AS a supposed "green" benefit, cars powered by electricity are being pushed by politicians and motor manufacturers aiming to supplant internal combustion engines dependent on fossil fuels.
However, far from being non-contaminating, electric cars depend on lithium for their batteries and cobalt and rare earths for their motive components. These are mined in dangerous, filthy conditions by low-paid Chinese and African workers. Adequate electricity supplies are not assured with phasing out of fossil fuels and ongoing problems with nuclear generation.
Urban delivery vans, invalid carriages, golf buggies and electrobikes satisfactorily use electric power.
However, a general shift to electric cars imposes very serious drawbacks, of high costs, battery charging and short relative range.
Just what advantage does a switch to electric cars offer? Archie Shaw Stewart (Letters, November 18) stipulates "energy and pollution savings" but the big picture casts very grave doubts on these.
Are electric cars yet another example of the authorities' misguided advice on the promotion of "greenery"?
(Dr) Charles Wardrop, Perth.
GROWING evidence about wind turbines concerns their catastrophic impact on wildlife. Just as we thought it couldn’t get any worse, along comes another devastating revelation.
Giant industrial wind turbines already represent an existential threat to birds, raptors, bats and a veritable host of other species. For just about anything on the wing, their 50-60m blades represent the end of the line. And the carnage is measured in the thousands of tonnes.
Wind turbines' power generation should actually produce more electricity with increasing wind strength. However, this is exactly what they often do not do, which has confused experts for many years.
German scientists have long been puzzled by onshore wind turbines efficiency dropping by roughly half during years of use. They subsequently discovered that the giant blades were plastered by insects. An extensive body of technical literature currently shows that large swarms of flying insects seek high, fast air currents.
It works out at around 1,200 tons of insects in total, or 50kg of insects per wind turbine, per year. Around 24,000 billion airborne insects fly through the rotors in Germany each year.
It was actually reported by a Dutch-Danish team of scientists as early as 2001 in the issue of the British journal Nature under the heading: “Insects can halve wind turbine power”.
So, our giant industrial, oh-so- “clean-green”, wind turbines are also wiping out our bees and other, essential, pollinating insects.
George Herraghty, Elgin.
DRIVING Extinction Rebellion and its green followers is the dream that fossil fuels are left in the ground. An impossible dream. Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Aramco has announced it will sell a 1.5 per cent stake in the company and raise between £18.5 billion and £19.8 billion. The company is valued at between £1.2 trillion and £1.3 trillion.
Other oil-rich countries including The United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Brazil have no intention of reducing their emissions. Then there is coal which is being mined in numerous countries including Australia and Africa. America, because it has huge reserves of shale gas, is now exporting coal to other countries including China. The biggest importer of US coal is Europe. How ironic.
Clark Cross, Linlithgow.
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