Climate protests in Bristol

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

She also doesn't deserve to have her looks made fun of.

Saying that someone looks like someone else does not constitute making fun of them.

So it was a humourless statement? Why the smiley then?

Say to Greta Thunberg that she looks like an emotionless, bitter and sadistic comic strip character and I doubt she'll find it amusing.

[JayMac]

Statement from Avon & Somerset Police:

A significant protest is due to take place in Bristol city centre from Monday (15 July) which is scheduled to last for five days.

It’s part of action being taken by protestors with Extinction Rebellion in cities across the United Kingdom.

The protest has the potential to cause disruption to those who work, live and visit the city and we’ve been liaising with organisers and working with our partner agencies, including Bristol City Council, over the past couple of weeks. The protestors have indicated their activities will be focussed around the Bristol Bridge area, which may result in the bridge being closed.

Every effort will be made to balance people’s rights to protest alongside the need to keep disruption to a minimum. We have long-standing and well-established plans to enable us to do this.

Area Commander Chief Inspector Mark Runacres said: “We’re proactively engaging with the protestors, local businesses and the wider community to ensure people are being kept informed of any developments that may impact on their daily lives.

“Due to the potential scale of the protest and the impact it may have, we’ve had to cancel officers’ rest days to make sure we have sufficient resources in place over the five days.

“Any unplanned and lengthy road closure could impact on the ability of emergency services to respond to incidents and we and our partners are factoring this into our plans so we can continue to keep the public safe.

“Public safety will always be our main priority and we operate a zero-tolerance approach to any form of anti-social behaviour and disorder. Officers will be robust in dealing with anyone who engages in this kind of behaviour.”

https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/news/2019/07/protest-to-take-place-in-bristol-city-centre-next-week/

[grahame]

Taking a wider look than this thread, and our variety of views on disruption and effect, I have posted at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/21904 to look at how engagement / partnership / support / co-operation between groups with common interest might / should work.

[Robin Summerhill]

Some of those whom I met were ignorant of basic science.

Several believed that someone has invented a car engine that runs on water and that the wicked oil companies buried the invention and/or murdered the inventor. Nonsense ! basic science shows that water at room temperature contains no useful energy.

Hang on  a minute there!

We have had engines that run on water since the early 18th century, and they were indeed used in cars in the first 30 or so years of the 20th century.

It's the warming it up enough to turn it into steam to make any use of it that is the root of the problem...

[TonyK]

A humourous point - with a bit of science hidden in it. Water there is the propellant, not the fuel, of course. There are other non-fuel fuels, such as electricity and hydrogen. Neither is truly a fuel, because both have to be created using external energy sources. They are forms of storage of energy, and the distinction is an important one in some contexts.

[broadgage]

Or to re-word my earlier post to allow for pedantry.

Water at room temperature and in, or on a vehicle contains no useful energy. It can not be used to propel the vehicle.

This despite the fairly widely held view that some clever person invented a car engine that ran on water. And that the wicked oil companies buried the invention and/or murdered the inventor.

I am well aware of hydroelectric power, but that is not a "car engine that runs on water"
Steam power is a well known technology and can be applied to cars. It requires coal, oil, or other fuel to raise steam, and is not a vehicle driven by an engine that burns water.

The less well informed protestors believe this and other related nonsense.
There are websites promoting various perpetual motion devices and free energy devices "buy now before the fat cat utility companies ban this device"

[johnneyw]

And of course certain hydrogen nuclei found in water can be fused to release energy but this leading edge of science and technology is currently having billions spent on it's research rather than being suppressed.

[stuving]

A humourous point - with a bit of science hidden in it. Water there is the propellant, not the fuel, of course. There are other non-fuel fuels, such as electricity and hydrogen. Neither is truly a fuel, because both have to be created using external energy sources. They are forms of storage of energy, and the distinction is an important one in some contexts.

I think that splits the wrong hair. A vehicle's fuel is whatever you put in it to make it go, whether you dug it up, stored sunbeams, or made it from something else. The kind of liquid hydrocarbons that are most useful in IC^▸ (Inter City) engines on the road and in the air can be made from petrol, both as feedstock and processing energy source, but the same or similar stuff can be made from CO₂ in the air using electricity. OK it's not at all efficient just now, but they are working on it (in Canada, oddly).

Quite by chance, what pops up in my inbox today but this (from the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train): Engineering & Technology):

H2O on the go: fuelling the future of sustainable vehicles

Water could be the fuel source for running the emission-free engines of the future.

It seems vehicles can run on most things these days: from batteries to hydrogen, to natural gas and even human waste. But how about water? This is what Australian-Israeli start-up Electriq~Global claims can fuel vehicles from a bicycle to an articulated lorry, adding that it can outperform other fuels by twice the range at half the cost with no emissions.

Actually, it’s not purely water. Electriq~Global’s proprietary mix comprises 60 per cent H2O. The rest is a mixture of stabilising chemicals and a borohydride (BH4) salt, which releases hydrogen on demand.

“Essentially you are getting a water-based hydrogen solution that is stable, non-flammable, non-explosive and very simple to transport and store at ambient room temperature and pressure,” says Electriq~Global’s CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) Guy Michrowski. “All of these things contribute to the cost reduction of the system.”

The technology is mature enough that the company has gone into partnership with Dutch firm Eleqtec to roll out the system in the Netherlands, where the government has set ambitious CO2 reduction targets. The plan is to introduce Electriq~Fuel as a clean solution for trucks, buses, barges and other mobility platforms. One application that Michrowski sees as a quick win is mobile generators.
...
It works by placing the fuel in contact with a catalyst – a proprietary system of metal mesh called Electriq~Switch (yes, everything comes with one of those funny squiggles). The resulting hydrolysis reaction produces hydrogen, 50 per cent of which comes from the decomposition of the water molecules and 50 per cent from the decomposition of the BH4. What is left is a mixture of water and borate ions (BO4), which can be recycled. The company claims there are no emissions during the entire process, the only outputs being hydrogen and heat.
...

[martyjon]

Bring it on EVERYDAY. Traffic in Central Bristol very light today. Walked from my central location along a near deserted Baldwin Street to Bristol Bridge. Very polite protesters. Police well back basking in the sunshine with nothing to do.

South Gloucestershire Council did their up most to disrupt traffic by coning off the inside lane in both directions from the Willy Wicket Roundabout to the M32 Hambrook roundabout just to strim the last 100 metres of the westbound verge, why couldn't it be done at night cos it caused 1/2 hour delay to my bus this am.

[TonyK]

Quite by chance, what pops up in my inbox today but this (from the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train): Engineering & Technology):

H2O on the go: fuelling the future of sustainable vehicles

Water could be the fuel source for running the emission-free engines of the future.

It seems vehicles can run on most things these days: from batteries to hydrogen, to natural gas and even human waste. But how about water? This is what Australian-Israeli start-up Electriq~Global claims can fuel vehicles from a bicycle to an articulated lorry, adding that it can outperform other fuels by twice the range at half the cost with no emissions.

Actually, it’s not purely water. Electriq~Global’s proprietary mix comprises 60 per cent H2O. The rest is a mixture of stabilising chemicals and a borohydride (BH4) salt, which releases hydrogen on demand.

“Essentially you are getting a water-based hydrogen solution that is stable, non-flammable, non-explosive and very simple to transport and store at ambient room temperature and pressure,” says Electriq~Global’s CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) Guy Michrowski. “All of these things contribute to the cost reduction of the system.”

The technology is mature enough that the company has gone into partnership with Dutch firm Eleqtec to roll out the system in the Netherlands, where the government has set ambitious CO2 reduction targets. The plan is to introduce Electriq~Fuel as a clean solution for trucks, buses, barges and other mobility platforms. One application that Michrowski sees as a quick win is mobile generators.
...
It works by placing the fuel in contact with a catalyst – a proprietary system of metal mesh called Electriq~Switch (yes, everything comes with one of those funny squiggles). The resulting hydrolysis reaction produces hydrogen, 50 per cent of which comes from the decomposition of the water molecules and 50 per cent from the decomposition of the BH4. What is left is a mixture of water and borate ions (BO4), which can be recycled. The company claims there are no emissions during the entire process, the only outputs being hydrogen and heat.
...

Send money now!

[broadgage]

Before the wicked fat cat oil companies bury the secret and kill the inventers.

[Western Pathfinder]

Caveat emptor !..

[broadgage]

I have several much better money making ideas.

Ostriches for sale------------huge profits absolutely certain.
Perpetual motion machine for sale.
Time share holiday flats.
Purchase of postal vouchers that can later be sold for many times the purchase price.
Buy me a dozen Pullman meals, and I will think of something even better.

[Oxonhutch]

Ostriches for sale------------huge profits absolutely certain.

You may joke, but one guy made a lot of money out of of ostriches in southern Africa ...

It relied on a protectionist law and a peculiarity of political geography that had to be rectified as a hangover of [British] colonialism.

South Africa would not allow the export of live ostriches or viable eggs out of South Africa to protect their ostrich market based largely around the southern Cape Province town of Oudtshoorn . It had been thus since ostriches had been bred mainly for their feathers than their meat. It was the late 1980's and Namibian independence was inevitable - but yet officially denied - it being a League of Nations mandate (post WW1 and decried in the UN) but there was a colonial legacy buried within.

Walvis (whale) Bay had been a British enclave within German Südwes Afrika and in the 1920s was gifted by the British to South Africa.  It was thus separate from their LoN mandate - legally and part of the greater RSA^▸ (Rolled Steel Angles).

In the late 1980's, an enterprising farmer from Walvis Bay bought a herd of ostriches and had them transported to his farm in the coastal desert that best describes that African suburb, and spent a fortune on water and fodder to keep them alive. Their journey was legal because Walvis Bay was South African territory proper.

First came Namibian independence and then South Africa's rainbow revolution; and Nelson Mandela was elected to be president of this reborn nation*. As an act of brotherly love for his friend Sam Ndjouma of Namibia, Mandela righted the wrong of colonial history and ceded Walvis Bay to Namibia. Along with it went a large herd of ostrich and a very happy, and may I say it, very prescient ostrich farmer.

His herd of legally 'exported' South African ostriches was now worth a fortune on the global market. Paid back all his fodder and water in spades. In life sometimes, you just have to see the angle - and have faith. I raise my hat ...

* my wife and I spent 7 hours between us voting in that historic event.

[broadgage]

I was thinking of a relatively recent ostrich farming scam in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), but there has obviously been more than one !
And BTW^▸ (by the way) I do know someone who keeps ostriches, a modest profit may be made thereby, but certainly not a quick way to get rich.

Meanwhile Bristol is still standing AFAIK^▸ (as far as I know). Disruption has been largely confined to a motorway and a shopping center so far. Better than directly targeting trains as happened on the DLR^▸ (Docklands Light Railway) in London.

I think that the "die ins" are a bit silly, but they make good news pictures and videos which is no doubt the intention.