Passport arrived

A real sign of progress!

Registered as an expedition at the RGS

The word expedition is a rather glorious word for what we are planning but the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) interprets its brief in a very modern way. You don’t have to don furs and use huskies to be involved in a modern expedition (in 2002 we did use horses during a trip to record music in south Siberia). I’m particularly interested in how RGS education has achieved educational objectives through their web-sites. One site covered a trip from pole to pole by helicopter. I’m meeting the RGS next Monday to discuss how best to design and run a web-site for educational purposes.

Commission contacts and charging points

We need contacts to obtain a commission for TV – possibly in partnership with a production company and am now open to suggestions. And if you can suggest anywhere to charge up en route…. assume 13A is OK.
I know the route is not yet fixed – we might have a bit of a chicken and egg situation here – but roughly  London, Brussels; Namur, Belgium; Saft, Nersac , France; Freiburg, Germany ; Geneva, through the Swiss Alps to Graz in Austria, then through Slovenia, eventually to Sibiu in Translyvania, Romania (furthest point away).

Charging around Europe

I had an excellent evening at the monthly London Green Drinks last night. Kirklees Green Party Councillor Andrew Cooper was there. The title is his suggestion for a name for the documentary – and after only one pint! Various other conversations led to various other suggestions for sponsorship and coverage. I found my wallet was full of scrawled on cards this morning – thanks to you all. I will be following up on the various leads shortly. Visit www.greendrinks.org for a global list of green drinks venues.

CO2 reaches new peak of 394ppm

News from http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46517/story.htm

Which vehicle? (3)

The latest from electriccarsUK@yahoogroups.com. Scooter maker Piaggio will be the first company to market an electric car in Israel. Sales are set to begin in about a month. Figaro’s Porter model is a small multipurpose van (MPV) that runs on an electric 12 or 14 horsepower engine that can reach a maximum speed of 58 km/h.

These qualities, along with the vehicle’s short length of 3.37 meters, make it suitable only for urban use (in theory!). The car is able to run for 80-120 kilometers on a full battery charge (that takes just two hours on three phase, eight if using 13A).

Why not use biofuels to travel sustainably?

Five years ago I thought biofuels could be a green transport option. Now it is clear that biofuels made from food crops such as corn and palm oil have increased food prices and destroyed rainforest – leading to massive emissions of CO2 and hunger. Recent scientific evidence makes the new point that nitrogenous fertiliser leads to the production of more of the greenhouse gas, Nitrogen Oxide, than previously thought. All in all, biofuels are not the technical fix for our transport systems that the mandatory EU target of 10% of biofuels in transport by 2020 assumes. Using fuels that lead directly to starvation and increased greenhouse gas emissions are the very last thing we want. Are electric vehicles a better answer or are there hidden costs in their use? By the end of the electric ride project we should know.

References
Royal Society Sustainable biofuels: prospects and challenges
House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee Memoranda Are biofuels sustainable?
Green World 59 02/08 Why we should not rely on biofuels
Geographical 02/08 p.44 Fuelling the Debate