Power payments produce petrol problems

Electric cars that can be used as “power plants on wheels” could be given government backing as part of plans under consideration to help UK manufacturers. Ministers are considering giving manufacturers incentives to add “vehicle to grid” (V2G) technology to cars as part of its review of the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

The technology allows drivers to charge automatically when electricity is cheap overnight, and then sell some of it back to the grid at times of high demand. Once the technology takes off, electricity supplied by V2G cars could add up to the equivalent of a power station by 2030, able to provide 1.2 gigawatts of power on demand, according to the National Energy System Operator, which balances Great Britain’s grid. That could grow to as much as 41 GW by 2050, Neso forecasts, enough to meet more than a quarter of peak energy demand.

However, campaign groups said the ZEV incentives could also have the perverse effect of allowing carmakers to sell more polluting petrol models in the next few years. Carmakers could earn a “credit” for selling cars installed with V2G technology, also known as bidirectional charging, according to plans detailed in a government consultation that closed on Friday. That credit would allow the carmakers to sell another petrol car without facing the risk of fines if they miss the ZEV targets.

Open mouth, insert foot. Surely the credit shouldn't be allowed to pay for petrol cars, otherwise what's the point ?

#Technology
#Politics

theguardian.com/environment/20…

An excellent video. Some highlights :

Q : Do you believe Britain's broken?

A : Um no. I don't think um many satirists do. I mean Defoe, who was one of the great journalists and early satirist, he said the aim of satire is reform. And he didn't a Farage government. He meant reform. You're doing this because you believe it could get better. It could be better. The point of exposing this thing is not to say, "Hurrah, aren't we great?", it's to say, "We should be doing this better." And
a lot of the time that's not even a political imperative. That's a moral imperative.

Q : So, you remain an optimist about the UK.

A : Yeah. And I feel people say, "Well, you know, it's absolutely terrible. What have you ever achieved?" And I say, "Aha, but perhaps it would have been even worse if we hadn't tried."

Q : You you arrived with Margaret Thatcher and there have been seven Prime Ministers between 2016 and now. Can you tell us why ? Do you know why?

A : I think everyone's attention span has got shorter. I think I probably blame social media. People demand more and get more disillusioned and want their own curated politics. So you can say to anyone, "what do you think of the Prime Minister ?" and they say, "he or she doesn't agree with me on this issue", and I think people are so used to the algorithm directing everything to you that agrees with you and making everything what your choice is. Politics isn't quite like that. I always tell people you have to vote for the person you disagree with least.

Q : So, it seems to me you have got as much or more of a mission than when you started because it seems you're really worried about that.

A : Yeah, I am worried about that, because I think democratic institutions and the process of democracy involves an exchange of ideas based on facts not not on fantasy. And a literate culture, one that reads print, which I am very very keen on, and reads books and then talks about the ideas that they've managed to encapsulate in that print is one on which our democracy is based. It isn't based on videos saying, well, I feel really angry now. Anger, that's a different culture. I mean online is a very angry place. And it gets angry quickly. And what what feeds algorithms and what makes money for people is furious anger. Saying, um, yeah, but I'm not entirely sure that's right, gets very, very few internet hits.

#Politics

youtube.com/watch?v=TCOdomjE0d…