and made a couple of retouches. The new version is at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6qIQcZ1U9E

[Brian Ellis]

When I put the word 'experimental' in the title, this was because the video covered many subjects, each over just a few seconds. This was opposed to the more usual in-depth treatment of a specific subject, lasting for a longer period.

When I requested feedback, I was hoping that some of you would comment on the way I had done this so that I could see whether the technique was valid or not.

Over the two editions, I have had nearly 100 views but no comment on whether the treatment of many subjects extremely briefly was considered good or bad.

Any comments, anyone?

[KRSESQ]

All your proposals are noble in principal. Politically, many may be impossible.

Rail for transport of all goods - It may be impossible to eliminate ALL over-the-road trucking. You still need to get goods from the rail distribution centers (MANY more such centers with MANY more rail stops) to the final destination. And as Doc pointed out, some things simply cannot be transported by rail (larger wind-farm components come immediately to mind).

Waste-to-energy development is in progress. Obviously such development could be faster. Same with Solar. Do not dismiss photo-voltaics out-of-hand. Technological development will increase their efficiency dramatically over the coming decades - if the economic impetus is there.

Hydro-electric - The world is running out of suitable locations for hydro development and hydro often has a negative impact on downstream water supplies.

Wind power - in progress. Unfortunately wind is running up against the nimby crowd.

Nuclear - That you may be able to dismiss entirely. Even if and when totally safe nuclear is developed, it will still carry a powerful negative stigma that could take generations to get past. I would say the same if fusion power becomes a reality. Even if it were demonstrated to be 100% safe and clean, all you would need is a handful of popular personalities screaming "H-BOMB IN A BOTTLE!" to turn large numbers against it.

Not growing biofuels on land suitable for food crops - arable land is in increasingly short supply. Making it an either-or proposition is not practical. There needs to be a better balance between crops to feed people and crops to feed machines.

Eliminating palm oil production - this will be MUCH easier AFTER an economical substitute is found. Otherwise I'm on board.

Better home insulation - new housing in developed nations is already highly energy efficient. Many older homes create serious obstacles to true energy efficiency. Razing older homes that can't be upgraded is an option, but not if someone is living there.

Rapid inter-city rail - in the US this has been argued to death. Yes, there are many locations here where it would be highly desirable, but the political and economic obstacles are nearly insurmountable.

Eliminating short-haul air transport - see above. You'd need the trains in place to take up the slack first.

Taxing long-haul air transport - yeah, good luck with that.

Limiting sporting events to daylight hours - The problem here is that many sports fans work during daylight hours. Stadium lighting is improving in efficiency, however. (Professional sports is given way more importance globally than it deserves, IMHO.)

Adopting energy efficient lights and appliances - in progress. Modern electrical devices of all kinds are way more efficient than they used to be and will only get better.

Criminalize water pollution - full agreement.

More recycling - full agreement.

Improving sewage treatment - getting better all the time - in developed nations. In developing nations, sewage treatment often falls to the bottom of the list of serious economic and social concerns.

Taxing carbon emissions - GOOD LUCK.

Eliminate corporate and political privileges - You've heard of the Golden Rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules. Short of global political and economic revolution, how do you propose to achieve this?

As I said, these are laudable goals. But deeply entrenched political and economic interests create major obstacles to all. Only by demonstrating that there are profits to be made and votes to be won could those obstacles be overcome. And even then deeply entrenched interests would oppose it at every turn.

[Brian Ellis]

All your proposals are noble in principal. Politically, many may be impossible.

Thank you for your valuable detailed reply. My apologies for not having replied sooner but I am in the middle of a little crisis. I think that, on the whole, we are on the same wavelength for most of the subject. However, there are two points which I'd like to emphasise: that this essay is to extend through to 2050 and lots of things can change between then and now; the other is that it is impossible to give much detail in a video clip lasting between five and about 12 seconds!

Rail for transport of all goods - It may be impossible to eliminate ALL over-the-road trucking. You still need to get goods from the rail distribution centers (MANY more such centers with MANY more rail stops) to the final destination. And as Doc pointed out, some things simply cannot be transported by rail (larger wind-farm components come immediately to mind).

I agree that extraordinarily large loads cannot go by rail but these represent how much of the total tonnage of freight and goods that are transported in any given country? Perhaps 0.01%? I agree also that a properly organised rail system consists of hubs, usually around cities, and from there the goods have to be distributed by road. In the text version, I mentioned an arbitrary 100 km radius around each hub but, of course, this may vary according to the distance between the hubs. The whole success of rail transport depends on infrastructures that do not yet exist!

Waste-to-energy development is in progress. Obviously such development could be faster

This is a very mature technology and is very widely exploited already, even in China, but not nearly enough. Countries like India and Southeast Asia, as well as Africa and South America could generate enormous quantities of both electricity and heat/cooling for industry. There are over 400 plants in operation in Europe and quite a number in Japan and North America. It has the double whammy advantage that it also reduces 90% of landfill requirements!

Same with Solar. Do not dismiss photo-voltaics out-of-hand. Technological development will increase their efficiency dramatically over the coming decades - if the economic impetus is there.

I foresee solar development will be mainly in concentrated solar power (CSP). I do not anticipate much more technical advances in photovoltaics; certainly, it is possible but the cost of increasing the efficiency of panels will be far higher than the advantages that can be gained. Our best current ones are already pretty much at the end of the development road. On the other hand, CSP is still in its infancy and will be able to provide electricity at half the price of any PV system, as is beginning to be shown commercially (currently, roughly the same price but dropping rapidly). The only advantage of PV over CSP is that it is more adaptable for small installations, but I don't believe they will ever be competitive when viewed holistically. Of course, PV also suffers from intermittency, which is not the case with CSP

Hydro-electric - The world is running out of suitable locations for hydro development and hydro often has a negative impact on downstream water supplies.

Strangely, hydroelectric systems do not have a negative impact on downstream water supplies because all the water that goes into a turbine comes out again! The problem is that the dams are also often used for irrigation and that is what causes the negative impact. The Sudanese are building an enormous dam on the Blue Nile purely for hydroelectricity and they claim that it will have no impact on the quantity of water available to Egypt, although there may be small seasonal variations.

Wind power - in progress. Unfortunately wind is running up against the nimby crowd.

Not just the NIMBY crowd. It is very rare for a windfarm to achieve anything like the output for which it is planned, because of the intermittency of the wind. In this country, as an example, we have three medium-sized windfarms and none of them are producing enough electricity to allow them to be written off economically. Even in the north of Scotland, where wind conditions are very favourable, they are not producing as much electricity as was planned. Like PV, these intermittent sources should be connected with some form of electricity storage for them to be really successful.

Nuclear - That you may be able to dismiss entirely. Even if and when totally safe nuclear is developed, it will still carry a powerful negative stigma that could take generations to get past. I would say the same if fusion power becomes a reality. Even if it were demonstrated to be 100% safe and clean, all you would need is a handful of popular personalities screaming "H-BOMB IN A BOTTLE!" to turn large numbers against it.

I could dictate for hours on this subject. Remember what I said at the start that were looking at a time frame up to 2050. A lot can change in the mindset of people between now and then and nothing will change it faster when they suddenly find they have no electricity! In the short term, the current best PWR reactors, such as are currently being built or projected in Finland, France, China, India, and the United Kingdom (and I think one even in the USA!), using recyclable MOX fuels, present no difficulties and are certainly as safe as it is possible to get. Don't forget that Chernobyl was watercooled graphite moderation and was a first-generation reactor. Fukushima were second-generation reactors, which were designed for the lowest cost. The current reactors are generation IIIa. However, I anticipate that this design will be replaced by a combination of thorium and breeder reactors by about 2030 or 2035. These are inherently 100% failsafe, do not produce long lifetime waste and cannot be used for producing nuclear weapons. Into the bargain, thorium is an abundant mineral throughout the world. It is my opinion, that this is the future for baseline electricity. We do not have enough knowledge yet about fusion and its viability as a source of energy (except in the sun!).

Not growing biofuels on land suitable for food crops - arable land is in increasingly short supply. Making it an either-or proposition is not practical. There needs to be a better balance between crops to feed people and crops to feed machines.

To feed the 9 billion people that this world will have in 2050, we shall need to exploit every square metre of arable land for food. For me, only other land should be sustainably exploited for biofuels. However there is a paradox: our crop yields will drop drastically, because chemical fertilisers will disappear, along with the fossil fuels that are needed to make them. The agrochemical industry will be facing a crisis before 2040 and new forms of fertiliser will be produced from biofuel waste, as a form of "super-compost".

Eliminating palm oil production - this will be MUCH easier AFTER an economical substitute is found. Otherwise I'm on board.

I don't say eliminate palm oil production. I say eliminate the destruction of tropical rainforests to increase the quantity of palm oil production. There is more than enough palm oil in this world for everybody to fill a swimming pool with it! Not all its uses are essential, by any means. If the price of palm oil were such that the peasants who exploit the plantations were given a living wage, instead of suffering in dire poverty, much less palm oil would be used for luxury items such as cosmetics. It is also probable that reducing the quantity of palm oil in manufactured foodstuffs would make for a far healthier population!

Better home insulation - new housing in developed nations is already highly energy efficient. Many older homes create serious obstacles to true energy efficiency. Razing older homes that can't be upgraded is an option, but not if someone is living there.

I agree, but most of the older homes will be getting on for being condemned by 2050. This is particularly so in the USA, where timber framed houses are often the norm and termites to the rest! In Europe, most houses are brick or concrete and the older houses here do represent a bigger problem. Speaking personally, I live in a house that was badly built in the 1990s but I have been able to reduce the energy consumption by between 45 and 50% simply by changing the windows and doors, and adding some roof insulation. The cost of this was about 5% of the original cost of the house. I have not added wall insulation.

[Brian Ellis]

... Continuation! I didn't realise that there was a limit to the number of characters that one can put in a reply!

Rapid inter-city rail - in the US this has been argued to death. Yes, there are many locations here where it would be highly desirable, but the political and economic obstacles are nearly insurmountable.

Political and economic obstacles could very easily be overcome between now and 2050. Things change! In Europe, France led the way with their TGV system which now interconnects nearly every city in the country. I know that the Japanese Shinkansen was earlier but I believe took longer to cover the country. With the exception of the United Kingdom, all of Western Europe is interconnected with high-speed trains and they have proven to be very successful for passenger traffic. As yet, nighttime freight high-speed trains are fairly rare, because of the lack of loading and unloading infrastructure, but this is on its way.

I'm beginning to run out of time to continue this discussion but I think that we are on the same wavelength for most of the issues. The one controversial point that remains is that of taxing carbon. Every attempt, so far, has had a very mitigated success but I think this is more a case of political will than anything. The world is slowly realising that carbon in the atmosphere really is not helping anyone and even the naysayers are thinning down their ranks. The Kyoto Protocol was catastrophic and lacked the teeth necessary to implement something useful. I would forecast that some form of international control could be implemented in a 5 to 10 year timeframe, to take effect before 2040.