Electric cars, and the national grid!

[Clive]

Another interesting one - per head of population

It's interesting to see hot countries (and some cold) at the top of the CO2 chart....all that aircon outweighs our heating. However the UK position is lower than it ought to be because we consume so much from other countries, eg China. We can't beat up China too much for this when we that buy the products they make. I can see CO2 taxation coming.

[Macca]

last time I got the bus:

Arrived at stop with almost ten minutes to spare. No problem, rolled a ciggy, had a smoke. A few other punters heeled up. Twenty minutes later - still no bus. Check timetable, according to that there are 6 an hour - so one should roll up roughly every 10 minutes.

Another twenty minutes passes, still no bus, now about ten punters waiting, most, like me, clearly on their way home from work. Another ten minutes passes, finally a bus rolls up. Get on board, obviously it is packed as the supposed 6 buses an hour is actually one an hour. Find a vacant seat but have to remove half-eaten chicken sandwich from it before I can sit down. Get underway.

Of course every subsequent stop there are a dozen or more people waiting so each halt takes ages. Finally arrive at bus station where we have to change. Wait another twenty minutes for the next bus (according to the timetable there should have been one already waiting). That goes through the hospital complex then doubles back on itself, turning a 10 minute journey into half an hour. There is no option to take a bus with a more direct route.

This second bus has seen better days and is putting out enough smoke behind it to screen a battleship and its escorts.

Total journey time from leaving work to entering house - 1 hour 55 minutes. Cost: £5.40. Distance from work to home - just over 6 miles. I can walk it in an hour and fifteen.

And this is the mode of transport that is going to save the planet? Oh my aching sides.

[Clive]

last time I got the bus:

Arrived at stop with almost ten minutes to spare. No problem, rolled a ciggy, had a smoke. A few other punters heeled up. Twenty minutes later - still no bus. Check timetable, according to that there are 6 an hour - so one should roll up roughly every 10 minutes.

Another twenty minutes passes, still no bus, now about ten punters waiting, most, like me, clearly on their way home from work. Another ten minutes passes, finally a bus rolls up. Get on board, obviously it is packed as the supposed 6 buses an hour is actually one an hour. Find a vacant seat but have to remove half-eaten chicken sandwich from it before I can sit down. Get underway.

Of course every subsequent stop there are a dozen or more people waiting so each halt takes ages. Finally arrive at bus station where we have to change. wait another twenty minutes for the next bus (according to the timetable there should be one waiting). That goes through the hospital complex then doubles back on itself, turning a 10 minute journey into half an hour. There is no option to take a bus with a more direct route.

This second bus has seen better days and is putting out enough smoke behind it to screen a battleship and its escorts.

Total journey time from leaving work to entering house - 1 hour 55 minutes. Cost: £5.40. Distance from work to home - just over 6 miles. I can walk it in an hour and fifteen.

And this is the mode of transport that is going to save the planet? Oh my aching sides.

This why we need much, very much better public transport. We could also do with well behaved people. I use public transport in other countries, people seem more considerate and on't trash buses and trains in quite the way can happen here. When I travel in the South East England on trains it's a better experience...the massively better trains help, maybe the northern rail grot encourages people to act badly.

[Marco]

last time I got the bus:

Arrived at stop with almost ten minutes to spare. No problem, rolled a ciggy, had a smoke. A few other punters heeled up. Twenty minutes later - still no bus. Check timetable, according to that there are 6 an hour - so one should roll up roughly every 10 minutes.

Another twenty minutes passes, still no bus, now about ten punters waiting, most, like me, clearly on their way home from work. Another ten minutes passes, finally a bus rolls up. Get on board, obviously it is packed as the supposed 6 buses an hour is actually one an hour. Find a vacant seat but have to remove half-eaten chicken sandwich from it before I can sit down. Get underway.

Of course every subsequent stop there are a dozen or more people waiting so each halt takes ages. Finally arrive at bus station where we have to change. Wait another twenty minutes for the next bus (according to the timetable there should have been one already waiting). That goes through the hospital complex then doubles back on itself, turning a 10 minute journey into half an hour. There is no option to take a bus with a more direct route.

This second bus has seen better days and is putting out enough smoke behind it to screen a battleship and its escorts.

Total journey time from leaving work to entering house - 1 hour 55 minutes. Cost: £5.40. Distance from work to home - just over 6 miles. I can walk it in an hour and fifteen.

And this is the mode of transport that is going to save the planet? Oh my aching sides.

Lol - it's like that in many areas of the country, but I have to say that, in an around Wrexham and Chester, the bus service is excellent, whenever I've used it, which admittedly is rarely, as I prefer the car (no parking issues in Wrexham, however Chester is a different story).

Anyway, there are buses every 10 mins from Wrexham to Chester and back, and they are punctual and also spotless, again at least whenever I've used them. Arriva is the company who run the buses here - who runs them in Stoke?

Marco.

[dave2010]

Lol - it's like that in many areas of the country, but I have to say that, in an around Wrexham and Chester, the bus service is excellent, whenever I've used it, which admittedly is rarely, as I prefer the car (no parking issues in Wrexham, however Chester is a different story).

Anyway, there are buses every 10 mins from Wrexham to Chester and back, and they are punctual and also spotless, again at least whenever I've used them. Arriva is the company who run the buses here - who runs them in Stoke?

Some friends went on holiday somewhere in the north east a few years ago - perhaps somewhere round Berwick. After visiting the gardens they had gone to see, they walked out and saw a bus stop. There was a timetable on it, and they could see that a bus was due in around 15 minutes, so they waited. After getting on for half an hour, a local said - "Ah - you're waiting for the bus. The last bus that went past here was two years ago!".

Seems to be about par for the course. In some areas buses are really rather good, though there isn't a sensible integrated transport system which links with train and other services, but in some other areas buses are a complete joke.

[Macca]

Lol - it's like that in many areas of the country, but I have to say that, in an around Wrexham and Chester, the bus service is excellent, whenever I've used it, which admittedly is rarely, as I prefer the car (no parking issues in Wrexham, however Chester is a different story).

Anyway, there are buses every 10 mins from Wrexham to Chester and back, and they are punctual and also spotless, again at least whenever I've used them. Arriva is the company who run the buses here - who runs them in Stoke?

Marco.

The main company is Firstbus, there's a couple of smaller ones who are better, but they don't cover the routes I might want to use.

When I lived outside Nottingham many years ago I used to get the bus in and back every day and it was an excellent service, although very crowded (probably because it was reliable so people actually used it). In Liverpool the service is pretty good too.

But here it is run by incompetent idiots. if I relied on it to get to work I would be late 2-3 times a week at least. Bus journeys here have dropped by a quarter over the last few years as people increasingly choose other methods of travel. I can get a taxi door to door for 2 quid more, why would I ever bother with the bus?

[dave2010]

Lol - I take it you're not much of a 'petrol head' then, Dave?

I'm not saying that this applies to you, but I've never seen the point in owning a car if you don't actually LIKE driving. There are plenty of other forms of transport available.

For me, cars aren't t simply metal boxes to get you from A to B, but owning them is one of life's pleasures, as indeed is driving in a nice car, in scenic areas largely free from traffic, and yes, as you know from living where you do now, such things still exist!

I do enough driving - though it was never my job, and I have driven in other countries too. Mostly it's a means to an end. I used to like driving in some parts of California, but I found driving towards Rhode Island and over the Pell Bridge terrifying. There's nothing like that in the UK. At one point two very wide freeways (motorways) merge - it's madness on steroids.

I also got used to driving in Sweden, which was pretty in winter, and eventually I got into driving at 60mph on ice and snow. At first I drove slowly, but so many local drivers passed us and threw up lots of slush so that it was impossible to see that I gave up and floored it. It can be dangerous though, but few locals will try to pass a car going at 60 mph in those conditions.

I don't see any point in cars making more noise than strictly necessary, though I'm aware that some electric cars are so quiet that they may be a hazard for pedestrians who won't hear them coming. Also I try to drive more or less at the speed limits, which I'm aware that many don't. It is boring, but it avoids getting penalty points and fines.

Re the tornado comment previously - I inadvertently did that at Farnborough years ago. I was in the wrong location, and if I did have ear defenders with me - I'd left them at the other end of the field. The plane got ready to take off and presumably put on massive power before letting the brakes off. Even with fingers jammed tight into lug holes it was deafening! As I wrote earlier - if you want noise, that's the way to go.

[dave2010]

+1 ^^^^^^

Gary

+ another 1 ^^^^^^^

[Ali Tait]

A very interesting graph. What is the source?

Note however, that from the graph the CO2 emission due to China is matched approximately by "Other countries". It is interesting that India, which has a population not too much smaller than China, has relatively low CO2 emissions. Of course this could be that many Indians are relatively poorer than many Chinese, and the rise of the Chinese middle classes who are undoubtedly becoming significant consumers, does not help - even though a very significant proportion of Chinese people still live in very substandard conditions at the bottom end of their society.

I have suggested before that the UK could do more good in respect of global emissions by exerting influence on the big CO2 emitters, to help them to become more efficient - without worsening their lives overall, rather than trying to substitute EVs etc. for petrol cars in the UK, which will have relatively little effect.

However, it may still be desirable to move towards EVs in the UK, as they will improve the environment generally, particularly in cities.

Just a Wiki article. As Clive correctly points out, some of the drop in the EU and sharp rise in China is due to all the things we import from there, so not all down to growth in China I don’t think.

I agree EV’s would make a lot of sense in cities.

[Ali Tait]

It's interesting to see hot countries (and some cold) at the top of the CO2 chart....all that aircon outweighs our heating. However the UK position is lower than it ought to be because we consume so much from other countries, eg China. We can't beat up China too much for this when we that buy the products they make. I can see CO2 taxation coming.

Yes CO2 taxation will definitely come, if nothing else the govt will need an alternative source of revenue once they’ve forced us all into EV’s.