X Shore Electric Boats

Let’s start with X Shore, a Swedish company that’s really changing the game in electric boating. Their flagship vessel, the Eelex 8000, is what I consider a masterpiece of Scandinavian design. When you first see one, you’ll notice its clean lines and minimalist aesthetic – it’s striking without being flashy. The boat stretches 26 feet and can reach speeds of 35 knots, which is impressive for an electric vessel. What I find particularly fascinating about X Shore is their modular approach. Think of it like building with high-end LEGO blocks – you can customize the boat for different uses, whether you’re planning peaceful day trips or need it for professional applications. With a range of up to 100 nautical miles at cruising speeds, it’s practical for both short outings and longer journeys.

Arc Boats

Arc Boats brings a fresh Silicon Valley perspective to the industry. Their Arc One is a perfect example of what happens when you rethink boat design from the ground up. Instead of converting an existing design to electric power, they started with a blank slate. The result? A 24-foot aluminum craft that delivers exceptional performance – we’re talking speeds over 40 mph and 3-5 hours of runtime. When I stepped aboard an Arc One, what struck me was how every detail seemed purposefully engineered for electric propulsion.

Candela Boats

Now, if you want to see something truly revolutionary, you need to check out what Candela is doing. Their C-8 model quite literally rises above the water on computer-controlled hydrofoils. Imagine cruising along and suddenly lifting above the waves – it’s like something out of a science fiction movie. But here’s the really impressive part: this design reduces energy consumption by 80% compared to traditional hulls. With over 50 nautical miles of range at 20 knots, it’s not just a novelty; it’s a practical solution for everyday use. They’ve even adapted this technology for commercial use with their P-8 Voyager passenger transport vessel. Candela has also partnered with Polestar, the performance EV brand under Volvo, to produce their batteries and charging systems.

Pure Watercraft

Pure Watercraft, now under the General Motors umbrella, takes a more pragmatic approach. Their Pure Pontoon boat is particularly interesting because they’re tackling a market segment that’s hugely popular in recreational boating. They’re bringing automotive-grade precision to boat manufacturing, which means better quality control and reliability. It’s like they’re building the Toyota of electric boats – practical, reliable, and accessible to mainstream consumers.

Vision Marine Technologies

Vision Marine Technologies has carved out an interesting niche by focusing on electric outboard motors. Their E-Motion 180E is currently the most powerful electric outboard you can buy. What I particularly appreciate about their approach is that they’re not just building new boats – they’re also helping existing boat owners transition to electric power through their retrofit programs. Their Bruce 22 electric speedboat showcases what’s possible when you combine their motor technology with purpose-built design.

Rand Boats

In the luxury segment, Rand Boats from Denmark is creating what I’d call floating works of art. Their Leisure 28 Electric and Mana 23 models demonstrate exceptional attention to detail. What stands out to me is how they’ve managed to combine luxury with practicality – these boats are beautiful but also incredibly functional for day trips and entertaining.

Silent Yachts

For those interested in the ultimate in sustainable luxury, Silent Yachts is producing remarkable solar-electric catamarans ranging from 60 to 120 feet. These vessels are essentially floating solar power plants, capable of extended cruising without relying on shore power. The integration of sustainable technology with luxury amenities creates an experience that’s both environmentally conscious and indulgent.

Zodiac

Even traditional manufacturers are embracing electric propulsion. Zodiac, known for their practical and reliable craft, has introduced the eJET 350. It’s interesting to see how they’ve maintained their reputation for dependability while transitioning to electric power. Similarly, Frauscher Shipyard, with their 90-year heritage, has successfully bridged traditional craftsmanship with electric innovation in their TimeSquare 20 model.

Greenline Yachts

Greenline Yachts takes what I consider a pragmatic approach with their hybrid vessels. Their range includes the fully electric NEO model alongside hybrid options, providing flexibility for owners who want to embrace electric technology while maintaining the option for traditional propulsion. It’s like having a plug-in hybrid car – you get the best of both worlds.

Veer Boats

Veer makes an electric version of the C13 boat which utilizes the Mercury Avator electric outboard motor. This boat is intended for fishing and has a capacity for two people. One of the best things about electric motors is that since they’re so quite its perfect for fishing. They allow you to get around to all the best spots without scaring away the fish. Veer is the perfect example of how entrepreneurs can use existing technologies produces from other manufacturers to create a new boat for the marketplace.

After spending time with these various manufacturers and their vessels, I’ve observed that the electric boat market is evolving rapidly. Each company brings unique solutions to the challenges of marine electrification, whether through innovative hull designs, advanced battery technology, or novel propulsion systems. The development of charging infrastructure at marinas continues to make electric boating more practical, and improvements in battery technology are constantly extending range capabilities.

What excites me most about this industry is seeing how these manufacturers are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in electric boats. Whether you’re interested in day cruising, water sports, or extended voyages, there’s now an electric option that can meet your needs while reducing environmental impact. The future of boating is definitely electric, and based on what I’ve seen, it’s going to be quite extraordinary.

Similar to how Tesla’s were very expensive during their first few year electric boats are in the same position. So expect in the next few years for prices of electric boats to start coming down as more competition enters the marketplace, costs of goods & production comes down & more models being available. In the meantime, there are a few lower cost options to get into electric boats. You could always buy an electric boat motor and convert your existing boat rather than buying a brand new one. There are companies like Torqeedo (based in Germany), Evoy (based on Norway). Even legacy companies like Honda, Mercury are getting into the electric boat space with their motors. So if you have a smaller boat this may be worth trying out. Personally this is what I would do. Its a lower cost to get started with an electric boat this way but it all depend on your needs & lifestyle.

Advantages of Geothermal Energy

1. Renewable & Sustainable: Geothermal energy comes from Earth’s natural heat, which is continuously created with no effort on our part. This makes it a renewable & sustainable energy source.
2. Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Compared to fossil fuel based power plants, geothermal power plants emit very low levels of greenhouse gases. They’re essentially releasing few existing gases trapped in rock rather than creating new ones.
3. Baseload Power: Geothermal power plants provide a continuous & reliable source of electricity generation since they’re not dependent on weather conditions like solar or wind power.
4. Minimal Land Use: Geothermal power plants typically require less land area compared to many other types of electricity generation facilities which preserves land use.
5. Long Lifespan: Geothermal power plants can have a long operational lifespan. often exceeding half a century with very minimal maintenance requirements. This saves on operating costs in the long run. The two oldest geothermal power plants are still in operation today.
6. Energy Security: Geothermal energy is created at the source with no resource importation required. This reduces dependence on imported fuels & materials which enhances energy security for countries with abundant geothermal resources. Theoretically, all countries could be energy independent if they drilled deep enough.
7. Production of Additional Resources: Geothermal reservoirs often contain minerals & metals dissolved in the hot water. This enables the co-creation of valuable resources alongside electricity generation. Sulfur is in high abundance at geothermal sources & is used in a wide array of processes.
8. Direct Heating Applications: Geothermal energy can be used for more than electricity generation. Direct heating for cities, homes, industrial & agricultural purposes is an additional revenue source.
9. Reduced Water Consumption: Much of the water used in geothermal power plants is recycled & pumped back through. So they typically consume less water per unit of electricity generated compared to conventional fossil fuel power plants which actually conserves water resources.
10. Potential for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS): EGS technology aims to expand the geographical reach of geothermal energy by creating artificial geothermal reservoirs through hydraulic stimulation, potentially unlocking new possibilities.
11. Existing Infrastructure, Technologies & Workforce: Much of the geological data, drilling technology, skills & workforce needed for geothermal energy power plants already exist from the oil industry. They’ve been surveying the Earth for decades & have all of this data stored. It a matter focusing the development, resources & exploring new areas based on existing data. The drilling methods are basically the same too.
12. Tourism & New Business Revenue: Using Iceland as the perfect test case, their geothermal power plant in Grindavík creates spillover which created the Blue Lagoon. Probably the world’s most famous geothermal spa destination. This location alone brings in more that a billion in tourism a year. Additionally, there are numerous business & products that can be created from geothermal activity. Bakeries, skin care, greenhouses are just a few that can be created with low startup costs using the existing energy & earth materials in some cases.
13. Reliable Power Stations for Electric Vehicles: Since the electricity being produced is around the clock this creates an additional source of energy for electric vehicles which will be needed in the future. It also makes the charging station easy to spot from kilometers away from the steam rising in the air (so long as geothermal power plants are also associated with charging stations).

Disadvantages of Geothermal Energy

1. Former Location Dependency: Geothermal energy is typically feasible in regions with significant geothermal activity. This previously limited its widespread deployment to specific geographic areas but with new technology these limits may be removed entirely.
2. High Initial Costs (but very low compared to nuclear): The upfront costs of drilling wells & building infrastructure for geothermal power plants can cost upwards of hundreds of millions. But the costs dwarf in comparison the cost of traditional nuclear energy power plants which are measured in billions of dollars. For example, the Hinkley Point in Somerset England is now costing $37 billion USD. Iceland’s Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant cost $380 million USD.
3. Environmental Impact: While geothermal energy has lower emissions compared to fossil fuels, some environmental impacts can occur. Such as land subsidence, water pollution (if chemicals are used or overflow is not contained) & the release of trace gases like hydrogen sulfide. But with every form of power plant there is going to be an impact to some extent whether its solar, wind, nuclear, coal or even tidal energy. It comes down to the extent & limits of their impact. No energy production has zero impact.
4. Geological Risks: Geothermal projects may face geological risks such as seismic activity from drilling. They’ve gotten much better at reducing this but nothing is 100% predictable. It may be possible with newer technologies that drilling can increase stabilization of the crust.
5. Limited Scalability: Geothermal energy has significant potential. Its limited to what we can do with our current technologies. But the upside is there are new & exciting technology being applied to this space. Is sort of in the space that electric cars were in 20 years ago.
6. Subsurface Challenges: Drilling & maintaining geothermal wells can be technically challenging & costly, especially in deep or complex geological formations. But many pioneers in this space have far more knowledge than we did just a few decades ago.
7. Regulatory & Permitting Hurdles: Geothermal projects may encounter regulatory hurdles & permitting delays due to environmental, land use & water rights considerations. This adds complexity & uncertainty to the development process but this really isn’t different than any other power plant regulatory approvals.

Geothermal energy’s main disadvantage is the lack of time & investment put into it compared to other energy sources. If geothermal had the amount of investment put into it as nuclear, coal & gas have had over the past century much the world would be running on sustainable energy by now. The earth itself is a giant thermal nuclear plant that has had all of the waste material issues taken care of. All we have to do is make a way to reliably tap into it from anywhere. As I mentioned before, geothermal energy technology is in a similar challenging period that electric cars were in two decades ago.

Profound Possibilities of Geothermal Energy

The use of geothermal energy dates back thousands of years but we have probably been using it as long as there have been humans. We have both physical & recorded evidence of its use by ancient civilizations for bathing, heating & cooking. To this day some people in Iceland still use it to bake the worlds best tasting bread. Modern exploration of geothermal energy for electricity began in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. With coal & gas being used as main energy sources, geothermal energy took a back seat from the mainstream for over a century & still has.

The world’s first geothermal power plant started in Larderello, Italy in 1911 & finished production in 1913, which utilized steam from natural hot springs to generate electricity. How geothermal power plants work at their most basic level is the same today as was over 110+ years ago, utilizing steam to turn turbines. In the 1950’s a museum was built to showcase the history, science & engineering of geothermal energy at this location.

Since then, we’ve had many ongoing advancements in drilling technology, reservoir engineering & power plant design. We’ve also expanded the utilization of geothermal energy for direct heating applications worldwide. While not used for electricity, this shallow depth method of utilizing geothermal heat for home heating can significantly reduce the amount of electricity needed for heating purposes with cold climates. But there is something with much bigger potential just beyond where we are with geothermal technology.

Once we’ve developed a technology where we can reliably & efficiently drill holes from anywhere on the Earth’s surface & keep the structure of the Earth’s crust stable we will have truly unlimited sustainable energy. The research & development into this technology would be at the top of the priority list if people truly understood how profound this would be. Not only would this allow humans anywhere on Earth to have clean energy & heat day or night but allow humans on any planet to have clean energy. When we colonize Mars this is technology we could take with us. Theoretically, this is technology that robots can be programmed to build. So before humans even get to other planets geothermal power stations can be setup & put into production.

Bringing this back down to Earth, yes its important to explore sustainable energies that don’t yet exist like cold fusion. That is technology people have been working on for almost 30 years now with no definitive results yet. While it only requires 5-10 years (sometimes less) to build a single geothermal power plant & we already know how to build those. Meaning that multiple plants can be built simultaneously around the Earth. Each one producing electricity for a more than a century. Right now, I think geothermal energy is greatly undervalued, underutilized & we have yet to do things we never thought possible with geothermal technology.

How Nuclear Energy Works

Nuclear energy requires radioactive material called Uranium to create heat. Uranium has to be mined, refined & processed into ceramic pellets. Those pellets are then encased into large metal tubes which is how “fuel rods” are made. Those fuel rods give off high amounts of radioactive energy & heat. To maintain the levels of heat & stability of the fuel rods a coolant system is encased around those fuel rods that contains what is called “heavy water”. (Heavy water is water that consists of oxygen & deuterium instead of hydrogen & oxygen. Keep in mind that all the materials that come into contact with the fuel rods like the heavy water are extremely radioactive). That heat produced from those fuel rods is then used to heat up real water which is turned into steam. And that steam is used to turn a turbine which generates electricity. Fuel rods only last 3-7 years at which point they have to be replaces with new ones & the cycle continues. Those fuel rods are the dangerous nuclear waste we have no way to safely dispose of. The most common method to dispose of nuclear waste is to literally bury it in the Earth on selected sites (typically mountains) with signs on them.

On a sidebar, these warning signs are for future generations of people should the nuclear waste site ever be found or discovered. Now imagine if our ancestors did this tens of thousands of years ago before the mysterious disaster event occurred 12,000 years ago & we forgot much of our ancient history. We are essentially creating a very dangerous problem to be solved, burying it in our backyard & expecting future generations to figure it out. Assuming nothing happens to the nuclear waste in that time period. That aside, lets move onto how geothermal energy is created.

How Geothermal Energy Works

Geothermal energy works by drilling bore holes to a desired depth where the Earths temperature is at a minimum 149° C (300°F). Depending on where you are on Earth this could be just beneath the surface or a few kilometers down. Once we have access to the geothermal heat those boreholes are capped to handle the high amount of pressure that occurs once water is sent down the borehole. Enormous amounts of pressure & steam are created & are directed through tubes to send that steam past a turbine which produces electricity for the grid.

The steam is then sent through a cooling towers which lets of excess steam and the condensed water is sent back into the ground via an injection well. That water is heated up again by the Earth and comes back up the borehole again as steam creating a looped system where only some water is let off as steam. The fundamentals of the geothermal energy system are actually very simple. Its when we get into the engineering & depth of the boreholes accounting for the types of rock, hardness levels encountered & accounting for Earth crust stability that things can get complicated. This has been the biggest hurdle in geothermal energy. But there is new technology which could solve both of those problems & actually make the crust stronger in that area called “pulse plasma drilling”.

So when we compare how geothermal energy is made to nuclear energy there is a stark contrast in the levels of safety, the costs & the processes involved. One is simple (comparatively), the other is an overly complicated way to re-engineer a dangerous process that already happens deep within the Earth and bring to the surface where we are. Lets look further into comparing these two types of energy.

Geothermal & Nuclear Energy List of Comparisons

Availability of Resources

Nuclear Energy: Relies on both uranium and plutonium fuel, which are finite resources. While there are significant global reserves of uranium, the availability of high-grade ore and long-term sustainability are concerns.

Geothermal Energy: Relies on heat from the Earth’s crust, which is virtually a limitless & renewable resource. Geothermal reservoirs can sustain energy production for decades to centuries with proper management.

Environmental Impact

Nuclear Energy: Produces electricity with minimal greenhouse gas emissions during operation but poses risks such as radioactive waste generation, potential accidents (like Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island), there are concerns about uranium mining impacts & nuclear proliferation (the spread of nuclear weapons).

Geothermal Energy: Generally considered environmentally friendly, with low emissions of greenhouse gases & pollutants during operation. However, there are localized environmental concerns such as land stability & potential release of naturally occurring toxins (like hydrogen sulfide) from geothermal fluids.

Safety and Risks

Nuclear Energy: High safety standards & technological advancements have reduced the likelihood of major accidents. However, nuclear accidents can have catastrophic consequences in terms of human health, environmental contamination, & long-term cleanup & mitigation efforts. In the history of nuclear energy we have had numerous disasters totaling dozens of events and thousands of lives lost since 1952. This does not include the amount of people who have died from radiation exposure from nuclear waste.

Geothermal Energy: Generally considered safe with minimal risks compared to nuclear energy. However, drilling & reservoir engineering carry some risks such as induced seismic activity (earthquakes), groundwater contamination (if not managed properly) which seems like this could be mitigated using cleaner materials & proper geological research. I could only find 2 articles that stated there were fringe accidents where a workers died from hydrogen sulfide gas in a separator rooms. 1 in 1998 & 1 in 2022.

Energy Production & Efficiency

Nuclear Energy: Provides a high energy density, with nuclear power plants capable of generating large amounts of baseload electricity continuously. However, nuclear power plants have long construction times, high capital costs, & the mentioned challenges of nuclear waste disposal with no clear solution.

Geothermal Energy: Provides consistent and reliable baseload power similar to nuclear energy (depending on the type of geothermal system) with good efficiency. Geothermal power plants have relatively lower operational costs once established but require suitable geological conditions for optimal energy extraction. So the limits of electricity produced by geothermal means is only limited to our ability to drill deep within the earth efficiently, harness the heat efficiently & building the power stations. Once we figure out how to tap into the existing geothermal energy from any point on Earth, we literally have limitless free energy.

Public Perception & Acceptance of Nuclear & Geothermal Energy

It seems very strange that while the obvious dangers & monumental costs of nuclear are known, nuclear seems to be the one getting the most attention (both good & bad). Nuclear energy also has billions of taxpayer dollars put toward nuclear development that often goes way over budget. It seems like were putting billions of dollars into something that doesn’t seem to be solving anything while geothermal energy gets a fraction of the investment & we wonder why geothermal isn’t developed.

Geothermal energy isn’t given praise or even much attention publicly in the scientific/engineering community considering its potential. Its seems like private companies are the only ones pushing geothermal energy. Why? Its like geothermal energy is being judged before its taken off. We’ve barely explored the limits & possibilities of geothermal energy. Look at how much progress has happened in the last 20 years alone of electric car technology after “sitting on the shelf” for over 100 years.

Closing thoughts on Geothermal & Nuclear Energies

In the end, we are essentially spending literally billions of dollars to re-create something that the Earth already does for us and then spend millions more trying to dispose of man-made nuclear waste which endangers future generations of people. While there have been developments in “micro-nuclear reactors” which are compact & supposedly more safe… this doesn’t solve the nuclear waste issue. In the times we are in the importance of addressing nuclear proliferation has never been greater since the Cold War. Humans should not have the ability to destroy the planet with weapons. If we continue using nuclear energy we continue making materials for our very destruction. Yes nuclear has a high energy density… but so does the Earth. Nuclear energy is still used to make steam & turn turbines like most other forms of energy generation. I would be all for nuclear energy if there wasn’t a nuclear waste issue & the obvious dangers associated with the technology. So is it worth the cost (both literally & figuratively)?

Geothermal energy taps into nuclear reactions that are already happening deep inside our Earth creating vast amounts of heat. Since this is energy that runs constantly regardless of the conditions & will always bee here so long as Earth is here… it seems like not tapping into this infinite & free energy source would be a great loss to humanity & humanity’s future. Having volcanic activity near the surface has made the pioneering geothermal technology much easier & faster for places like Iceland. The same thing can be achieved anywhere on Earth, we just have to drill deeper. If we can send people into space, build space stations & explore our universe… I think we can put some of our finest minds on how drill deep holes safely anywhere on Earth.

I think with geothermal energy, its going to be the same thing that happened with electric vehicles. It was a path we started on, it turns out it was the right path, but we made a wrong turn & went with different technologies. 100+ years later were suffering the consequences of those choices & now were trying to make up for them as fast as we can.

After choosing that I was going with an electric car, there were a handful of choices but I narrowed it down to two. This was back in 2015 so there weren’t many options available. The Nissan Leaf had been around for 4 years. Fiat had the 500e. BMW made the i3. KIA had just come out with the electric Soul. And Tesla had a few versions of the Model S. The Model S was very expensive at the time but I took one on a test drive and absolutely fell in love with that car. In hindsight, I should have trusted my instincts.

I found out later on that BMW had just come out with the i3 and I took advantage of the weekend test drive program they had. I thought it was a neat car but after parking the car in the driveway and walking away what sounded like an engine came on. I only had the i3 for a few hours so I thought maybe I pressed a button on the key fob or had done something by mistake. After restarting and shutting the car back off it was still running. This is when I decided to investigate. I had opened the rear hatch started searching around where the noise was coming from. This is when I noticed the data sheet the car came with. It turns out the “hybrid version” of the i3 is designed to run the gas engine periodically (even when the car is off) so that the gas doesn’t just sit in there. (Gas engines have to be run if there is gas sitting in the tank otherwise things start to break). That same data sheet showed that the emissions rating for this engine was one of the worst in the industry. Something like a 2 out of 10 at the time. The i3 was obviously no longer an option for what I was looking for and I took it back the next day.

None of the other cars really interested me and I was super disappointed with the i3. So it came down to two choices. The expensive 2015 Model S or an affordable 2013 Nissan Leaf. After testing the Leaf it seemed like a great car because it was. Seats are really comfortable, has decent amount options, drives really well, super quick, easy to park and it was fun. The used Nissan Leaf was almost 1/4 the price of the Tesla Model S 85D at the time. So from a price tag perspective it made complete sense. But from a capability perspective they didn’t compare. I didn’t listen to my heart and I ended up buying the Nissan Leaf.

For driving around town, going to stores and nearby cities there are few cars better than the Nissan Leaf. Driving around in the city you can actually create more electricity from regenerative breaking than it takes to get there in some cases. This car is perfect for this type of use. But it wasn’t until I decided (on separate occasions) to drive to a music festival in the desert, a city in a nearby state and a National Park by the ocean that this car really had its limits and the amount of stress in these situations was something I didn’t expect.

The trip across the Cascade Mountain Range to the middle of the desert in Washington State had more up and downs emotionally than the mountain range had itself. After carefully planning every possible location I could charge at I set off. It was quite fun on the way there and had no issues going across the mountain range at all. It wasn’t until I was halfway through the desert at night with lower range than expected and no chargers in sight that I knew there might be a problem. After driving very slowly for what seemed like hours, convinced I was going to be on the side of the road at some point, I made it to the festival with basically no range left. I charged overnight using a regular wall outlet I found which set me up for the next 3 days ahead. The way back after the festival I made it to the top of the mountain range on a separate route with zero reading on the battery range. The rest of the way was all downhill and due to the regenerative breaking I had more charge than what the car is rated for at one point which I didn’t think was possible. Getting to the destination and back home was great but the in between driving was not the best experience.

The long distance trip to a nearby city is where I realized the charging network was no where near where it need to be to do the type of adventures I wanted. After coming back home at 3 in the morning which (was 4 hours later than I thought) I ran the round-trip I calculations. I spent a total of 4-5 hours charging on top of the 3 hours of driving. So when I realized I spent more time charging than I did driving I knew I messed up. Yes the car could make it, but this wasn’t the kind of adventure I had in mind. The charging network back in 2015 was in it’s early stages and needed a lot of work to get where it is today. I didn’t know this at the time and first hand experience was a hard lesson.

That National Forest by the ocean? Never got to see it. Its still on my list. After realizing this car wasn’t meant for really long distances and that the charging network was nowhere near what it needed to be I started to look at road trips differently. The route at the time only had two fast chargers and were really far apart. The previous city trip I decided to go on left a mark when I realize how much time was wasted. So I ended up setting aside my adventure to that National Park.

Keep in mind this is one of the few early electric vehicles made back in 2013. Electric cars had only been massed produced for around 2-3 years at that time. Early EVs were really meant for cities to solve the short distance drives which makes up something like 80% of most driving. It wasn’t until Tesla came out with the Model S and the Tesla Charging Network that people really started to consider electric cars for more long distance drives.

In my personal opinion, for my lifestyle and desires, I wish I had gone with the Model S instead of the Leaf. I honestly grit my teeth a little every time I think about this or have some sort of limit imposed because of the range of my Nissan Leaf. This is one of my very few regrets. I’m the type of person who would like to go on exploration trips and leave home for months at a time and just adventure.

This doesn’t mean that no one should buy a Leaf. If someone stays around the area they live and mostly only needs a car to go to the store and get groceries, then save $20,000+ and buy a Leaf. They are perfect for that. 2020 Nissan Leafs and newer have double the range that mine has which almost makes range a mute point. There are now a variety of affordable used electric cars to choose from so no one is stuck with the Nissan Leaf being the only choice.

I ended up never seeking my desired lifestyle, my desires and the things that I really wanted to do at the time simply because I made a “logical choice” at the time instead of getting what I really wanted. This life lesson ended up being way more expensive than the extra money it would have costed to have just bought the Tesla I wanted at the time. That Tesla Model S was the only car back then that had hundreds of miles of range. It meant that you could go almost anywhere. They were also expanding the Supercharger Network which makes going just about anywhere much easier.

The National Parks I never got to see, months long road trips and camping I never got to do, exploring and adventures I wanted to go on… it would have been worth the extra money to pay for something with long range. I missed out on at least 90% of those things that I really wanted to do. I thought I could make it work with the Nissan Leaf but after those experiences, the 1 time I ran out of range about a mile from the charger and the multiple times I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it on long distance trips… I stopped doing them. I had all these awesome fun ideas that I would do on electric road trips, most of which required something longer distance. But I never took those into account when buying that car. This took years of driving for me to realize the limits of that car in which life conditions changed and the Tesla was no longer a viable option.

I made the right decision to drive electric. There is zero doubt in my mind about that. I just chose the wrong electric car for me. So the moral of the story is to look at your lifestyle and what you want to do with it. Are you mostly driving to and from work? To the grocery stores and shopping? Then look at something with less range like a used Nissan Leaf and save a lot of cash in the process. But if your like me and want to do thousand mile road trips, go camping at far away locations and explore countries you’ve never been to using an electric car then spend the extra cash if you can on something capable of long range. It will be worth it. You’ll have years of memories and adventures to look back on. I don’t think there is a price anyone and put on that.

After 8 years, I can tell you that not living your dreams and desires by setting limits on yourself is the most expensive decision that no one can afford.

Charging Takes a Long Time

I don’t know if some people are intentionally misleading people on the charging rates of electric cars or if they really are just that dumb. I have seen so many used electric car listings that show the charge time of 4-6 hours. Some of them saying 8-16 hours. If you charge it using the wall charger then yes, it might take 18 hours. Charging it with the level 2 charger might take that long if the car is completely empty. The only time people will use those is when charging overnight or stopping at a store. Electric car drivers stopping to charge at a fast charging station (like they are used to doing at a gas station) will charge up in 15-30 minutes depending on the type of electric car. Its that simple.

The Batteries Wont Last Long

I’ve actually had some random person walk up to me while charging my car and use that as a talking point. This has also been heard across many news platforms and is just bad information. Truth is electric car batteries actually out live the life of the car which is kind of cool. So when the axles and car body is so worn down from driving that it makes sense to get a new car, the batteries in those cars will still be good and usable. There’s actually a warehouse in the UK that has stacked columns of used Nissan Leaf batteries to use as backup battery banks for the power grid which is a really smart use of these batteries. The first generation Leafs were made in 2011 and many people have put hundreds of thousands of kilometers on these cars. In some cases when a few battery cells go bad its common for the dealership to just replace the entire battery. Other companies can then buy these and use the other 98% of the good battery cells for purposes like battery banks. There are so many junked/wrecked Tesla vehicles with good batteries in them that this has become a very lucrative second hand market. These Tesla batteries often go on to power DIY electric cars around the world because of how reliable the batteries are.

Electric Cars are Bad in Snow

Turns out electric cars a great in snow for a variety of reasons. Before I get to that I’ll you tell the 1 reason they sometimes aren’t good in snow and that’s because of the cold. Batteries lose their charge rate faster in extreme cold but gas powered cars also lose range for similar reasons. With electric battery packs though they can have battery conditioners that try to keep them at an optimum operating temperature to help prevent this.

Now, here’s why electric cars in the snow are actually kind of awesome. Low center of gravity helps keep them from sliding. All that weight giving them that low center of gravity is also really good for tire traction and the high torque can help pull them out of some conditions. I’ve actually driven a 2013 Nissan Leaf (which is front wheel drive) in the middle of a snow storm uphill to Whistler, BC Canada. I do not recommend doing that but it turns out front wheel drive electric cars with proper tires are really good for driving in winter. I can only imagine an all wheel drive electric car like a Tesla would be a serious upgrade and nearly perfect in the snow.

Electric Cars are Dangerous

All cars are dangerous at some level. Every time an electric car catches fire (which isn’t that often) its all over headline news because it fits the narrative being pushed. If traditional fossil fuel powered vehicles made headline news every time there was an accident because of a design flaw or manufacturing error it would be on repeat 24/7. Look at the amount of recalls for fossil fuel powered vehicles over the past 15 years. Its in the millions. So many people have died or been injured because of failing mechanisms on gas powered cars of the past two decades alone. You can see videos on YouTube of gasoline engines randomly bursting into flames on the highway or at stoplights. There’s literally confined explosions happening hundreds of times per minute under the hood of a gas powered car (which is how they work) with an explosive fuel tank attached to it and somehow electric cars are more dangerous?

The only issue seen in some electric cars is when there is a faulty battery cell, poorly made battery chemistry or one of the batteries becomes contaminated with something like moisture (which all battery packs are designed to be waterproof even when submerged). In the rare occasion one of those cells can catch fire causing the other cells to catch fire. This is extremely rare and no where near as common as the news makes it out to be. Compare this to the thousands of things that can go wrong with constant explosions happening inside a gas car engine and a fuel tank full of gasoline at the other end.

In regards to safety features, all of Tesla’s vehicles are some of the safest if not the safest cars to be in. Electric cars using the skateboard style platform also have very large crumple zones because there is no engine. Due to the low center of gravity in electric cars it is also very unlikely to have rollovers. So not matter how we look at it electric cars are actually safer for a variety of reasons.

Electric Cars aren’t Clean Because They use Electricity from Coal Fired Powered Plants

Electric cars can be powered with electricity made from anything. They are only as clean as the type electricity they use. So as an example, the argument commonly used in Australia is that “electric cars aren’t clean because they use electricity from coal fired powered plants“. That’s only true if the person is using grid power from those coal fired power plants. Some people charge at home using solar on their roofs. This is why so many people in Australia want sustainable energy from sources like solar and wind. They know where there energy comes from and they want to change it. So as long as the government in Australia (who backs the coal industry) prevents that from happening, they can use that myth to dissuade people from buying electric cars.

Mining Lithium for Car Batteries is Bad for the Environment

It turns out this is currently true but has a solution that will make this a myth once its implemented which I’ll explain in a moment. Mining lithium is bad for the environment. So is drilling for oil, oil spills and billions of tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere but the issues with lithium mining doesn’t give the oil industry the excuse to continue doing business as usual. This is a common diversion tactic which is to point out something that is a legitimate issue with the competition to put them on the defense. Nothing is perfect and everyone knows this. And for the record these are the exact same materials used to power everyone’s cellphone and laptops but somehow this is the electric cars fault?

Now, the lithium mining is an issue (as of the publishing date this article) but just like where electric cars get there electricity from can be solved, so can the lithium mining issue. Electric cars came onto the market so fast that demand for the materials to make them couldn’t keep up. So when it comes to things like nickel and lithium, whoever can keep the supply going is who gets paid. Often these mines are not using modern practices and happen to be in the poorest countries with the poorest conditions. Electric car companies know this is an issue and some are actively working on fixing the supply chain. Tesla for example has recently filed a patent for mining lithium from clay minerals. They described it as extracting lithium from the material and putting the material back with very little to no damage done to the environment. So the ethics and environmental safety of how these materials are made and mined are constantly and rapidly evolving. At the rate Tesla does things it will probably be sooner than later.

Another topic that is rarely talked about (which is odd considering how profitable it is) is that most if not all of the materials used to make electric car batteries can be recycled and even used to make new batteries. So at some point theoretically less an less material will have to be mined because we will have so much lithium in the recycling loop to make batteries. A sort of “sustained level” that doesn’t have such a high peak of raw demand. There have been numerous and very profitable companies started to do that very thing. Recycle electric car batteries for the raw materials. The former right hand guy at Tesla, JB Straubel started a company called “Redwood Materials” in order to recycle electric car batteries. So even he sees the potential and the future of the industry.

Electric Cars will Bring Down the Energy Grid

I haven’t run the exact math on this, but we would have to do something like double or triple the amount of fast chargers and then intentionally plug them all in at the same time to mess up the power grid. Even then I don’t think that would work. Power grids tend to go down when everyone in a state has their air conditioner running on an already stressed system due to other factors like because of a heatwave. So there are multiple problems going on at the same time. Its not going to be caused by electric cars. There are only so many fast chargers (these are the ones with high drawing power) and only so many people are going to be plugged in at the exact same time. Even when more people have electric cars a vast majority of people charge at home at night because its way cheaper. Electric automakers have the data and that’s what the data shows from vehicle charging. Its fractions cheaper to charge at home and the car is going to be sitting there for at least 8 hours anyway. This is when there is less pressure on the grid and electricity is also cheaper this time of day. “Slow charging” which is the level 2 chargers or the even slower charging (plugging into your standard electrical outlet) has very low draw of electricity anyway.

By the time everyone has electric vehicles (which is going to be a while) at the rate sustainable energy is expanding (wind, solar, hydro and geothermal) the amount of power available in the electrical grid will be more than enough. The energy grid doesn’t stay stagnant. As society grows and expands so does the energy grid.

Where are Electric Car Myths Coming From?

Clearly we can see that these electric car myths have had something construed in a way to make them seem true when they’re not. So why would there be so much myth and controversy over a car powered by electricity? Literally trillions of dollars, government corruption and millions of people around the world afraid of change being fed these myths to affirm their beliefs. That was a lot to unload in one sentence but unfortunately it seems that’s where everything is pointing to.

Its public knowledge and in the open that oil companies have “think tanks” and PR companies to come up with ideas and run stories in order to discredit any work being done to electrify the transpiration industry. Fossil fuel powered transport has been their “bread and butter” for the past century and they don’t want change. They’re not invested in it. So they can’t profit from it. Its less expensive for the oil industry to pay think tanks, PR companies for propaganda and pay for ads at news corporations who in turn don’t run negative press on they’re contributors. In this situation, there’s extra incentive for news corporations to say negative things about electric cars because controversy sells. Anyone involved with profit from the oil industry at any level has financial incentive to spread myths about electric cars. There are also politicians who unfortunately in some way or another are involved with oil companies. So when laws are passed, bills are made and taxes are set they are usually in favor of oil companies and against electric car companies. Some of these politicians have even openly said negative things about electric cars without reason and are even heard repeating the myths as propaganda. Thankfully, there are some ethical people in these positions that are passing good laws, progressive bills and reforms in order to help make the future more sustainable and do the right thing. For the climate, our future and for clean transport. That’s how things are supposed to be. The best idea wins when all the choices and science are on the table. People decide with their money at that point. The thing that makes the most sense wins. Fear, propaganda and myths are brought into the light and exposed for what they are. If you’ve heard any other electric cars myths leave them in the comments below and bring them to light. I’d imagine there are some interesting ones out there.

Earth being impacted again is a very real scenario that shouldn’t be dismissed. Earth passes through the Taurid meteor stream twice a year and as of right now we’re basically “cross our fingers” and hope we don’t get hit again. That’s what we’ve always done as far as we know. We’ve been lucky for at least a few thousand years. But we also know that Earth has been impacted by asteroids and comets repeatedly in human history and civilization has been reset multiple times. We’ve also discovered, only recently, that there are numerous asteroids that pass by Earth quite often and some of them are huge.

Many great thinkers of society have said its not a matter of “if” but “when” Earth is impacted again and we have no idea how bad its going to be when it does. Its been rather uneventful (cosmically) here on Earth but something will happen again whether its tomorrow or fifty years from now. Coincidentally, as I write this, a green comet is passing by Earth that hasn’t been around in over 50,000 years. This is just one of millions of objects in space that pass through our solar system. Whether its a comet or asteroid this is the reality we live in and all life on this planet is incredibly lucky.

I know there are engineers and scientists doing everything they can and dedicating their lives to making sure that we can either defend ourselves against coming asteroids and/or giving humanity a chance to reboot by placing some of us on another planet (like Mars) in the near future. These are backup plans to hedge our best bets on ensuring humanity survives in the future. We do need more people dedicating their work to such causes. What is more honorable than ensuring the betterment of humanity and the survival of humanity? What if we could do that and solve the energy issue we’re in?

How Geothermal Energy Can Ensure Human Survival

There is no guarantee that we can survive the way have multiple times before when there’s a cosmic impact again. Having on off-Earth base is a must and is being worked on. Which is quite possibly, one of humanity’s biggest achievements. But what other backups can we do to increase our odds? We can start with using what has already worked in the past and throw in some modern engineering for good measure. We survived underground before and this is where geothermal energy comes in. Here’s why. I’ll use a theoretical situation to explain.

If we have an impact similar to what happened around 11,000 years ago say next week and only a few hundred thousand people around Earth survived, they would have to endure an impact winter. Extremely cold temperatures with no sunlight for years.

But during the impact we have heat, high winds and tsunamis all of which don’t leave much behind. Wind, hydro, nuclear, solar and fossil fuels would all be mostly useless. Nuclear would make the situation way worse for surrounding areas and contaminate anything that would be of use. Wind and hydro? Exposure to the elements would destroy these as they are too fragile to last in those situations. Solar power? There’s no sunlight to harvest when the sky is blanketed with ash for years. But what about fossil fuels? They have to be mined, existing fuels would burn up and burning any fuels that remain would worsen already poor air quality. So all major power sources would be wiped off the surface or too dangerous to keep around in such an event. So what are our options at this point? We’ll if we can figure out nuclear fusion and house that within the Earth, that might give us a shot. But nuclear fusion is still a long way off for now. This is where I think geothermal energy has the potential to do something great.

Geothermal energy doesn’t need the sun like solar does. Geothermal energy doesn’t need wind. It doesn’t require the backup flow of a dam. And geothermal doesn’t require the constant mining/producing/refining of materials like nuclear power and fossil fuels do. Nor does it have radioactive waste to dispose of. So that’s a plus.

Geothermal energy can also be utilitarian in a variety of ways. It provides warmth and can create electricity. From those two things we can grow food and create artificial environments to survive in. Providing ways to create full spectrum light, natural water filtration and seed storage would be the key things to get us off to a really good start and even making a fast comeback.

Geothermal Energy should be as common as finding a gas station… or supercharger.

Jacob Haust

If we make geothermal energy more widespread globally, like easier than finding a gas station, it would improve the chances of humanity surviving and even thriving. It was access to geothermal energy that enable the Vikings who made their way to Iceland to survive one of the harshest areas on the planet. This is a place where its gets -40 degrees with 32-112 kph winds (20-70 mph winds). Now imagine surviving your entire life in that climate with furs and skins for clothing living in handmade dwellings made of stone, earth and wood. Most everyone would not survive those conditions. But one of the main things that enabled the Vikings to survive such conditions was natural geothermal heat and energy on the surface. People could have done the same thing in Antarctica… but the problem is there’s no easily accessible geothermal energy there on the surface.

Now imagine the world population reset down to a few hundred thousand (a few million if we’re lucky) from an asteroid impact, the Earth’s poles suddenly shifting or a super volcano eruption. In every single one of those scenarios the Earth goes back into an ice age as the temperature begins to rapidly cool. Super volcanoes throw ash and sulfur into the air blanketing the skies. Asteroid impacts after setting the world on fire begin to rapidly cool the Earth when ash is thrown into the atmosphere. The poles shifting/flipping rapidly would have an affect on the northern and southern hemispheres in ways we don’t fully understand that could create massive blankets of ice. Its believed this is what could have happened during the “Laschamps Excursion” around 42,000 years ago when the poles flipped last.

The way humanity has survived in the past from such events was to hide inside the Earth in caves. We have physical evidence of this all around the planet. We basically went into caves and did the best we could. Tried to stay warm, tried to make and cook food from what we could find. Now when humanity most likely will have to do that again at some point, what if we had the knowledge of harnessing geothermal power on our side? Understandably most geothermal facilities on the surface of the Earth would not survive such events. But if they were housed underground they could survive the same as we have. With vents (of some kind) to the surface this would solve the CO2 venting issue while also creating markers for people traveling on the surface to know where they could find geothermal shelter. Like seeing a gas station sign or charging sign and know that you could find the energy you need there. The Vikings actually did something similar thousands and made stone piles called “cairns” to mark safe passage to guide in a dangerous landscape. Geothermal energy facilities can also be spotted very far away, especially in the cold, where steam rises high into the air. So they kind of perform the same purpose.

Geothermal Giving Us Our Best Chances

Setting some of our species off Earth as a backup plan and for exploration (like Elon is doing with Mars) is going to be one of our best chances when a cosmic event happens. In the same way, we should be looking toward the Earth as we did in the past but with a new perspective and utilizing geothermal power. With geothermal power we have proven we can survive the harshest conditions on the surface of the Earth… I think we could do the same while utilizing the shelter inside the Earth to survive cosmic events.

Some of humanity survives above (off planet), some of humanity survives below (on planet). That’s 2 backup plans for the human species giving us the best chances we can think of.

With geothermal energy (for survivors that have access to it) they might have to re-tap a blocked well or do some kind of repairs if the facility is either damaged or breaks down. If we have many facilities and one is broken, then finding one that can be repaired or is in working condition increases survival chances. So if we keep all equipment at each facility required to do repairs, like making a universal standard geothermal repair kit, it shouldn’t be too difficult for survivors to figure out. All the hard work has already been done. It would be the difference of repairing a motor versus building a car. Lets say the turbines are damaged and there are no working ones. Without any turbines, at the very least they would have warmth. This is unlike all other energy sources that use turbines to make electricity.

Then there’s the best case scenario, we have multiple (hundreds if not thousands) of underground geothermal facilities that remain intact and operating after an impact. Some portions of humanity around the world would have geothermal heat, power, shelter and a way to grow food. Three of which are cornerstones for human survival. No other energy source is capable of this.

If we tap into the power we have beneath our feet not only would this help solve the huge problem we are having right now regarding clean energy it could help solve an even bigger problem when it eventually happens.

At the very least geothermal energy could help ensure humanity survives the cold during a cosmic event and help solve our energy issues currently. We could also push it further and make ways for geothermal energy to solve our energy issues we are currently having and help restart society faster by providing them electricity, shelter and ways to make food. Either way, it seems geothermal energy is something we should research and develop more seriously and at scale.

Geothermal power has the potential to be our best fallback option to ensure survival here on Earth and make the fastest comeback possible. If we start focusing more attention on building geothermal energy facilities now, we can solve our energy problems both today and in the future.

I am open to seeing something, anything, that I may have missed here in regards to geothermal being a backup power source after a cosmic event. It seems that our greatest challenge would be keeping the geothermal bore holes open, assuming we have survivors, since the Earth’s energy core isn’t going anywhere. There are engineers out there that probably understand this way better. If you know any geothermal engineers please share this with them to open a global discussion. If there is any possibility this could work, its worth exploring.

Essentially, all you’ll need is growing pots or planter box, soil, water, grow light and of course seeds. But there are a few small things you can do that will go a long way when growing indoors for better plants and better harvesting.

Common Indoor Gardening Mistakes & Tips

• Fresh air exchange
  • While higher carbon dioxide levels can be good for plants they still need fresh air the same way we do. Indoor air has been known to be unhealthy in many parts of the world but this is easily solved by allowing fresh air exchange a few times a day. If you have windows that can allow fresh air to flow through by having these open at least a few times a day this will help both you and your plants
• Mycorrhizal fungi
  • This is by far one of the best investments anyone can make when growing in soil. By adding mycorrhizae to the soil you’re basically adding “little engineers” to the soil which manage all of the underground processes for you and help you produce way better results. The mycorrhizae will help protect the soil and plants from disease, deliver more nutrients and minerals to the plant roots and help increase yields. A small amount added to your soil mix will go a long way in helping you grow indoors and produce better plants. Fungi are incredible organisms.
• Lighting
  • If you have a south facing window that gets plenty of light you may not need a grow light at all. By having some pots or a planter box in the window this could be all the light they need depending on what your growing. But if you live in a place that has long rainy or wet seasons a grow light would be good to have as a backup. Either way, its a good idea to setup a grow light for a consent light schedule in case weather doesn’t;t hold up. If you can find one that has higher red light in the spectrum this would be ideal for your plants. Red light has been show to produce larger plants, fruits and flowers.
• Things in Water
  • Make sure that your water is filtered if you don’t live in a place that has a natural water source. Often the chemicals added to the water are enough to upset the plants or even kill them. Even some of the material from the pipes whether they are plastic or metal can have an undesired effect on them. The most common thing they do is change the PH levels of the soil. A simple solution to this carbon filter to remove anything you wouldn’t want to feed your plants and PH sticks are often very cheap to test PH levels of your water.
• Watering Levels
  • When it comes to watering, the most common mistake is people make is watering their plants too much and they end up drowning them. The other is forgetting to water them at all. So by using a bottle to drip feed the soil or a clay vessel to bury in the soil filled with water this can help water your plants automatically and reduce any mistakes. If your curious on how to do this there are instructions further below. This is an ancient growing tool called an Olla.

Make a Self Watering Planter

If you’re someone who forgets to water plants on a regular schedule or is away from home often, you could try using bottle watering. All you have to do is fill the bottle with water, poke a few holes in the bottle cap and place the bottle upside down in the soil with the cap on. What this will do is enable the soil to pull water from the bottle as it becomes dry. If you have a small glass bottle (or even a vial) this is more ideal since it wont expose your plants and soil to plastic. But there is a much easier an natural way to do this. If you have a few extra dollars to spend and really like using this method you can purchase a small clay vessel called an olla which is filled with water an buried in the soil next to the plants. Since clay is porous water can be exchanged to the soil when the soil starts drying out. It essentially acts like a “well” for the plant roots to draw from when they need it. You could also make your own by sealing the bottom hole in a small clay pot and use the drainage tray as the lid. It does the exact same thing. This is a very old growing method used from thousands of year ago that is still used in some places around the world. So if you have an indoor garden bed bury the vessel in the center so that the water is distributed as evenly as possible. There are “self watering planters” you can buy if you don’t want to make these yourself and have everything already setup for you. All you would have to do is add water once its gets low.

Indoor gardening and growing your own food at home is one of the most sustainable ways to produce food since it reduces the amount of materials and resources it requires to get fresh produce from the soil to your plate. Its also very rewarding to produce your own food and is a valuable life skill. Aside from that, growing food at home can also be a lot a fun.

• How Mushrooms can Help Solve Food Scarcity
• Mushrooms can Solve the Plastic and Oil Spill Problems
• How Mushrooms Have an Important Role in Medicine
• Mushrooms Have Primary Role in Soil Regeneration
• Mushrooms can Replace Insecticides and Aid Crop Growth
• Mushrooms and Architecture

How Mushrooms can Help Solve Food Scarcity

While mushrooms can help regenerate soil (which I talk about further below) mushrooms themselves are incredibly nutrition rich with great flavor. I’m willing to bet that most (if not all restaurants where you can order wine) serves a dish that has mushrooms in it. Mushrooms can be complimentary to meat dishes or even act as replacement for meat in some cases given their texture. The lions mane mushroom when grilled in a pan with butter tastes a lot like lobster. Portobello mushrooms, which are big enough to be their own dish, can be made to taste a lot like a burger. Now while they are not a direct replacement for meat and nutrition provided by meat they do grow way faster, use up a lot less resources to grow and can literally be grown anywhere in the world both indoors and outdoors. There’s been some interesting research showing that if you grow oyster mushrooms on specific growing mediums you can get them to produce amino acids that are typically found in meats.

An important thing to note here is that mushrooms are not geography dependent (some mushrooms do only grow on specific mediums) but most mushrooms that are used commonly as food like oyster mushrooms can be grown anywhere in the world. Mushrooms grow faster than any crop like wheat, corn or rice and use up a fraction of the resources. This reduces time, reduces resources and reduces costs dramatically when compared to just about anything else we grow for food.

Mushrooms can Help Solve the Plastic and Oil Spill Problems

Plastic, which is one of the oil industry’s biggest money makers next to fuel, is also one of the planet’s biggest problems. Both plants and mushrooms have the potential to replace this completely. Mushrooms so far don’t seem to have the ability to make plastic like materials but do have the ability to make packaging that would replace certain types of plastic packaging like foam.

When it comes to creating very “plastic like” packaging, that will most likely come from plants where plant cellulose seems to have the most promising ability to create a variety of plastics. Keep in mind that hemp was once used to make the strongest car plastic body in the world back in 1941 by Henry Ford. So with the abundant amount of hemp cellulose we have it seems like that could work. But lets get back to mushrooms.

Mushrooms can also be made into a leather like fabric which can replace synthetic, plastic leather as well as many other synthetic fabrics which are all oil based. Many high end companies are already producing concepts made from mushroom leather like Lululemon and Adidas. Startup companies like Mycoworks and Mylo are already producing leather materials made from mushrooms.

So mushrooms can help us produce materials that are way more natural and biodegradable in order to replace plastics. So what else can mushrooms do? Turns out mushrooms can be used as a very effective “cleanup crew” for oil spills.

Oyster mushrooms have been shown to have the ability to break down oil. The way they do this is essentially the exact same way that mushrooms decompose everything else. The mycelium create enzymes that break down hydrogen and carbon bonds (hydrocarbons) and produce sugars that act as energy for both plants and mushrooms. Once plants move in, this sets the stage for creating an ecosystem. Plants grow, then insects move in, once insects move in birds come to eat the insects. Bird leave behind seeds, more plants grow. Plants inevitably die which the mycelium decomposes and mycelium of course creates the fruiting bodies we call mushrooms. Its a really neat cycle once mycelium moves in and does its thing. This cycle happens over and over again until any trace of oil is basically undetectable.

Since we know oyster mushrooms have the ability to help clean up oils spills, its more like a “tool to keep in our back pockets” if we need it. We will inevitably have oil spills as society transitions away from oil dependency. So its good to know we have a cleanup crew to help us get there.

How Mushrooms Have an Important Role in Medicine

Mushrooms like Turkey Tail, Rieshi and Agarikon are widely know to have an array of medicinal benefits associated with them. Benefits of medicinal mushrooms include things like antiviral activity, immune boosting, antioxidants and DNA protection. Agarikon in particular is very rare yet has some of the most potent medicinal compounds. Had Paul Stamets other mycologists not discovered the medicinal capabilities of mushrooms like this and where they are found, we would not have known how endangered certain mushrooms like these are. As far as we know, Agarikon now only grows in 1 place on the planet, our endangered old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

Lions Mane is another medicinal mushroom that has been known to help with specific neuro degenerative disorders and nerve damage. Its commonly used as a nootropic to help enhance brain function. Thankfully, Lions Mane can be found growing all over the world so more people have access to is benefits. With mushrooms like these, and mushrooms general, I think we are just beginning to understand their true benefits to society and potential.

The important role mushrooms play in medicine is one of the key reasons we should be protecting the forests and habitats that mushrooms like these grow in. In places like the Amazon where we are seeing large portions of deforested and burned away on a daily basis… there may be (and most likely are) mushrooms and fungi in the Amazon that we will never know exist simply because of how we treat Nature. By this fact alone, forests (especially old growth and Amazonian) should be protected as sanctuaries not cut down for profit and making more farmland we don’t need. The farmland we do have need to be regenerated and brought back to life.

Mushrooms Have Primary Role in Soil and Habitat Regeneration

Mushrooms are the very enablers of life on this planet. They broke down hard rock and extracted the nutrients and minerals within them which provided the fuel for the beginnings of plants and other cellular organisms to grow and reproduce. So if mushrooms and fungi can do something so incredibly powerful and fundamental to start life on this planet… it can probably help us fix our mistakes too.

In combination with regenerative farming, mushrooms can essentially re-create healthy soil. Even from the most toxic and polluted soils as I mentioned earlier. But where we need to heal our soils the most is where we already have farmland that’s been used for generations. And this is where regenerative farming comes in. Regenerative farming by itself is immensely beneficial to farmland and seems like a very diverse way to farm. But by adding mycelium to the process, farmers can supercharge those results by introducing an organism that’s been making healthy soil for millions of years.

By adding mycelium to farmland, it can help breathe life back into an area that is basically void of any nutrients and microscopic life that’s required to create an ecosystem within the soil. This is solid that we’ve destroyed through “archaic farming practices” like overloading farmland with chemical herbicides, pesticides and phosphorous all while extracting nutrients and minerals by harvesting the crops. By not replacing/regenerating anything we’ve taken and dumped chemical on the land we’ve basically “sanitized” the soil. Its amazing that mushrooms and mycelium, with a little bit of help, can come in and start to bring back the soil to how its suppose to be. Its going to be really interesting to see how farmers utilize these new discoveries. Like the discovery that fungi are more effective at killing pests than pesticides.

Mushrooms can Replace Insecticides and Aid Crop Growth

Chemical pesticides have had a notorious reputation. While being generally effective these types of pesticides also do heavy damage the environment and human health. They have also been shown to be one of the primary causes of killing of bees. Chemical pesticides do not discriminate and they tend to kill whatever insect comes into contact with them. A particular class of pesticides call neonicotinoids used on farmland essentially wrecks the bees entire system and seems to be responsible for what scientists call “Colony Collapse Disorder” where millions of bees have been dying off all around the world.

Paul Stamets has stated numerous times that fungi can be used as a more effective pesticide and has multiple patents on using mushrooms as an effective insecticide. The mushrooms of course kill the insect and in the process break down the insect’s material and return it to the Earth. But what is so unique about Paul’s mycopesticide discovery is that he can train this particular type of fungi to target specific types of pests. Meaning this fungus is not harmful to bees. Better yet, this same type of fungus can be trained to target a mite called the Varroa mite which is taking advantage of the bee’s weakened immune system and sucking on them like tiny vampires… which is also killing the bees.

Bees will also seek out other species of mushrooms the same way we do to help them heal and improve their immune systems. Which is another amazing discovery made by Paul Stamets. So in combination with transitioning away from harmful chemical pesticides it seems we can use fungi to both replace these chemicals, protect bees and provide them medicine at the same time.

Mushrooms and Architecture

Mushrooms can also help teach us more efficient ways to build structures, which is one of the cornerstones of human civilization. Since Nature has a few hundred million more years of experience in design and building, it only makes sense that we learn from the best.

At the core of fungi is mycelium, the underlying network that spans across the globe. When looking at mycelium microscopically, the network is a highly efficient structure that resembles many other structures found throughout the universe and here on Earth. We’ve attempted to build structures using dried mycelium bricks but they are more “proof of concept” and art than what we require for structural grade materials.

Dried mycelium bricks themselves aren’t great as a structural element because they don’t hold weight in the same way steel or concrete does. However, if you’ve ever noticed the structures that Artificial Intelligence designs and makes iterations of, they look a lot like a dried mycelium up close. Its because AI was taught to find the simplest path with the strongest structure… which is exactly what Nature has been perfecting for hundreds of millions of years. So its not wonder the structures AI designs look familiar.

The structure of mycelium bricks is of course really efficient but the material its made from wasn’t intended to hold up that kind of weight needed in architecture. So by learning from Nature’s design and applying this to stronger materials we can create better architecture that works in harmony with Nature.

In closing:

If we heal our minds, I think we can begin to heal our relationship with Earth.

Jacob Haust

Mushrooms are essentially the tool that we can both learn from and utilize. All of what was mentioned in this article are only some of the ways we can learn from mushrooms. As a tool, mushrooms are exactly what humanity needs to help heal civilization. By using mushrooms in combination with regenerative farming we can heal and replenish the soil of Earth that we’ve done damage to. We rely on soil for both food an habitat. In a similar way, we can use mushrooms to heal the minds of humanity. We’ve done damage to our minds and our ways of thinking in similar ways that we’ve done damage to the Earth. We know better now and have the ability to approach living life on this planet in a more holistic way. If we heal our minds and our ways of thinking I think we can begin to heal our relationship with Earth.

Honestly, if you mostly stay in your city, drive to work, go to the grocery store, etc. then a shorter range electric vehicle is actually perfect for your lifestyle. If you need to head out of town or go on a road trip then there are always cheap car rentals available. This is coming from someone who has driven a used electric vehicle for the past 7 years and has saved a lot of money in the process. Range anxiety? Don’t worry about it. If staying local is more your lifestyle then you’re probably in the majority of people who drive no more than 30-50 miles (48-80 km) a day and you can charge at home using an outlet if you want to. The following used electric vehicles you can find under $20,000 or less. While some of these cars may not be the best looking vehicles around, you’ll never have to pay for gas again.

• Nissan Leaf
• BMW i3
• Fiat 500e
• Kia Soul EV
• Chevy Spark
• VW eGolf
• Smart Car EV

All automakers on this list, with the exception of Nissan and BMW, produced electric versions of existing cars they already had. Both Nissan and BMW produced entirely new architecture design which allowed them to make better use of space and create designs that no other automaker was doing at the time.

Used Nissan Leaf (2011-2019)

• Price: $6k-$25k
• Range: 70 Miles / 112 Kilometers – 226 Miles / 363 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2011

Nissan Leafs were the first mass produced electric vehicle which were first made in 2011. This was 2 years ahead of everyone else and were also the most affordable. Even the new Leafs are between 25k-30k with some used Nissan Leafs being found under $10k. These are very reliable, very comfortable to sit in and have a long history behind them. Japanese engineering has made Nissan Leafs a very well built car that’s made to last. Aside from Tesla, Nissan also has the longest development and research of batteries for electric cars which puts them slightly ahead in that technology compared to many other EV manufacturers. The only other batteries known to be built with such high quality (again aside from Tesla) was the Kia Soul EV.

Used Kia Soul EV (2014-2019)

• Price: $10k-$25k
• Range: 104 Miles / 167 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2014

Kia started making the electric version of the Soul back in 2014. Only a few years after the initial launch of the Nissan Leaf. One of the benefits of the Kia Soul EV was the amount of space that this vehicle already had and wasn’t compromised with the addition of the electric drivetrain and battery. To this day, it still make one of the best local delivery vehicles due to its shape and cargo space. Similar to the Nissan Leaf, one of the things that Kia did really well on was the level of comfortably. The Kia Soul EV has some of the most comfortable seats that you’ll sit in. Another similarity is the build quality and engineering. This is something that both Japanese and Korean auto manufacturers do really well on. Its not “high end” build quality like we get from German manufacturers but reliable and well built quality. The Kia Soul EV was engineered to last and the battery technology was so good that it could charge at better rates and have slightly more range compared to the Nissan Leafs at the time.

Used BMW i3 (2014-2019)

• Price: $15k-$30k
• Range: 81 Miles / 130 Kilometers – 152 Miles / 246 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2014

Be careful with the BMW i3. Many of these look identical but actually have “range extenders” in the form of a small gasoline engine which is completely unnecessary and defeats the purpose. Ironically, the tiny gas engine also rated as one of the worst polluting engines and is there solely to recharge the battery. It also has to run on it s own every once and a while to keep the gas lines from building up material.

So look for a BMW i3 that is 100% electric without a range extender. They offer more storage space due to not having a gas engine anyway. There are actually some really cool things about the BMW i3. Its the first mass produced vehicle to have a 100% carbon fiber body frame which is very safe and super light weight. The interior is very Scandinavian and minimalist but done in a very stylish way. Contrary to its small size (which is also great for parking) you actually sit up higher than you would think. Driving down the road you could actually see over most cars making visibility and safety way better.

Used Chevy Spark (2013-2016)

• Price: $10k-$17k
• Range: 82 Miles / 131 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2013

So the Chevy Spark is an interesting one. GM did not create the Spark out of interest in making EVs or to create a great new product for customers. It was actually made as a “compliance vehicle”. Both California and Oregon have a law where if manufacturers do not offer an electric vehicle for sale in their state manufacturers can’t sell their other gas cars in those states. So GM complied and made the Spark EV so they could continue selling their gas vehicles in those states. This wasn’t anything special or innovative, just an electric version of a car they already had. Which was exactly how GM approached the situation. The Spark EV has been discontinued as GM has moved onto other electric vehicles.

Used VW eGolf (2016-2019)

• Price: $16k-$27k
• Range: 83 Miles / 133 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2017

The VW Golf and the eGolf look nearly identical. They are basically the same vehicle minus the gas engine and exhaust. This was a similar method that Fiat used with the 500e (listed below) where they took an existing vehicle and added an electric drive train. It was so similar that if you weren’t listening or noticed the different aerodynamic wheels you would think it was just a Golf. The engineering that VW put into the eGolf back in 2016 was the roots for their EV research and development for the car they would launch in 2021 and 2022. The eGolf had just as good build quality as the gasoline version. The EV version was actually more reliable due to the EV architecture. There were far fewer parts and things that could go wrong. VW, similar to their Asian counterparts, are known for their build quality.

Used Smart Car EV (2013-2019)

• Price: $8k-$19k
• Range: 84 Miles / 135 Kilometers – 58 Miles / 93 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2013

Smart Car (owned by Mercedes Benz) added an electric drivetrain to the Smart Car back in 2013. They sort of messed this one up for a few years in terms of buying one. You could only lease the vehicles and they experimented with a strange battery swap program that didn’t work… the program itself was just really poorly implemented. They had a perfectly good EV and all they had to do was market it and improve upon it. This really dissuaded a lot of potential buyers and unfortunately in 2019 Mercedes Benz discontinued the Smart Car line in North America. I think this was a missed opportunity to really dominate the EV market in North American and European cities. With a longer range battery (250+ miles) Mercedes could have sold way more of these vehicles for a variety of purposes. Due to their size, which is great for parking and finding a spot, they also make great affordable delivery vehicles which is a huge industry. With gas cutting into delivery profits they could have cornered that market and offered a solution. So if you like tiny electric vehicles or are a local delivery driver, finding a used Smart Car EV is a great way to keep more of your money.

Used Fiat 500e (2013-2019)

• Price: $10k-$18k
• Range: 87 Miles / 140 Kilometers
• First Generation: 2013

If style and appearance is important to you, the Fiat 500e might be one of the coolest looking vehicles on this list. It has a very trendy European feel with a fairly solid build quality. Similar to the Chevy Spark, the Fiat 500e was also built as a compliance vehicle in California and Oregon. Supposedly they were sold at a loss to the company because they were so expensive to make. The thing that make the Fiat 500e different is that the Fiat 500 already had a long history. The first versions of these cars were made way back in the 1950’s. So rather than building and entirely new vehicle architecture, Fiat made an electric version of it as EV compliance car. The result actually turned out really cool. People liked this car so much that many years later Fiat actually decided to create a new version of it in 2021 and every year they seem to be producing new models. The Fiat 500e is probably the smallest car in the list next to the Smart Car. As of 2022, the 500e is still the only electric car produced by Fiat. To their credit, the new 2022 versions of the 500e are very modern and have a great design. The Fiat 500e is also the only EV in the world that has a convertible option.

Fun Facts About Electric Vehicles

• The batteries outlive the life of the car, seriously.
  Batteries from older Nissan Leafs in the UK are being used as backup electrical grids. Their linked together in warehouses to store electricity when demand is high or when the power goes out.
• There is almost zero maintenance on electric vehicles.
  Electric vehicles are so reliable that over the course of 7 years I have rotated my tires, replaced the small 12 volt battery (the same one found in gas cars) and added washer fluid. That’s it.
• Electric vehicles produce their own electricity through regeneration.
  When braking or slowing down EVs produce their own electricity through regenerative braking. This electricity gets sent back into the battery and you can actually watch your range go up. This is perfect if you drive down mountains or hills frequently or are in stop and go traffic.

This is the perfect time where gas prices are going higher and there are a lot of affordable used electric vehicles on the market to choose from. One of the best things about owning an electric vehicle is driving by a gas station knowing you’ll never have to stop there again. You can get your electricity from anywhere. A fast charging station, level 2 charger or even your home/apartment wall socket. Electric vehicles are as clean as the energy grid is so it all depends on where your electricity comes from. Some things electric vehicles have that gas cars never will is this level of reliability, low maintenance and the ability to regenerate their own energy.

Taras Kravtchouk, the founder of Tarform, started the company out of desire to create a better motorcycle and after spending 20 years in digital design he wanted to make a physical product in the real world that had meaning. This is where his background in industrial design, interest in motorcycles and connections to talented craftsman in Brooklyn was a perfect combination.

From a sketch on paper to a production ready vehicle, the electric motorcycles from Tarform look like something out of a Sci-Fi movie and sound even better. Its a motorcycle that would look just as good as an art piece posed in a loft as it would gliding down the streets. Its not just the iconic design and sustainable materials that makes Tarform different. Its the powertrain. 100% pure electric run with lithium ion batteries at 120 miles of range… for now. Taras says that as battery technology improves this will help increase the range. For how most motorcycles get used, this is plenty of range. Even more than some electric cars on the roads.

Unlike other manufacturers, Tarform is thinking about the motorcycle’s future and how it’s materials will work with the environment. Nearly all other motorcycle manufacturers make use of animal leather, nylon, numerous types of plastics made from oil and other synthetic materials like polyurethane. At the end of their life cycles, these materials can’t return to the environment safely and end up polluting the planet both during manufacturing and returning to the Earth.

Tarform’s motorcycle frames are made from steel that could easily last 100+ years. Structural components, hand shaped metal body work and gauge housings are made from 100% recycled aluminum. The body panels are made from biodegradable flax seed fiber composite and dyed with algae pigments. Even the fabric used to make the seat… is made from pineapple leaf leather.

Something I noticed in the reveal video, when they showed the motorcycles to the public for the first time, is that everyone wanted to touch and feel them. There is something about the textures, the materials and the shapes of the bike that draw you to it. Its familiar in its design but at the same time futuristic. You can visually feel the textures even through photos. Tarform motorcycles are almost organic in their nature.

Taras describes the manufacturing as “we kind of wanted to honor the spirit of craftsmanship and embrace a little bit of the values of how vehicles were made in the 50’s and 60’s”. This is a time where craftsmanship of vehicles was a true art form and were made to last. This is why so many vehicles from that era are still around today and some models even sought after by collectors. Most motorcycles though, haven’t made this way in over 50 years aside from artisan manufacturers. And none of them are electric. Until now.

One of the big questions Tarform wanted to answer through design was “how do you create something meaningful that is meant to last?” A philosophy Taras mentioned from a watch advertisement where the idea is to “hand it down to the next generation”. Which in itself is inspiring. The idea of being able to hand down an iconic design, something that you enjoyed for decades knowing that your children or grandchildren will enjoy it as much as you did. All while having minimal impact on the planet.

Most of the things we own today were designed to be replaced. But in a world that is moving toward sustainability, this is a common business practice that isn’t sustainable. Taras’ answer to this is to design and build something that people desire. And that desire then drives the evolution of the design. But all elements have to work together to create that desire. The look, feel, movement and even the sound.

Motorcycles are partly known for their sound in both positive and negative aspects. So one of the first questions that comes to mind with an electric motorcycle is “what does it sound like?” Taras says they “take the natural sounds from the electric motor and amplify them through a resonator. So its very similar to how an electric guitar works”. And honestly, it sounds amazing. There is something truly iconic about the acoustics. From startup to accelerating and slowing down there’s something there that makes you want to listen to on repeat. A primal yet other worldly sound.

Whats happening with electric motorcycles is going to be very similar to what is happening with electric cars. Once you drive one, you realize there is not going back because you’ve experienced the future. And the sustainable electric future is way better in every way. The way it sounds, the way it feels and most importantly how it accelerates. With electric motorcycles there’s no gearbox so there is no need to focus on shifting. Simply get on and go. The minimalist design also results in minimalist function providing a better riding experience.

We ride motorcycles because there is not other feeling like it on Earth. When that’s combined with feeling good knowing your ride is more sustainable for this planet… there’s no replacing that.

Tarform does more than make electric motorcycles and moving art. They help inspire the world to look forward to our sustainable future through their design and engineering.

Coincidentally, I’m actually writing this on a Friday, the start of my weekend. I have been lucky enough to have been able to do contract work which allows me to set my own schedule. Through managing my time on multiple projects and spreading the main one out over the course of 5 days, I got burnt out very quickly. It seemed I had no time for myself and the weekend left as quickly as it got here.

Aside from the burnout, it didn’t seem like there was any logical reason to spread out work over the course of 5 days, when I could get a lot more done in way less time. So I set my schedule for 4 days a week and have been doing it ever since. The list of benefits goes on. Mainly, it allows the ability to choose what to do with your time rather than try and squeeze life into 2 days a week. All while being highly productive.

Since you have less time to get things done, there is positive motivation to do whatever work that is required (or you want to do). On top of feeling like you’ve accomplished something that week, there is another goal at the end of that. More of your time back, which is the most valuable thing you have. One of my many favorite quotes from Elon Musk is:

“If you give yourself 30 days to clean your home, it will take 30 days. But if you give yourself 3 hours, it will take 3 hours. The same applies to your goals ambitions and plans.”

Elon Musk

Whether its a company, a government or a person if you set goals far ahead in the future, there isn’t going to be much motivation to get that goal done, if at all. But if you set that goal to be done tomorrow, your going to find a way to get it done.

The 40 hour work week, which has been a standard for far too long, is akin to “squeeze as much time out of your employees as possible” which turns out does not equate to more output or productivity for the company. This only shows that most companies don’t care about you as a person. This unchallenged work schedule has been around since the end of the Industrial Revolution. Remember, this was back when its was “normal” for kids to work in factories. And after the unethical practices of the Industrial Revolution, came the standard workweek that we know today.

We arrived at 40 hours a week because people actually fought for this. Which in perspective is obviously way better than working 100 hours a week that companies during the Industrial Revolution forced people to do. The idea of working 40 hours a week became popularized in the early 1900’s. It wasn’t until 1940, that this became law to protect people’s rights (Keep in mind that most of these jobs back then were factory jobs). This was almost a century ago that this “standard” was made popular. And not until now, have we started to question if there is any good reason we still work 40 hours a week. Which there isn’t.

While going from 100 hours a week to 40 hours a week was a huge win for people back then, its not beneficial to people today. Especially when technology has help automate much or our work while making it easier and faster. Its astounding to think we spend nearly 1/3 of our lives working. So in 2021, I think most of us can agree its time to change what a “workweek” should be and help give people back more of their time. Its not benefiting companies at all to squeeze out one more day from their employees, when providing a four day workweek is mutually beneficial and in everyone’s interest.

A great benefit this would have, especially right now, is that since people normally spend more on themselves and leisure activities, a four day workweek will help businesses. Especially small businesses that have been hit the hardest like restaurants, local tourism and local shops. Most of these businesses pull in 80% of what they make on the weekends. And if weekends are longer, this opens up more business for them. Attributed as the creator of the 40 hour workweek, Henry Ford, had said:

“Leisure is an indispensable ingredient in a growing consumer market because working people need to have enough free time to find uses for consumer products, including automobiles.”

Henry Ford

So you can see that this benefits both people in having more freedom and businesses because they do more business. But being that this was almost a century ago, we need to update the time to reflect the truth in this statement. In 2021, we simply shouldn’t be working the same workweek that were were in 1926 with all of that advancements we have made as a society and with absolutely zero change at this level. Questioning this “standard” could not have come at a better time. We are in one of the greatest transitions in the history of humanity to a more sustainable future. And ensuring that happiness is part of that goal is a great way to help us get there.

Large companies are happy because they get more done and their employees are happier. Small business are happier due to better business and purpose. And most importantly, people are happier. On a fundamental level, a happy, thriving society is a cornerstone and path for a sustainable and utopian society. As to where squeezing as much time out of your employees as you can is the path to a dystopian, unhappy society.

One of the best services governments can provide for their citizens, is to amend work laws to state that 32 hour weeks are the standard to be considered “full-time” and anything beyond that is optional. A four day workweek is a great first step in setting up a foundation for a happy society moving forward. Adopting this world wide would be aspirational, but at the end of the day we’re all people, and I think this is something most people can agree upon.

Anyone pushing back or fighting against the four day work week is either someone who doesn’t like change or is simply unreasonable. Because to argue that the four day work week isn’t efficient, more productive, is more beneficial to employees lives, health and well being, all while benefiting the company’s productivity… when its been proven repeatedly by multiple countries that a four day workweek is effective, isn’t a rational argument.

One other benefits to the four day workweek, especially in the times we are in, is it allows people one more day a week to think of what is important to them in their lives. And as a society, given the current challenges we are faced with like climate change, “thought time” applied to how we can better our future is going to be critical. Collectively, that’s trillions of hours of thought time allocated to “what makes me happy as a person?” and “how can I help solve the problems the world is in?”.

Maybe that’s optimistic thinking, but I think that one of the greatest things that can and will come of this, is people will have ideas and take action toward something more meaningful to society. Solving things like climate change because we have more time to think about the “how” in the already short window of time we have on this one. Rather than slaving away at a desk 1 more day because it was the unchallenged “status quo” for far too long.

So what is causing this leap in temperature rise in British Columbia and is there anything we can do about it? One part of the cause is global warming and climate change. Recent CO2 levels have reached more than 419ppm (parts per million) in 2021, and with that increase global temperatures also rise. So British Columbia has been experiencing hotter weather in recent years due to global climate change but there’s something else making our local temperatures much worse.

The other part, is clear cut logging and deforestation in BC. It may not seem like the two are connected, but British Columbia’s forests are a key part in the climate here. They are one of the main reasons we have so much rain and this region has stayed what we call the “Pacific Northwest” for so long. With the old growth logging at Fairy Creek in BC drawing attention to the root cause of the problem, its evident that logging in BC is done so under the “facade” of being regulated. This has resulted in a call for an independent Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel which now consists of 5 members. Gary Merkel, a member of the Tahltan Nation with 45 years experience in forestry. Dr. Rachel F. Holt an independent ecologist who is well versed in many areas regarding environment and land management. Lisa Matthaus who has a Masters in Environmental and Resource Economics and worked at Sierra Club BC for more than 10 years. Dr. Karen Price who has worked on old growth and land use policy for more than 25 years. And Dave Daust who is also a professional forester and has spent 30 years researching the impacts of human activities on forest biodiversity for Indigenous and provincial governments. With these members on the panel, BC seems to be headed in the right direction in preserving BC’s forests and future.

People have had enough with British Columbia’s forests being sold for profit and now that its connected to record heat waves in Canada, its clear action has to be taken before its too late. There is always more that we can do. If we can make real effort to truly protect British Columbia’s forests moving forward, we can help mitigate these devastating heat waves that are leading to an ongoing event we may already be in.

The BC Forest Fire Feedback Loop

Forests, especially large well established ones like the old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, provide atmospheric moisture which helps create clouds. These clouds help reflect the suns heat. Without BC’s forests creating those clouds we have no protection from the heat caused by global warming. So with global warming, combined with logging, a situation begins to build.

The natural system begins to break. By clear cut logging and reducing the atmospheric moisture, this allows temperatures in the area to rise. With higher temperatures, this leads to more forests fires (like we are witnessing in BC). With more forest fires we obviously have less trees which cause even higher temperatures. On top of all this, the dry dead material from clear cut logging acts as fuel for fires. So a very dangerous feedback loop is created by doing/allowing 1 thing to happen, logging of forests on a mass scale. And human caused climate change around the Earth isn’t helping the situation. On a local level, forests are the one thing we have to help protect us in Canada from the effects of global climate change. Without them, we’re helping speed up global climate change and causing it to happen right here at home.

The “laws and policies”, or lack thereof, in BC against clear cut logging of old growth forests in BC (and forests in general) are not protecting the forests and not protecting the people of British Columbia Canada. Its gotten to a point where citizens of BC have to exercise our right to protect our homes and surrounding land from incredibly dumb decisions and policies by local government and local companies. The time for debate on this is over. We know what has to be done from the perspective of science and ethics.

There is a way to make use of forest wood in a sustainable way that works with nature (ask the First Nations, they have 10,000+ years of experience who have been telling us for decades) and clear cut logging isn’t one of them. In my opinion, clear cut logging of old growth forests should not only be illegal but banned outright. The only exception should be necessary management by First Nations for the protection and health of the rest of the forest. Where do you draw the line when certain actions put both the local population, Nature and the planet all in danger? Given the science of how we know this works and given that “discussion and politics” have failed repeatedly… how far to you have to go to protect and do what is right? Are we going to wait around and do something about this after the forests are all cut down and it’s too late?

The Narwhal has also published a great article on The Connection of Clearcut Logging and Canada’s Hottest Day on Record by Emma Gilchrist. She goes into further detail on this and has more information from Peter Wood of the Sierra Club BC. His research on deforestation and the situation that BC is in, is of monumental importance and reveals how everything is connected to the forests here.

Biochar itself is pure carbon. That’s it. Its what you do to biochar or how you use it, that makes the application interesting. From food farming to creating super capacitors in a lab, biochar has a wide array of uses.

Its primary an oldest known use was discovered in the Amazon. Thousands of years ago natives appeared to have intentionally made biochar in certain areas of the Amazon. After reverse engineering how it could have been formed, it was discovered that the substance only forms when biomass is heated at high temperatures without oxygen. After testing numerous crop cycles, soil scientists discovered that crops and food grown in this carbon rich soil are 2-3 times as big with the food produced being much larger. The soil that caused this was way more “alive” with microbes, beneficial fungus and very nutrient dense.

But why is biochar getting so much more attention recently? This has to do with the looming issue of climate change and carbon dioxide (CO2). The process of creating biochar works in reducing CO2 because it takes the decaying plant material that would release CO2 and traps it as pure carbon. During the burning/heating process a “positive feedback loop” is created to use any off-gasses as fuel. Its estimated that we could lock away 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 annually through the biochar process. When biochar gets made in a sustainable manner and gets used as a fertilizer, we can then store that carbon away for thousands of years. The result is carbon negative. This is why its so important that biochar gets made the right way and can be done this way at home with very low tech methods or scaled to an industrial level.

How to Make Biochar the Right Way

The process known to make biochar is called “pyrolisis” where you heat organic material in the absence of air. During the process all volatile compounds are burnt off as gas and the result of doing this leaves pure carbon. Which is the exact same carbon that is used to make carbon filters.

Making biochar is actually reasonably easy to do. But its “how” you make biochar that makes the difference. Its not just about the quality and purity of the carbon being made, but the ethics of how its made as well. Because there are so many ways to make biochar, but there are so few that are ethical there has been call for regulation on how biochar is allowed to be made. Just like everything else, there are ideal ways to make or do things and there are also really dumb ways to do them. The following is the simplest and most ethical way to make biochar and is demonstrated in a thorough video below by Living Web Farms.

• Using a pyrolosis cook stove (also known as a rocket stove) is the simplest method.
• Using feed stock (material to cook the biomass) that is waste product rather than cutting down material specifically for that purpose.
• Seal the kiln as demonstrated in the pyrolosis cook stove method using a chimney to ensure that a proper feedback loop is created and the fire uses the smoke as fuel. This will result in nothing but heat as a bi-product.

How to Make a Biochar Kiln

The simplest and most affordable way to make a biochar kiln is with oil drums of 2 different sizes. This is so one can fit inside the other with enough space around the inner drum to surround it with what is called “feed stock”. This is the wood used as dry fuel. An important note is to make sure that the wood used for dry fuel is already fallen wood or “waste wood” and not wood cut down for the purpose of using it as fuel.

The inner barrel gets placed inside and filled with the plant material which will be turned into the biochar. It then gets sealed at the top and only contains holes in the bottom of the barrel. After lighting the surrounding feed stock, you place the lid with chimney on the outer barrel an make sure its sealed all around. This pressure build as the inner barrel gets hotter causes the gasses and smoke get pushed out below the burning feed stock outside the inner barrel, which rise up to the flames to be burnt as fuel making the inner barrel even hotter. This is the “positive feedback loop” referenced earlier. When done correctly, the only thing you should see coming out of the top is heat.

Benefits of Making Biochar and its Uses

Since the initial process of making biochar creates pure carbon, not only can it be used for everyday things like air filters and activated charcoal products but it can also be used in engineering and scientific development. With the discovery of graphene, this opens up entirely new industries like the advancement of graphene batteries. Graphene is essentially a 1 molecule thick layer of carbon. Think of it as a thin “sheet” of carbon.

This sheet form of carbon allows us to make massive improvements on things we know exist and make completely new things we haven’t even discovered yet. So with these newer industries will require sources to make that graphene and once these industries start mass manufacturing these products, biochar can be an excellent source for that carbon. There are already multiple companies researching how to make super capacitors using waste material from farming and hemp and this industry is just getting started.

This purified form of carbon has been used in carbon filters for decades. The exact same material can also be used for cleaning up a variety of things like oil spills and other forms of pollution. This is a much safer way of cleaning up dangerous materials since its absorbed into a form factor that allows organisms to break down and dispose of it in a more natural way. But when combined with natural fertilizers like compost it can be used to sequester carbon and help fight against climate change.

Using Biochar as a Fertilizer

One of the primary uses of biochar is to use it to make a fertilizer mix. The reason this works so well is that the massive surface area on a molecular level of carbon allows it to store tons of nutrients. Think of it as the most concentrated form of natural fertilizer. A piece of carbon the size of a pencil eraser has the surface area of around 90,000 square feet. That’s a lot of tiny spaces that you can store a lot of beneficial nutrients that help plants grow.

One of the coolest things about this is that the nutrients get release slowly over time as the carbon gets absorbed by its surroundings. So when mixed with compost, biochar is the best “slow release” fertilizer on the planet. This means that fertilizer doesn’t have to be constantly added to fields or gardens because you have the most nutrient dense materials that don’t get washed away or absorbed to quickly. So when used with regenerative farming practices this completely eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers.

Inoculating biochar starts with creating a compost tea. Living Web Farms has an informative, in-depth presentation on how to make compost tea for the purpose of inoculating biochar as a fertilizer.

The added benefit of biochar is that it helps farmers during droughts. The billions of pores in biochar help store massive amounts of water. During drought periods surrounding materials and organisms begin to dry out and they’ll naturally draw water from the nearest source. If there is a nutrient dense, water dense source right underneath the plants this makes perfect growing conditions year round for plants and crops whether its and industrial scale food farm of a local food garden. So biochar can be used as nutrient dense fertilizer while protecting against droughts at the same time. Living Web Farms recommends the easiest way to make inoculated biochar and add microbe at the same time is the following:

1. Mix biochar to compost ratio as a 1:1 mixture (50/50)
2. Maintain moisture after mixing. Use the squeeze test by squeezing the mixture in your hand. If just a little bit of water runs between your fingers, its the perfect moisture level.
3. Store biochar/compost mixture in an aerobic, moist and warm environment where it can receive plenty of fresh air. Basically the exacts same environment you would grow mushrooms in. Storing the mixture in hanging mesh bags is the simplest method.

It will take a few weeks, but over time if the conditions were met you should see fungal and microbial growth. You can experiment with compost to biochar ratios as high as 3:1 to concentrate more nutrients into the mix.

Sustainability of Biochar & Climate Change

Because of how the biochar process works during pyrolysis, where all gasses and smoke get burned as fuel, the process itself is carbon neutral. But when the carbon gets reused as a fertilizer mixture and locks that carbon away for centuries to thousands of years the end result ends up being carbon negative. So it seems that this is a sustainable way to put a significant amount of carbon back into the soil.

We’re essentially stopping the plant decay/CO2 release process and releasing only some of the CO2 during burning. But we’re locking away much more carbon in the process by burying it within the Earth. Where ironically, we found the carbon rich fuel source we decided to use, which resulted in the climate change situation the world is currently in. The way moving forward in regards to fossil fuels is to put it back where we found it… then continue to put back 10 times as much in the form of carbon capture. Essentially reversing the existing flow of carbon and placing it back into the Earth on a global scale. Whatever amount of carbon we end up putting away using biochar, we should be planting 100 times as much trees. Trees are the best carbon capture technology that nature has handed to us in our fight against climate change.

Building a Nuclear Power Plant

Building Nuclear power plants is very cost intensive. It costs billions of dollars to build 1 power plant. As an example the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant being built in England is costing around 31 Billion USD and keeps piling on more costs. On top of all the material resources it consumes in the process. Its estimated that 1 nuclear power plant requires:

• 457 million tons of concrete which produces a lot of Co2.
• 40 million tons of steel.
• 5 years to build.
• All costing an estimated $23-$30 billion to build.

To put that into perspective, a geothermal plant costs around $400 million to build. So for for every 1 nuclear power plant we can build an estimated 57-70 geothermal power plants with that power distributed across the planet instead of 1 localized area. While a nuclear power plant produces 1 GW of electricity, electricity is also lost in the transportation before it reaches its destination. So investing in something like geothermal which relies solely on the heat of the Earth and can produce electricity in a much safer manner makes a lot more sense.

To put into perspective the costs of a nuclear energy facility, it costs $23-$30 billion for a nuclear power plant to produce around 1GW of electricity. A large geothermal power plant like Hellisheiði in Iceland can produce around 300MW of electricity and cost around $800 million to build. So to produce the same amount of power a nuclear power plant produces with geothermal energy, we could build 4 large geothermal power plants like the one in Iceland and spend only $3.2 billion and would be producing more energy at 1.2GW of electricity. If we spent $23-30 billion on geothermal facilities of this size we could produce 8.4GW of electricity. That’s more than 4 times as much electricity as a nuclear power plant at the same cost. So even economically, the costs of a nuclear energy facility are unsustainable.

While nuclear power plants are advertised as “carbon free”, this is in no way true even during the operation of the plant. During the operation of the plant there is carbon intensive mining and refining involved in sourcing the materials required to make the fission rods that have to be replaced yearly. There is also a lot of carbon produced in the manufacturing of the facility due to the large amount of concrete and steel required to build it. The catch with nuclear power plants is there are 2 entirely different sustainability issues involved that no other source of electricity has a problem with. The operating risks and the nuclear waste issue.

Sustainability of Operating a Nuclear Power Plant

During the entire lifetime operation of a nuclear power plant there is still high risk to damage of the facility from geological activity, accidents, malfunctions, etc. Which if any of these were to happen it puts areas hundreds of miles wide in danger. We’ve seen this happen with Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima Nuclear disasters to name only 3 out of more than a dozen incidents globally. Because of the Chernobyl incident, that area is uninhabitable for thousands of years. Nuclear power plants have to have their nuclear fission rods replaced which means that there is constant mining of a very hazardous materials. Those hazardous materials end up becoming nuclear waste that has to be stored somewhere and this is a process that cycles every single year. After building the first nuclear power plant and calculating the input vs output we should have realized a long time ago nuclear power plants are a really bad idea and in no way could lead to a sustainable future. Given the risk factors of nuclear energy, it seems like a really over engineered and complicated way to simply make steam.

How Nuclear Power Plants Produce Electricity

Seriously, that’s how nuclear power plants produce electricity, they make steam to spin turbines. That’s it. People go through all the work to mine and refine extremely dangerous materials that risk the lives of all living things around them which inevitably results in leaving a chosen area uninhabitable for thousands of years, be it the nuclear energy site itself and/or the nuclear waste dump site… to make steam that turns turbines, which then makes electricity. Many people are completely unaware that nuclear power plants create electricity this way. Geothermal power plants create electricity the same way by using steam to turn turbines… minus the radioactive waste and nuclear meltdown issues. Nuclear energy by definition and its outcomes is the exact opposite of sustainability.

Another way to think of how nuclear energy works is like an “artificial geothermal power plant”. Some Earth’s heat is generated from deep withing the Earth from all the friction of flowing molten material and the decay of radioactive elements. That natural heat can then be used to create steam when combined with water and create electricity from turbines. Both types of power, geothermal and nuclear, run 24/7 365 days a year. They output electricity regardless of the weather. The key difference is the man made one, nuclear energy, puts all living things in danger. No other form of sustainable energy like geothermal, wind, tidal and solar present even a fraction of of the danger that nuclear energy presents if any at all.

Nuclear energy and weapons (aside from a cataclysmic natural disaster like a asteroid impact) are the one type of energy on this planet that can render it uninhabitable. Not just from a potential nuclear power plant accident or war but from material that needs disposed of and what it does to those areas. This brings us to the nuclear waste issue. Every 12-24 months around 40 to 90 fuel rods need to be replaced in each nuclear power plant. So nuclear material has to constantly be mined and refined in order to make these nuclear rods used to create power at the facility. So the next question is, what do we do with thousands of tons of radioactive material that’s created every year from the fuel rods that get replaced?

The Issue of Unsustainable Nuclear Waste

Aside from the billions of dollars it requires to make 1 nuclear power plant, the amount of risk and danger operating nuclear power plant puts both the Earth, living things and people in… there is the looming issue of nuclear waste. I would put nuclear waste next to burning fossil fuels and emitting Co2 when it comes to the sustainability of living on Earth and putting living things in danger.

The only way nuclear waste is (and has been) disposed of is to place the radioactive material inside barrels with multiple layers (to prevent them from leaking, which doesn’t always work) and then bury those barrels full of radioactive material inside a mountain or designated area in the ground. If that sounds absurd to you, its because it is. This policy of “disposing” of nuclear waste puts future generations of humanity, let alone any other living thing, in danger.

There’s 2 likely future scenarios that nuclear waste could put humanity in danger. The first is, when these containers inevitably leak whether its a year from now or 300 years from now. A great example is the nuclear storage facility in Washington State called the Hanford Site. This is where the nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project (which developed the atom bombs during World War 2) is stored. The nuclear waste was stored in containers that were supposedly designed to last hundreds of years. Just a few years ago, they discovered that many of these containers were either leaking or in danger of leaking because the radioactivity was eating away at the materials the containers were made of. This nuclear waste dump sits right on the Columbia River that runs through Washington down to Oregon. So you can see what risks there are to the Columbia River and all the natural systems its connected to, should a more serious accident happen.

Their solution? Put the containers of nuclear waste inside other larger containers, re-bury them and continue business as usual. This way of dealing with it is basically like saying “let the future generations of humanity figure this out”. Because it takes thousands of years for nuclear waste to break down. Now while this is nuclear waste from weapons development, the same waste from nuclear power plants is also produced and stored in the same manner. The danger is what happens to water aquifers, rivers, forests, land and all the resources its connected to those should there be a radioactive leak that cannot be contained? They would be unusable for hundreds if not thousands of years. Presently, there are 14 countries with nuclear waste dumps totaling over 250,000 tonnes of radioactive waste. These nuclear waste sites present a very real danger to not only living things today but in the future for thousands of years.

Summarizing the Sustainability of Nuclear Energy

Due to the cost of producing nuclear energy facilities, the dangers of operating the power plants and the looming nuclear waste issue, nuclear energy is in no way sustainable. Everything discussed in this article regarding the unsustainable development of nuclear energy all can be avoided if humanity decides to use clean, sustainable energy that costs way less to implement and actually produces more electricity with the same investment. The risk factors of any other sustainable energy source are no where near that of nuclear energy. In my opinion, nuclear waste dumps are one of the greatest mistakes of humanity that still needs to be corrected.

Simply put, if the amount of money spent on nuclear energy was spent on sustainable energy sources, geothermal being the ideal candidate, we would have been on our way to a sustainable energy future a long time ago. But now that we know and understand more about the outcomes of nuclear energy today its not too late to change our policies moving forward an invest in more sustainable and safer forms of energy production. A change in these policies would be a huge step in securing the safety and energy production of humanity’s future.

Tesla Model Y Interior

The Tesla Model Y interior can be described as fairly “Spartan” but is nearly identical to the Tesla Model 3 with the exception of additional space. Aside from 3 buttons, everything is controlled from the center console touchscreen. Just like the Model 3 it also has 2 interior options to choose from. The Model Y comes with black interior and wood on the dashboard but for $1,000 USD ($1,300 CAD) you can get stain resistant white seats, white inserts on the doors and a white dashboard.

Standard Tesla Model Y Features

• Dual Motors All-Wheel Drive (AWD)
• 12 way power adjustable seats and heated (both front and rear).
• Connect to Music and media over Bluetooth
• 14 speakers, 2 amps and 2 subwoofer.
• LED fog lamps
• Tinted Glass Roof (w/ ultraviolet and infrared protection).
• Side Mirrors are both power folding and heated.
• Stores driver profiles.
• Center storage console has 4 USB ports and docking for 2 smartphones.
• Second and third row seats fold flat for storage and transport.
• Power rear lift gate w/ memory settings.

Tesla Model Y Specifications

Tesla Model Y Compared to Model 3

While the Tesla Model Y shares nearly 75% of it’s parts with the Model 3, there are a wide variety of benefits that the Model Y has over the Model 3.

• Loading the car with anything from groceries to furniture is a lot easier for 2 reasons. Unlike the Model 3, the Model Y has a hatchback. So gaining more access to items in the back while also being able to load larger items is a huge plus. Because the Model Y sits up higher, loading items is more ergonomic and saves you from having to bend over as far.
• Speaking of sitting up higher, the seating position in the Model Y ride height is also higher by 8 inches. This allows for greater view while driving and being able to see over smaller cars. The increase in height also makes it easier for other vehicles to see you.
• One of the biggest benefits of the Tesla Model Y compared to the Model 3 is storage space. Storage space increases by 53 cubic feet for a total of 67 cubic feet (1,919 liters) of storage space in the Model Y. The Model 3 only has 15 cubic feet (424 liters) of storage space.
• The glass roof in the Model 3 has a crossbar which obstructs part of the view. In the Model Y this is 1 solid piece of glass with no crossbar for better aerial views that passengers will enjoy.

Road Trips in the Tesla Model Y

The Tesla Model Y may be their best “Road Trip” vehicle made. It has plenty of storage. So much that you could actually put a bed in the back and sleep in it. Tesla also has “Camper Mode” for this specific situation. To enable camper mode in the Model Y, select the Fan Icon > Camp Mode on the far right. This will allow the Model Y to stay on and regulate the air temperature/air flow while camping until the battery reaches 20%. When inside, you can close the tailgate of the Model Y using the Tesla app.

Beyond the vast amount of storage space for all your gear and luggage, the Tesla Model Y has great range. A full charge will get you 326 miles (525 kilometers). For all of you in Canada, you could drive from Vancouver, BC to Whistler and back… then do that round trip again without having to recharge! For everyone in the Unites States, you could drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on 1 charge. So for electric range, it has more than what most people need.

The Tesla Model Y is also all-wheel drive (AWD) so its great for year round fun on almost any terrain. By having AWD with Dual Motors the Tesla Model Y is also a lot safer in terms of traction compared to a crossover SUV with only rear or front wheel drive. Tesla Model Y winter performance is also very similar to the Model 3 so it’s beyond exceptional. It’s also way more affordable compared to the Tesla Model X which starts at $30,000 more than the Model Y.

Tesla Model Y Cost of Ownership

The Tesla Model Y base price starts at $49,900 USD ($69,900 CAD) with the performance Model Y starting at $59,990 USD ($83,990 CAD). The only vehicle on the market right now that compares as a crossover electric SUV is the Audi e-Tron. While its an amazing vehicle the Audi e-Tron starts off at $66,995 which is $17,000 more than the Tesla Model Y. Does $17k get you more range? No, its gets you 124 miles less than the Model Y. The Audi e-tron, Tesla’s nearest Model Y competitor, costs $17k more and only gets you 222 miles (357km) of range compared to the Tesla Model Y’s 326 miles (525 km).

When you compare the price of the Tesla Model Y to other fossil fuel crossover SUVs of the same level, its still more expensive. The Porche Macan (having similar luxury features in this class) starts off around $52,100 USD. So Tesla wins in price but there are also 2 key differences here that make the Tesla Model Y better value for what you’re getting. The obvious one is that it’s electric. So you’ll never have to pay for another gallon of gasoline ever again in your life. If you charge the Tesla Model Y at home it can cost you $6-10 depending on where you live. Charging at a supercharger can cost around $12-$16 depending on how long you stay. Compare those costs to $30-$50 per tank of gasoline for a similar sized vehicle. Those costs when multiplied over the years of owning the vehicle… add up to thousands of dollars saved in the cost of ownership alone.

The amount of repairs that electric vehicles need compared to gasoline powered cars is huge. Since there are few moving parts in electric vehicles the usual things that may need to be repaired are the tires and any cosmetic issues if needed. Regenerative braking also greatly reduces wear on the braking system almost eliminating repairs there. Compare that to tune-ups, replacing brakes, hoses and any one of thousands of parts that break on fossil fuel vehicles and the Tesla Model Y saves thousands more on ownership repair costs compared to fossil fuel competitors.

My Opinion on the Tesla Model Y

Aside from the minor fit and finish issues with the Model Y (that Tesla will refine and improve over time) I think the Model Y will be the most popular Tesla ever made and will most likely outsell any other vehicle in its class for years to come. People around the world are becoming more conscious of their choices and how they impact the environment. When making the decision of a logical vehicle investment, a vast majority of people are going to choose low maintenance, zero gas, no smell and better safety over anything else offered. So until there is another electric vehicle that looks as good or better than the Model Y, with similar range and features… Tesla will own this part of the the auto market.

What Does Bugatti Selling to Rimac Mean for Electric Cars?

Over the past half century automobile posters have inspired millions of people to achieve their goals to be able to buy “that” car. That one car that they though was the coolest thing in the world and they had to have it. The interesting thing about that is many of those people bought “that car” because they had that poster as a reference and inspiration or they saw it featured in a magazine.

So what happens when some of the most iconic, fastest cars in the world become electric? Everything else becomes “uncool”. The wealthiest people and “trendsetters” desire and own the most expensive electric hypercars ever made. People who desire to do the same and create the same lifestyle like the automobile admirers we see in Monaco are all inspired by the car blogs and YouTube channels dedicated to the love of automobiles. Whatever is the newest, coolest, most amazing car out there people want it. And those who can’t afford the “best” get the closest thing they get can to it. Businesses have understood this for centuries which is why we see different priced levels of the same product or companies clamoring to make the same thing as everyone else but making an “affordable version” or knockoff. So with Bugatti as the pinnacle of electric vehicles it trickles down to every other automobile brand simply through inspiration or “setting the standard” of what a car should be. Tesla has done this with their design and now VW seeks to do the same thing with an existing legacy automaker thats already well known with a reputation. Volkswagen’s strategy to sell Bugatti to Rimac is simply genius.

But it gets better! This is an ideal scenario for both companies and the planet. Heres why.

• Rimac would own one of the most iconic, legacy brands of luxury high end performance vehicles, expanding their reach. Rimac would then of course make Bugatti electric.
• Volkswagen benefits by selling a brand that needs to be electrified to Rimac, who sets new standards when it comes to electric performance. On top of that, VW gets access to Rimac’s EV technology through Porsche, whom they already have a deal with while making money off the sale and saving billions on research and development.
• The planet then benefits by having a 16 cylinder fossil fuel vehicles (that get 11 miles per gallon of gasoline) switched over to using more reliable and simple electricity. More vehicles worldwide become electric as through influence of the Bugatti brand.

Then all of a sudden… electric cars are the new standard and anything less than that is unacceptable by the public. The deal may be bigger than reported if Volkswagen includes a few of their other brands in the deal both of which would make a lot of sense from VW’s position and Rimac’s.

It was reported that Lamborghini, and Ducati may also up for discussion in the deal which if that comes through would be an incredible advancement for the automobile industry. Rimac already has all the technology and capability to make both Bugatti and Lamborghini 100% electric. Rimac also has the technology ready for electric motorbikes too through their company they own called Greyp. Now while these aren’t traditional style motorcycles the Greyp G12 is capable of reaching 70mph. So it isn’t much of a stretch to build upon the existing technology from Greyp and Rimac’s hypercars to make something ready for Ducati motorcycles.

If everyone at VW, Rimac and Porsche agrees on this deal it is a huge win not only for all the companies involved and the planet but for the electric car space as a whole. The world’s largest automaker becomes electric at a much faster rate which would force the hand of every other automaker globally to do the same. Electric vehicles will be the new normal at some point in the very near future and this potential deal between Volkswagen and Rimac to buy Bugatti is a great sign.

So what happens when VW sells the most prestigious high end automobile brand to Rimac? Electric cars become the new standard around the world and anything less than electric is no longer desirable. But how will this deal work and what might VW have planned?

Rimac is the world’s only electric hypercar maker and have designed EV components so well that they have contracts to supply other automakers with the technology. So to sell Buggati, VW’s fossil fuel hypercar brand, to an electric hypercar company only makes sense. Rimac is at least a decade ahead of any other automaker in terms of electric hypercar performance. If VW has any desire to get Bugatti’s technology to compete with Rimac… they would have to spend billions of dollars and at least 10 years to get there.

So the plan sounds like they will sell Bugatti to Rimac. Rimac then owns the most iconic legacy hypercar brand that they will make electric. Then VW will work out in the deal to have more of a stake in Rimac through Porsche which VW already has a minority stake in. Bugatti becomes electric and VW has more access to technology to make their cars electric. It sounds like an incredible idea but there’s something else that will happen if this deal goes through.

When one of the pinnacles of automobile engineering, Bugatti, becomes known for being electric (and will most likely build the fastest cars ever made) it sets a new standard for what all automobiles should be. Tesla has already done the hard work in re-defining what transportation should be but they haven’t yet created anything truly iconic like Bugatti. This may change when the new Tesla Roadster comes out.

The writing is already all over the wall that the future of vehicles is 100% electric but many legacy automakers haven’t fully accepted the idea or openly acknowledge it. If Bugatti sells to Rimac, every automaker in the world notice and maybe start taking electric vehicles seriously. When the world accepts electric vehicles as the new standard, they become desirable by everyone and automakers have to fill that desire by making great electric vehicles.

This is where Volkswagen’s transition to electric vehicles and “how” they are doing is genius. They are determined to stay the world largest automaker and if that means making electric vehicles then so be it. Audi is already producing electric vehicles with their e-Tron line of cars. Porsche has debuted with their Taycan model (which if they stuffed that tech into a 911 to create the new 911e they could have one of the most phenomenal EVs ever made).

Simply put, Volkswagen’s new EVs get way more attention in the spotlight if the pinnacle of hypercars is also electric.

Volkswagen Auto Group (Volkswagen AG) recently took a massive hit (both with their reputation and financially) with the Dieselgate Scandal. So they’re in a transition of making all electric vehicles and overhauling their automobile factories to do so.

• MAN (their commercial truck company) is in the transition to becoming electric.
• VW is making new electric vehicles starting with their launch of the “ID” line.
• SEAT (their Spanish brand) is also coming out with electric vehicles.

That leaves Skoda, Bentley, Scania, Bugatti, Ducati, Lamborghini to be made 100% electric along with the rest of the models from MAN, Audi, Porsche VW and SEAT. VW recently launched their ID line of vehicles including the ID3, ID4 and they’re also working on even more models including the new Microbus. VW’s ID4 SUV recently sold out their pre-sales in America which indicates that electric vehicles are what people want, especially SUVs.

When you have electric cars that look this good… the designs don’t come from a company that is doing it simply because they “have to” you get these kinds of designs because they have people behind them that are passionate about designing and creating them. So VW’s giant mistake became an opportunity for the right people at the company to step in and say “this is what we should have been making” and hire more people who believe in their vision.

Yes, VW will make billions off of the sales of their electric vehicles, thats the point. Their mistakes have already cost them billions and they’ve paid for it. VW hasn’t paid back Earth for the damage their actions caused, but they seem to be headed in the right direction. With such a costly mistake, there’s no doubt that their mindsets have shifted to being more environmentally friendly as well. But if you wanted to exponentially increase the rate at which electric vehicles are adopted, gain a lot of attention in the process, make billions off of a sale and make even more from the sale of your EVs… you would do that by selling Bugatti to Rimac. The only way to make this potential deal even better is to sell Bugatti and Lamborghini to Rimac.

Regardless of the motivations behind it, in this particular case its a win-win all around. VW makes billions at a much faster rate from selling their electric cars by helping accelerating the adaptation of EVs and Rimac gets to electrify and own one of the most iconic and fastest car brands in the world, Bugatti.

At the moment, the myriad of VW brands (Porsche/Audi/Lamborghini) make some of the best looking and well engineered electric vehicles on the market with exception of Tesla. Thanks to all the work Tesla is doing in “accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy” they are forcing every automakers hand to either adapt or die. Meaning if you can’t make something as good or better than Tesla makes it… no one wants your product. And if no one buys your product your company doesn’t exist. Volkswagen seems to be jumping on this opportunity at full speed and has even met with Elon, the product architect of Tesla.

If this deal goes through, the future looks a lot brighter for VW, Rimac and the Planet.

VW being the largest automobile manufacturer in the world (at the time of writing this article) sees the writing on the wall and understands that they have no choice but to make the transition themselves to electric vehicles. They have a total of 11 brands with $298.7 billion in sales to lose if they don’t help build a sustainable future. Honestly, the same goes for every other automobile manufacturer if they don’t transition their facilities to producing electric vehicles. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when”. So the sooner every other automobile maker transitions their brands to 100% electric, the better foothold they will have in the future. Electric vehicles are not an option. They are mandatory in order to ensure that we have a sustainable future and a planet we can all live on.

I personally bought 3 combs and as a result got 1 tree planted on Australia. Keep in mind that Australia’s forest fires have been some of the most devastating in recent years so even 1 tree helps make a small difference.

Why Does Green Beard Grooming do This?

Preface: Most of the products in the men’s care realm are made from plastic which of course comes from the oil industry and every single product made from oil (no matter how small) pollutes the planet at least twice.

1. At the production levels from taking oil out of the ground to the numerous manufacturing processes it goes through to make the product.
2. When the product gets disposed of it rarely get recycled. It ends up in a landfill, lost in a parking lot or tossed aside somewhere polluting the planet for a second time.

So on top of the purchasing of those products supporting the oil industry… plastic combs that are made in the hundreds of millions often end up polluting the planet in some way.

Green Beard Grooming aims to “challenge what customers expect from the mens grooming industry”. There are a few big name brands in the men’s self care industry (even some new ones) that have billions in profit yearly, yet do nothing (or do very little) to give back to the environment. Green Beard Grooming aims to change this industry through environmental awareness.

To make the bearded world a greener place; through reforestation, reducing plastic waste, promoting environmental awareness, entertaining people, and by fundamentally challenging what’s expected from the beard industry.

Green Beard Grooming

So if more men support companies like Green Beard Grooming the rest of the industry will have no choice but to follow its example. It’s a simple way to tell companies “take care of the environment and do good for the planet” by supporting the ones that do.

How Does the Green Beard Grooming Company Work?

Green Beard Grooming works with One Tree Planted which is a non-profit organization based in Vermont dedicated to helping global reforestation. For every product sold, Green Beard Grooming plants trees through them. The type and amount of product determines how many trees get planted. Below are a few examples of the products offered and how many trees get planted for each purchase.

• Every 3 comb pack = 1 tree planted
• Every “Tree-mendous” folding comb = 2 trees planted
• Each Combo Pack of combs = 3 trees planted

DIY beard oil kits have been added to the product list which is a really cool and affordable idea. Customers liked this idea so much that they reached their funding goal within the first 7 hours. DIY beard oil kits are a great way to test out what beard oils work for you, find out which ones you like and plant even more trees!

• Bearded Roots 4 Pack of Oils = 4 trees planted
• Bearded Roots 4 Pack of Oils + 3 Pocket Combs = 5 trees planted
• Bearded Roots 4 Pack of Oils + 1 Folding Comb = 6 trees planted
• Bearded Roots 6 Pack of Oils = 6 trees planted

The prices range from only $20 to $30 or you can get all of them for $60 and plant 15 trees in the process! The trees planted from this project will go to reforesting Colorado and California which have been heavily impacted from forest fires.

The idea for all organizations and companies planting trees around the world is that collectively they can and are making big difference in helping make the world a healthier, greener place for generations to come. Until we can get the world to a zero emissions state planting trees helps sequester the carbon that fossil fuels are putting into the atmosphere. So to forward thinking men that understand this (and have beards) its an easy decision to help support Green Beard Grooming.

So whose the man behind Green Beard Grooming? His name is Ryan Trump, who grew up planting trees as a kid and really enjoyed the process. That was the “seed planted” in his mind when the time came to solve a problem. He realized that he kept losing plastic combs (which aren’t good for beards anyway) and realized that wood combs are unnecessarily expensive when he went to buy some. So what did he do? He built Green Beard Grooming to supply these combs at an affordable price while planting trees at the same time.

How to Support Green Beard Grooming

The concept of giving more than you get can create a world of abundance when put into action. By helping men take care of themselves and the planet we live on 1 beard and 1 tree at a time… efforts like this can have exponential beneficial impacts. If more companies planted 1 tree for every product sold… we can create millions more jobs planting trees and help counteract the damage we’re doing to the Earth.

Thank you Ryan for being one of the few with the courage to take on this challenge of helping to save our environment. If you’d like to support the planet and get some cool beard combs or beard oils in the process check out Green Beard Grooming’s DIY Beard Oil Kickstarter project or head on over to Amazon for a folding Sandalwood pocket comb. Green Beard Grooming’s goal is to plant 1,528 trees with the first project and the ultimate goal of planting 50,000 trees in the first year! Green Beard Grooming also has a solid Instagram.

Tesla Cybertruck Design

The design of the Cybertruck is beyond unique in how it has an exoskeleton for the body instead of the typical “body on frame” design. What this does is allows the stress to be applied to what Elon calls “the skin”. Its the same way that modern planes and spaceships are manufactured. This particular design style allows the truck to make use of ultra hard stainless steel for the exoskeleton that creates the exterior body of the truck. Franz demonstrated how durable this makes the truck by smashing the door with a sledgehammer a few times during the Cybertruck reveal which left no marks.

Elon announced that this is the exact same cold rolled steel alloy that will be used to make Space X starships. Its not very often you get to drive a vehicle that’s made from the same material as a starship. Due to the strength of this material it actually makes the Cybertruck bulletproof. Tesla had a video demonstration running in the background during the reveal event comparing a 9mm bullet penetrating typical automotive steel on the right and the same caliber bullet shattering into pieces when contacting Tesla’s steel alloy on the left. You can see that in the launch event video.

Tesla Cybertruck Reveal

During the Cybertruck glass test, the stand alone glass demo went very well. They tested standard auto glass with a steel ball which shattered. Then they tested the Tesla Armored Glass with the exact same steel ball which bounced off the glass. Then comes what soon to became the Cybertruck glass meme. Franz launches a large steel ball at the actual Cybertruck window… and cracks it. This obviously wasn’t suppose to happen. They were testing the glass dozens of times before the reveal and every time it went perfectly. So what went wrong? According to Elon, he and his team think that when Franz hit the door with the sledgehammer, this weakened the glass and created micro fractures. So Franz was essentially throwing a steel ball at what was already a “broken window”. Keep in mind that had this been any other vehicle window it would have been shattered to pieces and actually gone through.

Cybertruck Storage Capacity & Utility

During the reveal, one thing that many of us may have missed was the image on the far upper right corner that showed an extra storage compartment on the upper side of the pickup bed that flips up at an angle. This is in addition to the frunk storage, the truck bed itself, storage below the bed and of course interior storage.

The Cybertruck also comes equipped with adaptive air suspension which will be useful in a variety of situations. This feature really shines during the demo of loading the Tesla ATV into the pickup bed. The suspension lowers and then tilts the truck back to get a better approach angle for loading the ATV. On top of that, the pickup tailgate drops and reveals a built in extension ramp. This is a feature motorcyclists are going to love. For electric motorcycles and ATVs that are loaded into the back during what Elon calls “load mode”, they’ll be able to recharge from the Cybertruck EV charge port located in the bed.

Cybertruck Off Roading & Interior Design

The interior design of the Cybertruck matches the angular design of the outside but has some surprising features that both techies and truck fans are going to love. There are no rear view mirrors on the truck at all. Instead, Tesla created a rear view monitor that has a live digital feed from the rear facing camera where the rear view mirror usually is. The steering wheel looks identical to the steering wheel in the new Tesla Roadster which is a $250k car. It seems out of place at first but begins to blend in to the “cyber themed” design of the vehicle. Its hard to imagine any other style of steering wheel. What would you have as the steering wheel for a truck like this?

For those of us that adore the glass roof/skylight ceiling of Tesla vehicles, the front windshield reaches just in front of the drivers head. Not quite as far back as the Model X. Behind the crossbar in the roof is another sheet of glass the extends all the way back above the rear passenger seating. This gives passengers nearly unobstructed views of the sky.

The seating in the Cybertruck is 3×3 which will make this the first Tesla vehicle with 3 seats in the front, in addition to the 3 seats in the back. This is something that many pickup truck owners are nostalgic for from the older trucks which have a front row bench seat. And the digital console for the Cybertruck is similar to the one we see on the Model 3 but larger. One of the most common, questionable design elements of the Cybertruck is the marble dashboard. From the demo truck everyone has seen no one is sure if its real marble or if that’s a customized wrap. It may be similar to how you can have carbon fiber, wood or piano black in the Tesla Model X. With the high end interior design covered, how will it perform off road?

With the torque, weight and the tri-motor or dual motor options the Cybertruck will be more than capable of off roading. The wheels, tires and tread alone are far beyond anything that any other truck could offer. Elon claims the Cybertruck could easily do the Baja, which is an off road long endurance 1,000 mile race across the Mexican desert. When they designed this vehicle they had in mind that it would be used as a vehicle on Mars. So if they designed a truck to basically be “off roading” all the time on another planet… it’s plenty capable here on Earth. The things that the off roading community are going to do to this truck, including the Baja version, are going to be a lot of fun to see customers build.

Tesla Cybertruck Camping

Similar to how Rivian posted a photo of their electric pickup truck on the beach with a tent, Tesla created a mockup of the Cybertruck camping in the woods. Something that Tesla has on the Cybertruck, that Rivian doesn’t, is the retractable solar panel cover. This is going to allow the Cybertruck to be able to recharge some of the battery power from anywhere without having to be plugged in.

Not only has Tesla created mockups of their camping version of the Cybertruck, but they’ve also posted a mockup of what appears to be a travel trailer. Its possible that this mockup may be a toy hauler but either way a travel trailer or toy hauler for the back of a Cybertruck would be a hit in the EV community. Offgrid living and camping is something that the outdoor community has been looking forward to for a long time. Tesla could make a travel trailer with solar panels on the roof combined with one of their powerwalls for off grid EV living.

Tesla Cybertruck Prices & Specifications

In addition to the specifications regarding speed, range, price and towing, every Cybertruck comes with the following features in every model version.

Future of the Tesla Cybertruck

Elon Musk had said during the Cybertruck launch that “We need sustainable energy now. If we don’t have a pickup truck we can’t solve it. The top 3 selling vehicles in America are pickup trucks. To solve sustainable energy, we have to have a pickup truck”. This is 100% true. The top 3 best selling cars in America are the Ford F-Series, the Dodge Ram and the Chevy Silverado. All of which are all fossil fuel guzzling vehicles and basically all look the same. No company has really offered any a truck design that breaks this “idea” of what a pickup truck could look like and do. This is where the Tesla Cybertruck comes in.

Tesla had received over 250,000 reservations in the first week alone for the Cybertruck and its been estimated that they have well over 500,000 pre-order reservations as of March 2020. If Tesla has 500,000+ reservations for the Cybertruck, that’s roughly $50+ million in funds that Tesla has to build the un-offically announced location of the Cybertruck factory and the Cybertruck itself. Not a bad start for an electric pickup truck not even in production yet.

It turns out that most of those pre-orders are coming from California and Texas. It was also reported that the Cybertruck factory will be built in Austin Texas where there is plenty of sun for solar power. Texas is also one of the country’s biggest buyers of pickup trucks, second to California. Its also been confirmed that Tesla has previously hired engineers from AMD in Austin Texas and already has an Autopilot engineering office established there.

Lastly, Elon Musk announced that the Tesla Cybertruck will be the official vehicle on Mars. They’ll create a pressurized version, of course, but it will be used to transport astronauts around the planet and perform various other missions. Since the Cybertruck will have autopilot they could theoretically create a “Rover Mode” and have the Cybertrucks perform survey missions when they aren’t being used. It will be interesting to see what they do with the first truck on Mars.

With the new Cybertruck manufacturing plant being built in Austin Texas, which will also be a new Gigafactory location, Tesla could not have picked a better spot to manufacture electric trucks. Texas is a state that loves its truck culture but with that comes the cost of gasoline and the environment. By creating an electric truck factory here, Tesla will create more jobs in this state, be able to help support a booming economy and help transition diesel trucks over to more sustainable electric ones.

The Tesla Cybertruck release date is expected to be in late 2021 for the dual motor AWD versions and the single motor RWD versions later in 2022. As of July 2021, the Cybertruck factory hasn’t yet finished completion so having a release date of later in the year seems a bit ambitious. As much as I would like to see them reach this goal, it would be the first time in Tesla’s history that they have an actual release date align with the expectations. All other release dates of Tesla vehicles have been a little behind in the announced production dates but is still way beyond what any other automotive manufacture is capable of at this rate.

My personal opinion is that when the Tesla Cybertruck is shipped out to customers its going to spell the end of the “traditional” pickup truck and dethrone the top 3 pickup trucks completely. The customer is getting way more for $39,000 USD, saving money over the long term and never has to buy gasoline. The Cybertruck also looks cooler, is faster than a Porsche 911 (as seen in the race video), is the only electric truck with solar panels and will most likely be way safer than any other truck on the road… aside from an actual armored truck. So why would anyone buy a pickup truck when they can have a Cybertruck that costs less and gives them more?

Best Zero Waste Coffee Brewing Methods

If your going to use any coffee brewing method that uses a filter, always use a reusable filter. Cloth or stainless steel filters work but stainless steel filters provide the best taste and benefits. The disposable paper filters are not only bad for the environment, since they are single use items, but they also add a cardboard like taste to any coffee brewed with them. You can do a side by side taste test with a paper filter versus a stainless steel coffee filter. There’s a very noticeable difference in flavor.

That aside, these are the simplest and most minimalist ways to brew zero waste coffee at home while retaining high quality flavor.

1. French Press
2. Pour Over method
3. Cold Brewed Coffee
4. Espresso Machine

I’ve personally brewed coffee using the French Press Method for the past 9 years and the only waste has been the coffee bags and the grounds, which I feel a little guilty about. I’ll discuss solutions to that later in the article. Some of the best things about making zero waste coffee in a french press is that there’s 1 item to brew the coffee, there’s no filters needed and all you have to do is add hot water to the ground coffee, wait, press and pour. Its an extremely simple and efficient process in making coffee which is why I’ve made it this way for years. When you’re done pouring your french press coffee you can add your coffee grounds to a compost bin or use them for other purposes I mention later on.

The Pour Over Method for brewing coffee is becoming one of the most popular ways to make coffee at home. Its familiar since its a “manual version” of the automatic coffee maker process and the pour over method also makes incredible tasting coffee. It gives you more control over the brewing process and with this method, there’s almost a zen art in making/pouring the coffee.

1. Heat your water just like you would with any coffee (preferably electrically).
2. Place your reusable stainless steel filter in the top of the pour over container.
3. Pour your ground coffee into the filter.
4. Once the water is heated, slowly pour over the ground coffee in circular motions evenly drenching the coffee.
5. Once the drip process is done which will only take a few minutes, your pour over (zero waste coffee) is ready.

Cold brew coffee may be one of the best tasting and waste reducing ways to make coffee. Since cold brew coffee will make use of a refrigerator (which is already plugged in) its using far less extra energy to produce. Natural gas or electricity isn’t used to heat water in order to brew the coffee. The process is also really simple to do which saves time. Its as easy as

1. Placing ground coffee into an air tight container
2. Filling it with cold/room temp water
3. Close seal and place into refrigerator over night.

In the morning, all you have to do is filter out the cold brewed coffee and prepare it in any one of numerous cold brew recipes that are fun to play around and experiment with. Cold brew is fairly strong right out of the jar so try adding some cold water, plant milk and/or ice cubes to the mix.

Using the pour over method, french press, espresso or cold brewing will always be one of the most zero waste ways to make coffee. If you combine these methods with an electric kettle or water heated on an electric stove, its going to be the most zero waste coffee you’ve ever made.

Zero Waste Coffee Reusable Filters

Coffee filters have been made from paper for the longest time as a disposable one time use product out of convenience. This is one of many products that has created a wasteful society. Reusable coffee filters are the solution to create truly zero waste coffee. One form of reusable coffee filters are reusable/washable cloth filters. Often these are made from hemp or cotton and while they work, cloth filters tend to strip out some of the beneficial oils in the coffee the same way paper filters do. So a better alternative is stainless steel coffee filters. They’re reusable, washable, will last years compared to the cloth and paper filters. Most importantly, stainless steel filters won’t strip out the beneficial oils in the coffee.

You can take zero waste coffee a step further and instead of throwing away the coffee grounds they can be used for a variety of purposes to continue the life of the product.

Zero Waste Coffee Ground Uses

Used coffee grounds can be repurposed and made into:

• Compost and/or natural fertilizer
• Grow mushrooms at home
• Soaps and skin cleanser
• Cleaning scrub for surfaces, pots and pans
• Natural dyes

Its not only the coffee grounds that are being wasted. Coffee makes up one of the biggest consumer markets in the world and there is an incredible amount of waste that comes from the coffee industry. This includes to-go cups (both paper and plastic), plastic straws and one of the biggest problems is plastic packaging. To tackle one of the biggest waste materials from the coffee industry I think that if it were possible for coffee bag manufacturers to find a way to make truly recyclable coffee bags, this would make the entire coffee industry a lot more sustainable. For coffee brands, I think the reason they don’t bag they’re coffee in truly recyclable, sustainable packaging is because there is a lack of choices at the moment.

Zero Waste Coffee Benefits

There’s a wide variety of benefits from making zero waste coffee. Not just for the environment but for you and your coffee too.

• Benefits for you: By using a stainless steel filter your saving yourself hundreds of dollars over the course of a few years. By using the pour over method your not only making better tasting coffee but your practicing the art of mindfulness and being present which is a great practice to start your day. When using a french press to make your coffee you’re saving time and also making the process simple and efficient.
• Benefits for the coffee: When using a stainless steel filter it doesn’t filter out a lot of those healthy oils that are often stripped out with cloth and paper filters (same goes for the french press and cold brew methods). By not using a paper filter your using less water and don’t have to be concerned about the “cardboard taste” being added to your coffee. Because these zero waste coffee methods take a little longer to do, you’re allowing a lot of the beneficial compounds to be extracted which makes healthier and more flavorful coffee.

Send us some of your zero waste coffee recipes or unique ways of using left over coffee grounds in the comments below. Enjoy making some awesome tasting coffee!

So what about the cost of charging a Leaf? Usually, I can charge for free in most places as its included with the parking. Which may cost $7 to park somewhere that I was already going to anyway. Fast charging to get to a destination, it usually costs between $5 – $7 ($10 at most which would be considered expensive).
Over the course of a year, charging can add up to $200-$800 a year. This of course depends on how often/little you charge and how much free/cheap charging you use (which you can plug into a wall outlet overnight and this can cost cents to charge). Charging the batteries does not have huge draw on power from outlet. This is typically referred to as “trickle charging” for this reason.

Below, I’ll talk about realistic range, regenerative braking (which is awesome), how to charge a Nissan Leaf, reliability & maintenance, the best places to find Nissan Leafs and a secret to finding a great deal on one.

Nissan Leaf Range

Electric range in older Nissan Leafs are the biggest issues when compared to modern day EVs. Its not great for long distances but perfect for driving to and from cities. A Leaf from 2010-2017 is better suited for a daily commuter or driving locally which is how most people use vehicles anyway. Could you do road trips in a Nissan Leaf with these models? Sure, but it does require fast charging stops at around 20-30 minutes. So you would have to factor that time into your road trips. I personally keep my “short road trips” to less than 75 miles.

All leaf models from 2010-2017 are essentially the exact same model and very little was changed until 2018 when they redesigned the Leaf. With the redesign they updated the exterior looks to be more modern, and also added more range by extending them to 158 miles / 252 km of range. The 2020 Nissan Leafs got a huge upgrade with the 62kwh battery providing 226 miles / 364 km of range.

If your strongly against using fossil fuels but don’t want to spend a lot a a new EV, you may find its worth getting one of the older Nissan Leaf models. If you do road trips often, it may be worth spending a little extra for an electric vehicle with longer range or to get a newer Nissan Leaf. I’ve done round trips from as far as Seattle, WA to Portland Oregon and from Vancouver, BC to Pemberton, BC. The 8 years I’ve owned my Leaf I’ve driven for a total of 32,635 miles (52,521 kilometers) which isn’t that much but I generally don’t drive too often. In that time period, I have had to pay zero in gasoline costs which is a great feeling every time I drive past a gas station.

Charging a Nissan Leaf

Charging a Nissan Leaf is the same for all model years. Press the charge port button to open the charging door and connect your charging cable. It really is that simple. A great tip for Nissan Leaf owners is to use the “Auto Lock” button after plugging your car in. By pressing up on the Auto Lock button this will keep the charger locked to your car so that it can’t be removed until it’s done charging. This is really useful if your going to be away from your Leaf while it’s charging. It’s also helpful to other EV owners so that if you haven’t gotten back yet, they can unplug and use it when it’s done charging. Charging at a fast charging station will usually take 30-45 minutes if the battery is near empty.

Nissan Leaf Regenerative Braking

There was a story that was published (Nissan filmed a promo video called “Nissan Leaf and the Volcano” ) where a man in Hawaii uses most the battery charge going to the top of a mountain and generates all that electricity coming back down. I experienced something similar where I had driven up the Cascade Mountains coming from George, Washington (yes, that’s an actual place) and when I had reached the top of the mountain the range meter was reading nothing it was so low. I continued my decent down the mountain and by the time I had reached the bottom… I had 89 miles (143 km) of charge which is way more than what I thought the batteries could handle.

Nissan Leaf Reliability & Maintenance (Important Tip)

Battery Reliability: After 8+ years of ownership I have had very little (if any) battery degradation. While the car has really low mileage but old, the battery is still holding up very well. According to the dashboard gauges there are now 10 bars of the 12 bars left on the battery meter which measures the “battery life” (vertical meter on far right). The battery warranty on Nissan Leafs are good up to 8 years or 100,000 miles and many older Nissan Leaf batteries don’t even start to see battery degradation until 60k to 70k miles. I have done many fast charges (sometimes multiples a day) with most charging done by level 2 plugs and there hasn’t been any changes in the battery reliability so far.

Important ownership tip: This goes for all electric cars in general, but do not let the car sit for long periods of time with a low charge in the battery. Especially in the cold. I discovered that if you let the car sit with a low charge this degrades that battery faster. I did this once (and only once) but I left the car for two weeks with a low charge of 26km of range, which was a dumb mistake. After going to charge it again I noticed there was another bar missing from the battery meter. In hindsight this makes sense but for all electric cars its not a good idea to let them sit with a low charge. This is sort of similar to gasoline powered cars and not letting them sit without the engine running for long periods of time. Gasoline in the tank collects sediment which can damage the engine and spark plugs are meant to be used which is why these two things often need attention when letting them sit there for a long time. For electric cars the material in the batteries in meant to hold and discharge electricity. So if the battery material just sitting there without any electricity flowing in or out of it… it makes sense that it would degrade over time. So that is an expensive lesson learned on my part that hopefully I could spare other EV owners from. While the age of this car and its current battery capacity is still beyond good for a 10 year old EV, I bet that I could have kept the battery life at 11 bars for much longer if I didn’t let it sit there with a low charge.

In regards to any Nissan Leaf maintenance repairs, there was the one time I brought it in to have it looked at and the Nissan dealer had said the car is fine so all they did was rotate the tires. Since then I have had zero maintenance issues and no need to bring the car in. Now that its been over 8 years I may look at getting the tires replaced or at the very least rotated again.

The one thing that had to be replaced on my Nissan Leaf in 8 years is something that’s also found in fossil fuel cars… the 12 volt battery.

Jacob Haust

The auxiliary battery back in 2020 finally had to be replaced. This powers everything but the electric motor and oddly it’s also required for the vehicle to start. I’m not 100% sure what the engineering decision was behind this. If any electrical engineers have an explanation, leave it in the comments below. It would help out myself and others understand why EVs have this integrated into the system. The cool thing about the auxiliary battery is it’s charged with a small solar panel on the roof. So some of the power you use in a Nissan Leaf (even if it is just for heat, music and lights) comes from solar power. Total cost of the battery replacement: $130 CAD. Add that with $50 to rotate the tires and if we’re accounting for everything, I also ran out of windshield washer fluid. In 2023, I’ve purchased a new set of tires for $800. So my total cost of maintenance over 8 years is $985 ($723.98 USD).

Practically zero maintenance is one of the biggest benefits of electric vehicles. When you take into account the amount of things that can break on a combustion engine and combined that with the amount of fossil fuel required for the vehicle to operate, electric vehicles are significantly less expensive to own. Electric vehicles have one moving part on the motor, they don’t use gas and you may have to pump up the tires or replace the windshield washer fluid when they get low. That’s about it when it comes to owning an EV, especially one as reliable as a Nissan Leaf.

Nissan Leaf Reliability

When I had purchased my 2013 Nissan Leaf it had come with all season tires that are rated fairly well for winter. Aside from having less range in winter, Nissan Leafs actually perform better than expected in the winter season. One of the best things about electric cars is actually the weight, which would seem counter intuitive. The battery weight actually allows electric cars to drive very well in winter due to more pressure providing grip on the road. Since the batteries are usually positioned low in the vehicle, it also creates a lower center of gravity which gives electric cars better performance in general.

Even in extreme cold in Canada, there has been some change in the battery performance. Range difference is noticeable when it’s very cold outside dropping 10-20%. But once the battery warms up and I use the seat heaters instead of the heater which helps improve the range. If you have an indoor heated garage this will help prevent some of that since it will keep the battery warm. Its also worth mentioning that charging the vehicle indoors in winter will give you a much better charge rate for the same reason. The Nissan Leaf does amazingly well since it’s a front wheel drive car and the motor sits on top of the front axle providing better traction in the snow and ice.

Used Nissan Leafs in the Pacific Northwest

The most difficult trip to do was from Seattle, WA to Portland Oregon. This required charging 4 times each way which added 4 extra hours to the round trip. In an older model electric vehicle with 80 miles (129 km) of range this isn’t ideal. With modern electric vehicles like a 2020 Nissan Leaf, its easy to do this trip with only 1 charge to get there. This is the difference that 8 years of EV development can do. For road trips, I would recommend the newer 2020 Nissan Leaf model which will make for a more relaxing experience knowing you’ll reach your destination and you’ll also save a lot of time in the process. If you end up getting a used Nissan Leaf, be sure to check the battery meter and make sure it has 11 or 12 battery bars. This indicates the battery is still in great condition and will last for years to come.

If you live in the Pacific Northwest and are looking for a budget EV, a used Nissan Leaf is ideal. Especially if you live in places like Portland or Seattle. Both cities have an incredible amount of EV chargers. Over 200+ EV chargers (not including Tesla charging locations) throughout the Portland area with over 1600+ EV charging stations across the state. Seattle alone has over 250 chargers available.

If you live in a large city, electric vehicles like used Nissan Leafs are perfect. It’s “stop and go” traffic 90%+ of the time so you’ll actually generate more electricity than the Nissan Leaf uses if your driving in the city. I experienced this driving around downtown Seattle where I spent the day in the city and left with 10 more miles of charge than I arrived with. This is the beauty of regenerative braking in electric vehicles. Something else that fossil fuel cars will never be able to compete with.

Buying a Used Nissan Leaf

If you search for “Nissan dealership near me” and select a dealership close to you, you might be surprised at how many Leafs are available for sale. Nissan has made more than half a million Leafs and you can easily find many used Nissan Leafs available across the United States and Canada. Some Nissan Leafs are as low as $9k and and most average between $14k-$19k with low mileage.

Here’s a secret to getting a great deal on a used Nissan Leaf. Look for Nissan Leafs at other dealerships who are competitor brands. If someone trades in their Leaf at one of these dealerships, they have incentive to get the Leaf off the sales lot since its a competitor product to their brand. These dealerships will often sell them for thousands less than you would find at any Nissan Dealership.

Here’s some interesting math for how a simple car like the Nissan Leaf can help reduce fossil fuel usage at large. For each Nissan Leaf are sold, this prevents 522+ gallons of gasoline per car/per year from being burned (this is based on a gasoline fueled car of identical size). Calculations were made with a newer VW Golf, which gets and average of 29 mpg, 13.2 gallon fuel tank, an average fuel cost of $950/yr, $24 to fill the tank and using the average driving range of 15k miles a year. So for every 100 Nissan Leafs on the road, this works out to 52,200+ gallons of gasoline not being burned per year. Multiply that by the more than 500,000 Nissan Leafs that have been made globally and that’s 261,000,000 gallons of gasoline per year. Over 260 million gallons of gasoline not burned every year if every Nissan Leaf on Earth gets driven instead of a fossil fuel car. How cool is that?

What I’ve spent on maintenance and charging costs on a Nissan Leaf over the course of 8 years… a gasoline car of the same size would use in only a few months. This is the cost comparison of EV ownership from a first hand perceptive with half a decade of experience. Owning an electric vehicle saves you a lot in both fuel costs and maintenance costs.

Overall, a Nissan Leaf is very reliable EV. Total cost of maintenance over 8 years was $985 ($723.98 USD) and the total cost of ownership (which would include the very little I’ve had to pay for charging over the past 8 years) would ad up to maybe a few hundred in total. The only complaint I have after reviewing the 2013 Nissan Leaf (aside from the appearance) is the range of only 84 miles/135 kilometers. Which for city driving is all you would ever need. For the new 62kWh 2020 Nissan Leaf the range was greatly improved with 226 miles / 364 km of range which for most people is plenty. So if you only require an electric vehicle for getting around the city, an older Nissan Leaf may be one of the best electric vehicles on a budget.

The best way to accomplish a zero waste grocery shopping trip is to visit your local farmers market. They’ll often have bare minimal packaging that is recyclable or not have any packaging at all which makes zero waste shopping way easier. The best things about shopping at your local farmers market is that your not just supporting the local economy but your also reducing fossil fuel emissions in the process. There’s a big difference in the amount of fossil fuels that were used to transport tomatoes from Mexico compared to the tomatoes grown locally. Once local farmers are transporting goods with electric vehicles to the market, we can achieve real zero waste.

When going zero waste grocery shopping, the best places to go to (ordering them from easy to more difficult) are the:

1. Farmers Market
2. Zero Waste Grocery Stores (like Nada, Nu Grocery, Package Free and Sustain LA)
3. Bulk Foods Stores
4. Local Grocery Stores

Going zero waste grocery shopping sometimes isn’t easy. Local grocery stores are going to be harder compared to the other 3 on the list since they use more plastic packaging on products which often come from the manufacturers. Many grocery stores will also wrap some of their own produce in plastic in order to make the product last longer. So it won’t be as easy as going to the Farmers Market or zero waste grocery stores but it can still be accomplished using some of the tips in this article.

Get Your Zero Waste Grocery Shopping Tools

The #1 zero waste grocery item that you can use for years without having to buy more are canvas grocery shopping bags. Many retailers will sell cheap reusable bags that are made out of recycled plastic but all this does its move the problem around instead of solving it. Reusable canvas bags will ensure no plastic is used and after years of use will save hundreds of plastic bags per person from reaching a landfill. Each year Americans use over 100 billion plastic bags and each one of those bags can take up to 1000 years to break down.

This also includes the plastic produce bags in the produce section. Sometimes they can be made from biodegradable plastics but rather than using the plastic produce bags, reusable cotton mesh produce bags are a much better option. These will last years like the canvas grocery bags and help reduce tons of plastic waste.

Bread is one of the staples in every single grocery store. But instead of buying the plastic wrapped bread look for the store baked or locally baked breads. Some grocery stores will have bread in paper bags or open containers. This way you can place your bread in your own reusable bread bag.

If your going to a store that carries bulk items, investing in a few glass or metal seal-able containers and drawstring canvas bags will make the trip a lot easier and less expensive. Reusable Mason jars are least expensive and very easy to find. Nearly every hardware store will carry glass mason jars. Drawstring canvas bags can also be used for bulk items like nuts, beans and pastas. For bulk items like mixes, seeds and dried fruits that are sensitive to humidity using mason jars are the way to go.

Beeswax wraps are also very handy to have and can replace plastic cling wrap. Beeswax wraps are fabric sheets coated in beeswax and provide a breathable seal. These wax food wraps can be used to keep food fresh after they’ve been cut like bread, fruits, vegetables or used to cover a food container and placed in the fridge.

Here’s a minimalist summary of the five basic items you can use for reducing plastic waste at the grocery stores for years to come. These are the five that I personally recommend and I have used many of them for over 5 years. (If your a frequent bread buyer, a reusable bread bag would be item 6 on the list).

1. Reusable canvas grocery bags
2. Reusable cotton mesh produce bags
3. Drawstring canvas bags
4. Mason jars w/lids
5. Beeswax wraps

Zero Waste Grocery Shopping Tips

If the product comes in plastic, use it as a last resort or don’t buy it at all. Paper, metal, and glass… all of these materials can either be recycled or composted. Not only is this a simple tip to follow while grocery shopping but if more customers did this manufacturers and grocery stores would stop using plastic packaging. Which is the whole point. If everyone stops using plastic companies will stop using and manufacturing it. Stores will then have to carry more options to sell their products. Ultimately, the customer decides what it is that stores will carry.

Rather than buying packaged soap you can fill up the mason jars with liquid soap and refill your pump containers at home. “All in One”, “3 in 1” or multipurpose soaps will reduce the amount of soap you need. These types of soaps can be used as both hand, body and hair soaps. Some stores like Whole Foods even have unpackaged bars of soap that are usually less expensive than the packaged ones. The following zero waste grocery shopping tips will help you save a lot of trash from going into landfills.

• Buy unpackaged bulk soap or liquid soap that you can refill in a reusable jar.
• Buy local fresh produce that doesn’t come in plastic.
• Loose bulk items are better alternatives to packaged ones.
• Glass and stainless steel containers are better to use than plastic storage bags.
• Plastic toothbrushes are a major plastic pollutant. Opt for bamboo toothbrushes if they’re available.
• Go for the fresh, unpackaged bread or paper wrapped breads.
• If all else fails, buy products in recyclable packaging like paper or metal if its an option.

Aside from reducing your plastic purchases and practicing zero waste methods one of the biggest changes you can make when it comes to grocery shopping is buying local. By buying goods from your local farmers (which are usually available at grocery stores) your helping your local economy. Your also helping to reduce or eliminate the amount of fossil fuels it requires to get those goods to the stores. This makes a huge difference not just in packaging waste but in the wasted resources to get them to you. This has a global impact when done at large scale and every person counts. Zero fossil fuels is a new level to the zero waste movement.

How Did Granville Island go Zero Waste?

They started back in the 1970’s when they began reusing historical structures on the island to make places like Bridges Restaurant and the world famous Public Market. In th watee food market, they banned Styrofoam containers and mandated the use of only compost-able or recyclable takeaway containers. They also created guides that each business can customize to educate customers on what to do with each type of waste product to that it can be properly recycled or composted.

Granville Island also worked with BC Hydro, the local utility company, to install energy efficient light bulbs around the island on both building interiors and outdoor lighting. On top of that, Granville Island also uses an electric utility vehicle for the maintenance crew instead of relying on outside fossil fuels. Individual businesses on the island have also created new waste management improvements.

• Restaurants are introducing zero waste practices in their kitchens in order to make sure that food gets composted or delivered to those in need.
• Granville Island Broom Company makes sure they’re waste broom corn get composted in large scale compost bins.
• Granville Island Brewery sends their spent grains to local farmers to be used as livestock feed.
• The Artisan Sake Maker uses rice paste byproduct to make cosmetics, ensuring they create multiple uses out of the rice material.
• Micon Products, a metal tool manufacturer, recycles all of their scrap metal.

These efforts will also help Vancouver meet or exceed the ambitious 80% waste diversion rate they mandated by the end of 2020. By April 1st, they also banned the used of plastic bags on the island in favor of reusable shopping bags.

The Future of Zero Waste on Granville Island

In 2017, Emily Carr University left their building on Granville Island which opened up a 20,000 square foot facility. New development of this facility is called the “Arts & Innovation Hub” which will likely include new restaurants, shops, studios with spaces for creative innovation and sustainable initiatives. This provides a huge opportunity to expand upon the zero waste principals on Granville Island they’re already implementing. They announced Johanna Lauyanto, a sustainability and communications specialist, as one of the council members in 2019. By having her onboard, this speaks to their plans for future sustainable development on the island. The council’s plans for sustainability is mentioned in the “Granville Island 2040” strategy where they state “urban sustainability” is central to their vision.

The Granville Island Council will be addressing things like:

• “Living Labs” where they plans to partner with organizations that are focused on “livability and sustainability of cities” to do research, prototyping, testing and public education on sustainable solutions.
• Environmental sustainability. Where they plan to make Granville Island Carbon Neutral, explore renewable energies like solar for the island, create closed loop food systems and look at zero emissions requirements for new buildings.
• Habitat restoration. They would like to restore the Wetland habitat with the help and guidance of local First Nations.

These are only some of the topics highlighted in the 68 page vision “Granville Island 2040: Bridging Past & Future” created by the Granville Island Council for what they would like Granville Island to be by 2040. Essentially, an inspiring creative space for arts, innovation, and commerce all done in a sustainable and zero waste way.

Electric Car Charging on Granville Island

More than just taking into account waste materials, businesses and organizations have to be thinking about how their customers get to their stores and travel around the marketplaces. Granville Island has already been adding multiple level 2 charging stations for electric car owners. There are 2 chargers outside of ‘Edible Canada Marketplace’ on Rue Johnson Street across from the Public Market and a row of 6 chargers with dedicated parking spaces inside the Old Bridge St. indoor parking lot. These are located on the right hand side near the parking lot entrance.

In the future, it would be ideal to have a section with multiple DC fast chargers on Granville Island. This would cater to EV owners who do a quick stop by the Public Market for their goods while recharging their car. The level 2 chargers can fill up quickly, especially on the weekends, so it would be great to have another option.

If your anywhere in the downtown Vancouver area one of the best (and most affordable) ways to get to the island is by electric ferry all year round. By walking down to False Creek you get to see more of the city and from multiple locations, False Creek electric ferries can take you to Granville Island. This may be one of the most environmentally friendly ways to go sight seeing and shopping on Granville Island, zero waste and zero emissions.

Zero Waste & Responsible Tourism

According to The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), nearly 5 million tons of solid waste (which makes up 14% of the world’s global solid waste) is produced from the tourism industry a year. So by transforming this 1 sector, the tourism industry, we could prevent a large portion of the world’s waste from polluting the Earth.

We have to be responsible with tourism and create a zero waste tourism industry if we expect it to go on sustainably. If a small island in Vancouver, BC Canada can show the world that you can create a zero waste economy by creating simple rules and making sure proper facilities are in place for both businesses and customers, then every business in the tourism industry across the planet either needs to step forward and do the same or we have to start making laws requiring that tourism businesses operate on a zero waste level. It’s the responsible thing to do. Millions of jobs can be created globally to ensure that this 1 industry helps create a circular economy. Our species can’t keep carrying on “business as usual” and expect that nothing terrible will come of this. We have to start fixing this now while we still have the chance to.

Zero waste tourism would be a phenomenal step forward in reducing global waste. Waste that is created needlessly from an industry of pleasure. By using the same zero waste principles that Granville Island has adopted and advancing with in future developments, the rest of the global tourism and manufacturing industries can make a huge impact on reducing waste and doing their part to take care of this planet. Granville Island’s zero waste ethics will continue to set an example for the amazing things that humans can accomplish when we decide to solve a problem and then take action on it.

Given most of Iceland’s landscape, it seems like there are no forest here at all but they do exist. The forests here are usually quite small in comparison to other places and they’re nowhere near the size that they used to be. Most of Iceland’s forested areas are scattered around the perimeter of the island and may contain a few hundred to a few thousand trees in each section. In the far northeast section of the island, there’s Hljóðaklettar National Park where Iceland has it’s most densely forested areas. When you can find these forested areas, they look something like this.

Most forests here aren’t the type of dense, large forest cover you think of. These are more like “pockets” of wooded areas than heavily forested ones. This is the reality of what most of Iceland’s landscape actually looks like.

It would be easy to think that ancient glaciers or volcanic eruptions were responsible for deforesting most of Iceland but it wasn’t any of those things. It was humans.

What Happened to Iceland’s Forests?

When I used to live there at a young age, I always thought it was because of Iceland’s numerous volcanoes and high volcanic activity. Since it’s such a small island I assumed they were all burnt away by lava flows and eruptions. But according to Skógræktin, the Icelandic Forest Service, it turns out the trees (which were mostly Birch) in Iceland were all wiped away from the landscape by our own species. They were all deforested ages ago by the Vikings for ship building, sod roof construction, tools, livestock grazing and fuel. At one point nearly 1/3 of the island was covered by birch trees. Over the course of centuries, according to Hreinn Óskarsson from the IFS,

“only 1% Iceland was left with forest cover”

Hreinn Óskarsson – Icelandic Forest Service

This was 1 culture of people that nearly decimated an entire island of it’s forests simply because the balance went unchecked. Once the Vikings had run out of this valuable resource uncontrolled deforestation they had turned to traveling further west to Canada. Here we see traces of numerous Viking camps in places like Newfoundland where they razed more trees and sent them back to Iceland, continuing to do the same activity that they’ve always done. This sounds a lot like what humans still do today with certain resources, we plunder an area of a specific resource until its gone and move on to another site. Not giving any thought to the impact this will have on the planet and climate change. Here we are more than a thousand years later… and nations around the world were still making the same mistakes. Thankfully, “modern day Vikings” through science, community and knowledge are changing the future of forestry (and possibly climate change) in ways we never imagined, until now.

How Iceland is Using Sustainable Forestry to Grow Trees

The forestry services in Iceland are working with NordGen, a genetic resource center that safeguards the sustainable use of forest plants and farm animal genetics. NordGen’s goal is to ensure the diversity and conservation of these genetics for use in climate change, future food sources and agricultural production. All done in a sustainable way that works with the environment. This is the same organization that’s responsible for the management at the world famous Svalbard Global Seed Vault, that protects and stores seeds from around the world.

By using genetics provided by NordGen, the Icelandic Forest Service crossed a Siberian Larch and a European Larch species to develop a new hybrid that’s better suited for Iceland’s changing climate. According to Prostur Eysteinsson, the Director of the Icelandic Forestry Service, they are planting nearly 3 million seedlings a year and are very optimistic about the future of the forests and forestry in Iceland.

The Icelandic Forest Service and other conservationists have been working for the past century to rebuild Iceland’s forests. One of their biggest challenges is soil erosion. Since their are no root systems from trees the only thing keeping the soil intact is vegetation, which Iceland has already lost 50% of. The trees themselves used to protect the soil and vegetation from volcanic ash with their canopies. Now when volcanoes erupt, fields are blanketed with hot ash and vegetation has to start over from scratch. The government of Iceland in conjunction with numerous local organizations is working to replant the Birch forests. With the amount of seedlings they are planting every year, they are starting to see forests come back quite quickly. Ironically, the factor that’s helping the forests to grow back so quickly… is climate change.

Climate Change, Iceland’s Forests and “the Catch”

The warmer winters and hotter summers in Iceland due to climate change are helping vegetation to come back at astounding rates. This is great news for the conversation organizations, forestry services and people doing work on the ground planting these trees. Its also good news for the farmers and the people of Iceland because it helps create a better quality of life and cleaner air. But there are a few catches to this:

• Some species of trees may have problems with warmer winters and we may see those die out if they don’t adapt.
• Warmer summers may bring diseases and insects that may affect plant growth of species that have grown in Iceland for centuries.
• Other invasive plant species may be able to grow with a warmer climate now in Iceland.

Iceland has already lost one of it’s glaciers Okjökull due to the climate warming so fast. So while vegetation is coming back to Iceland at rates never seen before, it’s coming back at what cost?

The Future of Iceland’s Forests

The people of Iceland are very forward thinking and close with Nature. In 2017 Iceland elected their Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, whose also an environmentalist. In a interview with Time magazine she had said

“We are very conscious of being green.”

Katrín Jakobsdóttir – Prime Minister of Iceland

She had also given a speech at the United Nations Climate Summit in which she stated “Globally, we need to do more to protect carbon sinks, plant trees and reverse desertification”. With this leadership and modern way of life in Iceland, the future of the environment here is looking very good. Even ‘Iceland Travel’ has developed a program where in any one of three tours travelers can stop at a tree nursery in Reykholt and help plant birch trees on their way to the next destination. These kinds of activities in combination with the Icelandic Forest Service and other organization’s efforts are growing back forests full of a variety of different tree species, They are rapidly changing Iceland’s natural landscape. The native landscape of Iceland may be restored beyond prior levels within our lifetimes.

What we see done here to reforest the island using a century of knowledge and modern science may inspire other countries adapt these methods using their own native species. If we see countries from around the world growing and planting trees at the rates that Iceland in doing it, around 3 million+ per year, collectively we can make a huge difference to impact our changing climate. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed globally will help lower global temperatures and humans will begin to benefit the global landscape we are responsible for.

Aside from the electric 2 door coupe opportunity, there are multiple SUVs and sedans that seem to be overlooked for electrification or that now the electric car market has been proven… ripe for the picking.

Electric Range Rover Models

Ranger Rover and Jaguar are basically the same company and 2 different brands. Jaguar has already done the legwork of creating the electric framework for their I-Pace model and proven it works. That same technology placed in a Ranger Rover of similar size as the I-Pace, like the Range Rover Evoque, would make a phenomenal electric SUV. The design of the Evoque already looks much more futuristic than many other Range Rover models.

The Range Rover Velar also has a futuristic look and seems much more aerodynamic compared to other models in the Range Rover lineup. In terms of design, it looks like something you could put in the same category as the Tesla Model X, except for the gasoline engine issue. With this type of design from the Range Rover Velar it would almost be expected to have an electric motor in it.

2021 Jaguar Electric Vehicles

Jaguar F Pace. The I-Pace technology placed into the Jaguar SUV could create something that would have people considering other options when buying a Tesla Model X. At a similar price point with similar range, the Jaguar F Pace would be an interesting contender to test against. Either way, having more electric SUVs (since SUVs are some of the most popular categories of vehicles that also consume the most gasoline) would help make the transportation industry much more sustainable.

The Jaguar E-Pace. When this vehicle came out, I thought it was going to be Jaguar’s electric compact SUV. Its called the “E-Pace” which sounds like an electric vehicle and it was launched around the time that the all electric I-Pace was announced. In terms of branding and timing those couldn’t have been any worse.

Jaguar F-Type. If Jaguar plans on making an electric version of the F-Type, this would be something that people who want the new Tesla Roadster would consider. Since the Tesla Roadster is out of most people’s price range, may consider a powerful 2 door electric Jaguar coupe at half the price.

2021 Electric Nissan 370Z

An electric Nissan 370Z would be very possible by using Nissan Leaf tech and larger battery capacity. Its already talked about in forums and Nissan played with the idea of a concept car back in 2011 that looks like a future electric 370Z. In 9 years we haven’t heard much at all about the future of this vehicle. Learn more about what a potential electric Nissan 370Z would look like in terms of specifications and range if Nissan decided to make it.

Electric Audi S5

The Audi S5 electric. This was such a desirable vehicle to make electric that someone has already done it as proof of concept. Samuel Polyak took a 2010 Audi S5 and placed the drive unit and batteries that were separated from a Tesla Model S and made an electric Audi S5 that looks almost production level.

If done to Audi level engineering, this would also be the only 2 door EV coupe but with prestige and class. Being that Audi is owned by Volkswagen and they already have the Audi e-tron models, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to make an all electric production version of the Audi S5.

The Volkswagen Tiguan. Even though VW has announced they would be coming out with all new EV architecture and vehicles, remember that they have an electric golf. If they stuffed that tech into a Tiguan (or swapped tech from the Audi e-tron) they would have something that could compete with the Tesla Model Y which will be the only other electric compact SUV on the market.

The Lexus IS 300. Surprisingly, Lexus has dominated the hybrid market for over a decade and their parent company, Toyota, sold one of the most popular hybrids ever made. The Prius. Yet the company hasn’t put forth an all electric version of any of the company’s vehicles. It seems quite odd. With their access to manufacturers, capital, knowledge and existing hybrid technology they could easily do something like this. If they had made the move to go full electric with even 1 of there exiting models like the Lexus IS 300, they would have had a hold of the electric luxury vehicle market a long time ago. They were once ahead of the game with their technology and now they’re falling behind.

The Mercedes Benz C-Class. Mercedes had already made a hybrid version of the C-Class model in 2018 that didn’t seem to get much attention. As one of Mercedes most popular vehicle models the decision to not go fully electric doesn’t seem to make mush sense. But this seems to be a trend that many legacy automakers are doing.

The Jeep Wrangler. This is something that Jeep Wrangler owners have been requesting for a very long time. There were rumors they were going to make one and instead they recently showcased a plug in hybrid Wrangler at CES 2020. They have become yet another automaker that hasn’t fully committed to electric and only gone halfway with the idea. Rivian has already proved there is a huge market and demand for electric, offroad capable vehicles. If Jeep doesn’t act on this and Rivian follows the Tesla model of making less expensive vehicles, Jeep will be in trouble in the future. Presently, there are no electric vehicles intended for off road adventures but soon that market will be owned by 1 automaker.

The Volvo XC90. Volvo already has the T8 hybrid which aside from the gasoline engine onboard, seemed like a great SUV. If Volvo made the model full electric instead of dipping their toe in, they wouldn’t have lost so many loyal customers to the Tesla Model X. Why would someone pay $73k USD for a hybrid SUV and have to pay for gas when they can buy the base Model X for a few thousand more (around $81k USD) and use the Tesla Supercharger Network? Its been said that “hybrids are the worst of both worlds”. Back when hybrid were the only affordable option people wanted them. Now that you can get an electric vehicle for under 40k USD, hybrids are essentially outdated at any price. Ironically, Tesla in now known as the safest automaker which is what Volvo used to be known for.

The Mercedes Benz G-Class. With its flat surfaces for mounting solar panels into the body and its size, the G-Class would be an ideal candidate for an electric SUV from Mercedes. Mercedes recently had announced the entirely new EQC… then postponed the release of the SUV. It would have made more sense to put that technology into the first major redesign of the G-Class in over 40 years. Instead, they equipped the G-Class with a turbocharged V8 which seems like something a legacy automaker would do. The brand of the G-Class has already done the work and created brand loyalty. Proof of concept has already been made by KRIESEL and it looks amazing. These were two pieces of the electric SUV future that would have taken the world by storm. I honestly wonder how many people bought an electric Tesla Model X over the V8 powered Mercedes G-Class?

Legacy Automakers Making Hybrids Instead of Electrics

With so many automakers developing plugin hybrid electric vehicles, when the rest of the world seems to be going full electric,it makes me wonder if legacy automakers are using hybrid vehicles as testing waters. If they are using hybrids to gauge the market for electric cars, they’re going to be getting numbers that don’t correlate to what they are looking for. Nobody wants hybrid vehicles anymore now that long range and somewhat affordable all electric cars are here.

Most of these cars will be left behind in the form of being phased out to make way for new entirely different electric models or it will be the end of the car companies that make them. One massive automaker would have gone bankrupt had they not been bailed out. Its seems the only logical thing to do is convert existing models to be fully electric.

The future of the automobile industry is electric.

There is no debate on that. There is a reason why America’s most valuable automaker, Tesla Motors, is 100% electric and also the youngest. They’re making new sales records year after year and have the world’s largest charging network. If legacy automakers don’t catch up to the future and take this seriously, they’ll have to give way to the new automakers that are making the future happen.

Practical Engineering of the Electric Nissan 370Z

Where would you put the batteries in an electric 370Z? Start by taking out the engine. There’s also a large transmission tunnel and a big area between the back seats and the trunk that can be filled with batteries to keep center of gravity low. A whole lot of space is made to work with once everything related to the outdated combustion engine is removed and with modern battery densities you don’t need as much space. Nissan could position the electric motor at the back of the front engine bay or above the rear wheels like Porsche does with their engines for better performance. This would move the storage space to the massive front engine bay which would make the front trunk of the Model S seem small.

Electric Nissan 370Z Performance

Speaking of performance, I may or may not have outpaced numerous V8 Mustangs from light to light in my Nissan Leaf. Sure at a long distance they would eventually outrun a Leaf but at shorter distance they can’t compete with the instant torque and acceleration especially when it’s fully charged. A YouTube channel called “Cubic Centimeters” made a video showing that a brand new Nissan Leaf will beat an Nissan 370Z. With a higher powered electric motor and decent battery capacity, the same technology put into a Nissan 370Z would be a blast to drive. I really want one if that’s not obvious.

Design of the 370Z Electric

Nissan debuted “something” like an Electric 370Z at the Geneva Auto Show where they made a concept car called the Nissan Esflow in 2011. If Nissan made it easy on themselves, a high performance electric version of the existing 370Z would be desirable and allow them to “test the waters” with the right specifications. This could then transition the entire brand model over to electric, which Nissan could then ‘evolve’ into something like the Esflow in the future.

Back in 2016, I had brought the idea of an all electric 370Z up to multiple Nissan technicians after I purchased my Nissan Leaf and they said that “Nissan would never do that”. There is this weird perspective that if you make a current vehicle model into an electric one, that it “devalues” the gasoline powered ones… yeah, duh. Because your future proofing the model instead of letting it go extinct. KIA is doing this with both their Soul EV and Niro EV. Personally, I think an AWD Electric 370Z would sell just as well as the Tesla Model 3 if they could compete at that price range with similar specs. An Nissan electric 370Z with instant torque and AWD would be a monster. Think of the size of the front trunk and the road trips across Europe in that. Theoretically, it could outnumber the Leaf sales if Nissan pulled off the right configurations.

Ideal Specifications for an Electric Nissan 370Z

• Drivetrain: Either AWD using dual motors or RWD with the motor placed above the rear wheels (like Porsche engines).
• Battery Capacity: 75 kWh+ battery.
• Range: 250-300 miles (400-482 kilometers).
• Turn Radius: please for the love of performance, make this tighter.

That’s really it. Nothing else needed. Make everything else the same.

If Nissan doesn’t take up the opportunity to make such an amazing vehicle like this someone will put together an old Nissan Leaf and a 370Z just for the fun of it. (Personally, I’ve thought about doing it). Then another automaker will see the potential after the social media craze and make a electric vehicle like the 370Z, taking away any foothold Nissan could have had in that market. People wanted Nissan Leaf’s. Nissan proved that with sales of more than 400,000 of them. They’re is a cult following of the 370Z because there is nothing out there like it (the Jaguar F-Type is kinda close but its different level). If they merged the future of electric vehicles with a great looking touring car like the 370Z, call it the 370ZE, they would have a hit. Even if they tested the waters by doing a limited special edition run of 500 cars, it would be worth it. Toyota missed the opportunity with the electric Supra, will Nissan miss the opportunity with an electric 370Z?

Rivian R1S Interior Photos

Rivian R1S Design & Practicality

Its designed with a glass roof that has electrochromic glass which allows you to control the glass opacity to let in more light or less. The R1S also has roof racks so that you can carry extra recreational gear and luggage. This is in addition to the very large front trunk with 11.1 cu ft (330L) of space and additional storage in the back. The practicality of the R1S is demonstrated in a lifestyle video where snowboarders head into the Colorado mountains in search of powder in the Rivian R1S with their dog. While showcasing the naturally well lit interior and traction in the snowy mountains, its easy to miss 1 very cool feature that R1S owners will love. The rear tailgate opens into a split tailgate, which provides a wide range of utility. Whether its adding lighter items to the back using just the top hatch, accessing the large storage space or sitting on the tailgate to enjoy the view… the spit tailgate is is a beautiful design with a lot of utility.

With the tailgate is open, there’s a removable compartment that provides additional storage space underneath the storage space available in the trunk. Rivian states there is 7.1 cubic ft of space in the rear compartment of the R1S. There’s also compartments on either side of the trunk bay that can store more items.

Rivian R1S Utility Features

The Rivian R1s features 3 rows of seats in a 2 x 3 x 2 layout. The 2nd and 3rd row seats fold down fully flat to provide a large cargo space for transporting large items. The main advantage over the R1T is it’s interior storage capacity and passenger seating.

With the ability to seat 7 people and travel at a range of 410+ miles (659+ kilometers) the Rivian R1S is going to be the ultimate road trip vehicle. To be able to travel that far, with that amount of people and not require any gasoline is something many outdoor adventurers have wanted for a long time. While the Rivian R1S is going to be a popular vehicle in general, I see it being heavily used in places like Colorado and the entire west coast. Especially in the Pacific Northwest where many people enjoy the outdoors and are very conscious of the environment.

The Rivian R1S storage capacity will allow the owner to bring whatever they desire on the trips. With the front trunk storage space of 11.1 cubic feet, the rear storage compartment, the storage in the back behind the seats and the roof rack system… this enables the R1S to be able to carry anything from snowboards to full on kayaks. The modular roof rack system on the R1T, that can fit into the front trunk, also appears on the roof of the R1S providing the ability to add roof racks as needed or to take them off and store them away when you don’t.

Rivian R1S Specifications

The Rivian R1S has a few different specifications given it’s design, weight and aerodynamics. Most other specifications are similar if not identical to the Rivian R1T model, being that they share the same platform.

• Length: 16 ft
• Width: 6.6 ft
• Towing Capacity: 7,700 lbs (3492 kg)
• Max Speed: 125 mph (201 kph)
• Clearance: 14.5 inches (max)
• Wheelbase: 121 inches (10 ft)
• Wading Depth: 3ft (meter)
• Front Trunk Space: 11.1 cu ft (330L)
• Rear Bin Storage: 7.1 cu ft (201L)
• Seating Capacity: 7 Seats
• Horsepower: up to 750 Horsepower
• Torque: 829 ft/lbs combined
• Speed: 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in 3 seconds
• Drivetrain: Quad Motor AWD
• Charge Port: CCS
• Battery Sizes: 105kWh / 135kWh / 180kWh
• Range: up to 410+ miles (659+ kilometers)
• Price: Starts @ $69,000 USD
• Release Date: Late 2020

With both the Rivian R1T and the R1S coming out in late 2020, its going to be interesting to see which vehicle customers desire the most and seeing the adventures people have in them. Learn more about the Rivian R1S and if your interested, reserve your spot with a preorder for when they launch.

Rivian R1T Interior Photos

Rivian R1T Design Features

• Stadium Headlights: The iconic “stadium” headlights use LEDs for less power and their design casts a wider beam of light.
• Sustainably Sourced Wood: Some of the interior surfaces feature sustainable sourced wood for both look and feel.
• Digital Touchscreen Dashboard: (fairly standard in high end vehicles now like Tesla) Will be interesting to see how they have designed their user interface and experience.
• Retractable Tonneau Cover: A button located on the pickup bed retracts the tonneau cover automatically.
• 4 Roof Options: Steel roof, glass roof, electrochromic glass roof (all fixed). The fourth option is 2 lift out composite material panels, which sound ideal for the beach and warmer climates.

“We will offer multiple roof styles including electrochromic glass (which turns from opaque to transparent on demand), a fixed glass panel, a two-piece removable composite roof and a standard fixed roof.”

Rivian (@Rivian) August 13, 2019

Fun Fact: Inside the driver side door is an electric flashlight that uses the exact same battery found inside the main battery pack. It also charges while inside the door.

Rivian R1T Utility Features

• Level 3 Autonomous Driving: Rivian stated they will be aiming to have level 3 autonomy. Which is autonomous driving in certain conditions. This allows the driver to hand over “general driving tasks” to the vehicle.
• Gear Tunnel: Lockable pass through storage compartment.
• Side Steps: The doors to the Gear Tunnel act as steps to gain access to the roof and are an ideal height to sit on for changing.
• Front Trunk: Since there is no engine the front trunk provides extra storage space.
• Rear Bin: Compartment under truck bed that holds a full size spare tire.
• Camping: The modular crossbar system above the pickup bed is capable of supporting a tent platform for camping.
• Tank Turns: Can make the same turns as a tank which turns the tires on opposite sides of the vehicle in opposite directions.
• Onboard Kitchen (optional):
• Modular Crossbar System: Expandable racks on the roof, bed and bed floor that allow you to mount gear to.
• Truck Bed Utilities: x3 110 V outlets, compressed air generator and lockable Gear Guard system. Optional bike rack system.
• Daytime Running Light Bar: The daytime running light bar at the front of the vehicle also acts as a charge light indicator so that you can see at a distance how much charge you have. It turns green when full.
• Swing and Drop Tailgate: This new design of tailgate acts as steps allowing the user to get in and out of the truck bed easily while also providing more ergonomic access to items in the back.

Rivian R1T Swing and Drop Tailgate

In July of 2019, Rivian filed a patent for a “Swing and Drop Tailgate“. What this design of tailgate does is allows the user to be up closer to the truck bed which is far more ergonomic for loading and unloading compared to traditional truck tailgates. It also acts as a stepping platform to easily get in an out of the truck bed. This design will save Rivian truck owners from wasted time compared to the standard flip down and if you desire to use it as a regular tailgate, you can with the press of a button. With standard truck tailgates (that are literally on every single pickup truck made) your distanced from the back of the truck bed at least 1.5 ft having to bend further forward when its open to get things in and out. There is no other option. Getting in and out of the truck bed usually meant lifting yourself up into it, utilizing steps that some companies built into the side of truck or buying an aftermarket bolt on. With the Swing and Drop Tailgate, Rivian makes a truly innovative solution to what has been a decades long pain point for truck owners.

Rivian R1T Specifications

• Width: 6.6 ft
• Length: 18.09 ft
• Clearance: 14.5 inches (max)
• Wheelbase: 135 inches (11.25 ft)
• Wading Depth: 3ft (meter)
• Front Trunk Space: 11.1 cu ft (330L)
• Gear Tunnel Space: 12.4 cu ft (351L)
• Seating Capacity: 5 Seats
• Horsepower: up to 750 Horsepower
• Torque: 829 ft/lbs combined
• Speed: 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in 3 seconds
• Towing: 11,000 lbs (max)
• Drivetrain: Quad Motor AWD
• Charge Port: CCS
• Battery Sizes: 105kWh / 135kWh / 180kWh
• Range: up to 400+ miles (643+ kilometers)
• Price: Starts @ $69,000 USD
• Release Date: Late 2020

According to Mark Vinnels, Rivian’s Executive Director of Engineering & Programs, the motors on the Rivian vehicle platform create 14,000 Nm of torque at the wheel. That would be 10,325 ft/lbs of torque which is much higher than what other media outlets are reporting. It may be possible that they will limit the torque through the software in order to extend the life of the motors.

Tank Turns in the Rivian R1T

Yes, it can actually make tank turns. While the Rivian R1T will only be able to perform this feat in off road mode, its actually kind of cool. The reason it wouldn’t work on pavement is the tension on the rubber would tear up the tires.

The practical application of a tank turn would be in an off roading situation where your in a tight or dangerous space with very little room to move and you’d like to get out of there ASAP. If your towing a camper or trailer and need to get it into place, this would eliminate the need to do multiple point turns to position it correctly. For off road parking, like RV Parks, we may see drivers come up some unique solutions. Other than that, its a fun trick to do off road in the dirt and brings “doing donuts” to another level.

Camping in the Rivian R1T Electric Pickup

Rivian calls their vehicles ‘Electric Adventure Vehicles’ and they were the first ever electric vehicle to attend Overland Expo West. They demonstrated the R1T’s ability to use the modular crossbar system to act as a mounting point for a tent with a drop down ladder. This makes it possible to go camping wherever you park your R1T. Eliminating the need to have an additional camping spot or to tow an RV trailer. The optional pull out kitchen is housed inside the massive Gear Tunnel that comes with 2 electric stove tops, multiple storage areas and a sink. Read more about the Rivian R1T Electric Pickup Truck.

In a very informative podcast on COP25 (United Nations Climate Change Conference), they discuss corporate roles in green washing the conference, creating destabilization and contributing to the failure of the conference as a whole. The climate change conference, whose goal was to unite nations on taking collective action on climate change, ultimately ended in failure to agree on anything. Listen to the COP25 Podcast Episode to understand what really happened at what was suppose to be a proactive meeting of nation leaders and what future solutions may be.

While the show lets us know the important facts regarding things like climate change and oil industries, they also provide hope. Its easy to have a “dark” outlook in regards to our current environment and what the future may hold. But one of The Green Majority podcasts ‘Learning to Love‘ with Professor Stephen Scharper from the University of Toronto discusses how you can take in all of the important data that we need to know about but think about how to go about living well in a holistic, sustainable way and have a positive vision of the future at the same time. This podcast episode draws attention to the role of Nature and healing. That in order to be more human, we have to understand out inter-connectivity to nature and our role in it. To have a better understanding of where we fit, our roles within Nature and what we can do, this is a great episode to listen to.

The Green Majority Podcast is an educational podcast where you get to hear concepts, studies, science and news on sustainability directly from leaders doing work in their fields to ensure that humanity and Earth co-exist. The show produces weekly content on environmental issues that the corporate media often refrains from talking about.

If your concerned about the environment and want to tap into whats happening in Canada and around the globe in regards to climate change and the environment at upper levels, I highly recommend giving the Green Majority Podcast a listen.

Electric Vehicle Range in Winter

Electric vehicles are not the only vehicles that see decreased performance in the cold. Traditional fossil fuel powered cars also see decreased fuel economy in winter for a variety of reasons. According to FuelEconomy.gov, gasoline powered car’s fuel economy can drop as much as 22%. And hybrids can be up to 34% worse. So fossil fuel powered cars have no advantage over electric vehicles in winter. They are in fact at a disadvantage due to safety and performance.

So what effects electric vehicle range in winter? Aside from the heater draining the juice form the battery, the cold affects the battery’s internal resistance and it takes longer to charge than at the same rate it would normally. Which means the same is true for the rate at which the battery gets discharged and uses energy, it uses up more. This is why you may notice in driving a short distance where you would normally use 3-5 kilometers (1.8-3 miles) of range… it can use up as much as 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) of range in the same trip simply because its colder outside.

But with some EVs, there’s a trick that can optimize both charging and range when driving in the cold if the car is equipped with it. Battery Conditioning. In some electric vehicles they come equipped with a battery conditioning feature that warms the battery up to an optimal temperature making charging much easier in winter. It also helps keep the battery at an optimal temperature during use so that range remains stable. If you have the option to charge and/or store your electric car in a covered garage with temperature control, do it. It can save you up to 40% range and a lot of time if you travel frequently in winter.

At the moment, Solid State Batteries are not quite ready for deployment in EVs yet. And since the battery chemistry doesn’t contain any fluids or materials that are as sensitive to colder temperatures, it makes winter less of a factor.

Charging Electric Vehicles in Winter

When batteries are cold, this affects how power is delivered to the battery’s cells. Warm batteries accept electricity they way that they were designed to. Once temperatures reach freezing (0 Celsius/32 Fahrenheit), researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory found that EV batteries charge between 22%-36% less with the same charge rates compared to warmer conditions. Meaning that you would get, on average

29% less charge during freezing temperatures.

So to get the same amount of charge you would normally during warmer temperatures, it would take a lot longer at the DC Charger. The study by the Idaho National Laboratory “Electric Vehicle Fast Charging under Cold Temperatures” should serve as a basis for why colder climates like Canada, Northern United States and Northern Europe should have more DC fast chargers at every location. If EV drivers have to wait a considerably longer amount of time to get a full charge, the charging infrastructure has to expand in order to stay efficient in these areas.

How to Optimize Heating of Electric Cars in Cold Climates

When having the heater on higher than usual in winter to stay warm, this drains some of the battery range out of your electric car. Its actually the 2nd most draining process of EV battery drainage behind propelling the car. But there’s an interesting hack that you can do if your up for it. Using your seat heaters. If you have the heat on in the car for the first 5-10 minutes to heat the cabin, you can then have the seat heaters on along with the heated steering wheel. This will keep your body and hands warm while saving range and you won’t have to keep the air heater on during your trip. It’s an interesting hack that works out fairly well. Give it a shot and let us know in the comments below how it worked for you.

Performance and Handling of EVs in Winter

Many people are under the impression that electric cars don’t handle well in the snow and ice. The exact opposite is actually true. Due to the low center of gravity and heavier weight of the electric vehicle (mostly from the batteries) they are much more stable than their fossil fuel powered counterparts. They have better grip/traction because of the weight and better performance because of less body roll when taking corners. Both of these help prevent sliding. With All Wheel Drive, some snow tires and a long battery range like the Tesla Model 3 and you have yourself a great winter EV.

Best Electric Vehicle for Winter 2020

One of the best electric vehicles in winter climates (for capability, range and price) is the Tesla Model 3. While its not the least expensive electric vehicle, its the only EV at the moment that gives you All Wheel Drive in combination with great range. The Tesla Model 3 performance in winter driving was exceptional given its range and AWD capability.

In the future it will be interesting to see how electric trucks perform in the winter like the trucks from Rivian, Ford and the new Tesla Cybertruck compared to EVs we have today. EV trucks with Solid State Batteries may be the perfect combination for winter climates.

To say that climate change and global CO2 emissions are not connected to the forest fires in Australia is to deny the work of the scientists that have dedicated their lives to studying this science and ensuring the world is a better place because of it. To further insult the work and efforts put forth by climate scientists, the Prime Minister of Australia is making deals with the coal industry when a huge portion of the country is literally on fire. Global ‘leaders’ have had this information handed to them by experts in their fields and warned numerous times over decades. Yet even in the year 2020 we are seeing a failure to act upon the very things causing climate change.

To be in an environment that is being ravaged by climate change, like Australia, and making deals with industries like coal that cause climate change in the first place, is to be completely out of touch with reality. Setting aside the ethics and competence of Australia’s Government leaders, focusing on what can be done to turn the situation around in Australia is a better use of time.

Australian Forest Fires by Region

Lets take a look at the current state of Australia’s forest fires and what is being done to combat them. In Australia, forest fires are called “bush fires” in case you have seen them called this in the media. Australian forest is also called “the bush” hence the name. Unfortunately, the drier climate makes bush fires extremely dangerous as a single fire can easily sweep through hundreds of acres in a matter of hours.

Most of Australia’s fires are occurring in the eastern part of the country in the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. This is where world famous cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne all reside. Smoke cover from the forest fires is so thick that many of these cities cannot be seen from space. Anyone who has been on social media has seen photos at some point of cities like Sydney where both tourists and locals have been taking photos with breathing masks on combined with backdrops of dark grey smoke covered cities. If someone told you these were photos from a post apocalyptic movie coming out, it would be believable, but they are in fact very real and happening right now at the time of this article (January 3rd, 2020).

In Victoria Australia, the state that houses the city of Melbourne, most forest fires are occurring further east on the coastline between the cities of Bairnsdale and Mallacoota with more fires spreading northeast of those cities. Hundreds of fires are also occurring in dozens of Victoria’s National Parks like:

• Brodribb Nature Conservation Area
• Snowy River National Park
• Errinundra National Park
• Alfred National Park
• St George Plain Nature Conservation Reserve
• Lind National Park

These are only a few out of the hundreds of fires within National Parks throughout all of Australia. Between Victoria and New South Wales, more than 1200 homes and 18 people have been lost with at least 17 people unaccounted for.

In New South Wales, the bush fires have been so widespread that they have had to order 260 km (160 miles) of coastline to be evacuated with the military stepping in to help with the evacuation. The Australian Navy is helping evacuate thousands of residents from the shores and carrying them to safer ports as far as 16 hours away. There isn’t much of the coastline that isn’t on fire in New South Wales. From north of Coff’s Harbour, around Sydney and south of Bateman’s Bay. Much of the National Parks around Sydney have either been burned through or are on fire.

In Queensland Australia, there are fires from the northern tip extending all the way to the southern border along the coasts and into the mountains. There are multiple bush fires north of Brisbane and south of Bundaberg. Some of these fires are not just because of climate change but in combination to human actions whether intentional or by accident. Dozens of fires have also been reported in the Cairns region of Queensland.

Even Tasmania, the southern island in Australia, has forest fires. There’s over 7k hectares of forest burnt in Fingal which spread into a nearby National Park. Firefighters are working around the clock to try and contain the damage and prevent the fires from spreading further.

This is only the east coast of Australia. The Australian fires are not only spreading across the eastern side but in every region of the country. In a photo courtesy of NASA, there are dozens of fires out west even nearby Perth. Fires down by Adelaide and even in the Northern Territory… there isn’t a single state in Australia that doesn’t currently have forest fires at the moment.

From space, the only thing that doesn’t seem to be on fire in Australia is the interior, most of which is desert.

If nothing is done to reverse the effects of climate change that we clearly see in places like Australia, the rate at which we see this damage happen around the Earth will be exponential.

Australia’s Animal Species in Danger from Forest Fires

Hundreds and thousands of animals like koalas and kangaroos are dying due to these forest fires with many volunteers offering help to save injured animals. There are photos spreading across the internet of volunteers giving koalas drinking water that are so badly burnt many of them don’t make it. Many more rescuers holding kangaroos that have bandages on their legs… these are the lucky ones. The fires in Australia spread so quickly that most of these animals don’t have time to make it out. Volunteer rescuers have gone as far as to train rescue dogs and bandage their feet to keep them from being burned in order to find koalas that didn’t make it out of the forest before the fires came through. If they’re still alive the dogs will let the rescuers know where to find them. Koalas were already on the endangered species list before the fires and who knows how many of Australia’s animal species will fair when the fires settle, if they settle.

With much of Australia facing one of the driest springs on record and every state reaching temperatures of 40C (104 Fahrenheit) and above, its hard to say what the future of Australia’s climate and environment will look like.

These landscapes and photos from Australia of nature being destroyed should serve as a warning of things to come globally if we do nothing to address the damage we have done (and are currently doing) to the environment. Not one place on Earth is an exception from the changing climate. It may be pouring down rain where you are now but if the climate continues changing at it’s current pace… decades from now the climate your in may be unrecognizable. To put that into perspective, remember at one point the African Sahara (the world’s largest desert) was once a lush rain forest.

How do the Australian Bush Fires Affect the Rest of the World?

Keep in mind that all of these forests capture and hold billions of tons of CO2, the greenhouse gas most responsible for climate change. So with every tree burned, that captured CO2 then gets released back into the atmosphere and it will be years, decades, if ever… before trees regrow to begin capturing CO2 again. In the meantime, heating up the atmosphere. So not only is more carbon dioxide being released, the very mechanisms that absorb it keeping everything in balance are being taken away.

We know what is causing climate change. The very things that fuel these events. It’s the burning fossil fuels, CO2 emissions from manufacturing and electricity production. Ironically, Australia gets most of its electricity from burning coal according to energy.gov.au. We already have the answers, all we have to do is act on the knowledge we have with the solutions that are within reach. It’s not just Australia that is in danger of looking like most of it’s desert interior, but most of world if we do nothing to stop human accelerated climate change. Not within the ten year time span, by 2030, that the world’s leading climate scientists are giving us… but now.

We know that the Tesla Model S and Model X have both been known to have exceptional performance in winter conditions. But how does the newer and smaller Tesla Model 3 perform in winter? Both Tesla Model 3 vehicles used in these tests were AWD (all wheel drive) with Bjorn Nyland using the Tesla Model 3 Performance and Now You Know using the Long Range version.

Tesla Model 3 Winter Range

According to Bjorn Nyland who does numerous tests and experiments with Tesla vehicles in regards to performance, range and capacity, the Tesla Model 3 get considerable performance even in winter. The Model 3 specs of the vehicle he’s testing and road conditions were:

• Tesla Model 3 Performance
• 20 inch wheels
• Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3 stud-less tires
• 5 degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit)
• Wet roads and sunny skies

The Tesla Model 3 Performance gets a confirmed range of 433 kilometers (269 miles) at an average speed of 90km per hour (55mph). Even at 120km per hour (74mph) which in cold temperatures is quite fast, the Model 3 gets an estimated 339km (211 miles) of range. There are no electric vehicles currently on the market that compare to the range and performance of the Model 3 at this price point. This speak volumes to the energy density that Tesla batteries have over other electric vehicles and demonstrates the efficiency even in winter temperatures.

The YouTube channel duo ‘Now You Know’ has also tested the Model 3 in North America. The specs of the Model 3 and road conditions were:

• Long Range 75Kwh Model 3
• 19 inch sport wheels
• 0 degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit)
• With heat on

They confirmed a range of 420 kilometers (261 miles) in the Tesla Model 3. Interestingly, they did the same test on the way back but with only the seat heaters on and the heat off this time. By doing so they increased the range by a massive 75 kilometers (47 miles). Keep in mind that differences in terrain elevation may also be a slight factor. This averaged out to 442 kilometers (275 miles) which is comparable to Bjorn Nyland’s test of 433 kilometers (269 miles) using the Performance Tesla Model 3.

Extreme Cold Tesla Model 3 Winter Range & Performance

Zac & Jesse from Now You Know also tested the Tesla Model 3 range in extreme cold. This time the weather conditions were:

• -12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit)
• cold battery (not preheated)
• with heat on

In the second trip it was much colder with slightly different conditions to push it even harder:

• -14 degrees Celsius (6 degrees Fahrenheit) descending into -16 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit)
• warm preheated battery
• traveling a total of 189 kilometers (118 miles)

This time they achieved a range of 325 kilometers (202 miles) even in these colder temperatures at night. Once would think that day/night wouldn’t affect range but at night when it gets colder tires have less grip on the roads which affect range of all electric vehicles. During the day when its slightly warmer, even by a few degrees, this can have a measurable affect on EV range.

If we calculate the average winter range using 3 tests (1 from Europe, 2 from North America) all in a variable ranges of cold winter temperatures, the average winter range of a Tesla Model 3 is 392.5 kilometers (243.5 miles). This is including mild winter conditions and extreme cold winter conditions which provide a broader perspective of what real world mileage would look like.

The Tesla website also has their own Winter Driving Tips for owners with really helpful information. This includes things like:

• How to Schedule & Precondition your vehicle before driving
• How to conserve energy while driving
• How to prevent ice build up when expecting bad winter weather
• How to defrost your Tesla
• How to clear important surfaces like mirrors, door handles, sensors, cameras and frozen charge ports

The winter range and performance of the Tesla Model 3 make it an ideal EV for cold winter climates but it has even more features that add to it’s winter capability. The low center of gravity (due to the position of the battery underneath the vehicle) and weight keeps the Model 3 more stable on the roads compared to conventional gas powered vehicles. The AWD system in the Model 3 provides greater traction and extended range, both of which are key features to have in the winter. In addition, the safety features that the Tesla Model 3 comes equipped with all add up to multiple 5 star safety ratings.

When people moved out to the West Coast during the gold rush, Oregon was one of the many places that saw an influx of settlers looking to build their empires from both gold and the fur trade. But there was another natural resource that built much of the Pacific Northwest infrastructure on it’s exploitation, timber. An 640 acre area was cleared out to expand a developing and unnamed settlement. At the time, it was referred to as “Stumptown” or “The Clearing” by locals because tree stumps were all you could see from the base of the mountain all the way across the Willamette River. The clear cutting of such a large area of land created issues with flooding and mud. This area of earth had previously had tree coverage for thousands of years and in a very short period of time was exposed to the elements disrupting the balanced ecosystem.

“There were more stumps than trees”

Captain John C. Ainsworth

Its fairly normal even to this day, unfortunately, to see multiple logging trucks in just 1 trip traveling west out of Portland. If Google satellite images are any indication of how Oregon’s deforestation programs are going… it doesn’t look to great. A satellite view of that state shows a lot of forest that has been lost to deforestation, disease and fire. Many of the geometric patterns like the checkerboard cutouts are from the timber industry.

One of the many reasons that people love the Pacific Northwest is the trees and everything they create around them. Its a bit of a buzzkill, for the lack of a better word, to be driving or hiking along in a heavily forested area enjoying a journey into nature and every sense of rhythm and pace stops… there’s acres of a once forested area that has just been clear cut and lays barren. Nothing but bare earth and tree stumps where trees hundreds of years old once stood in area that now looks as Stumptown once did before the city of Portland was expanded. The first questions that come to mind are “when did this happen?”, “where were the trees sent to and for what purpose?” and most importantly “what areas are going to be cut down next?”. We somehow assume that the nature we enjoy will always be there since it was here long before us. We never stop to think that a corporation or private logger is going to cut it down for profit… until its gone. Understandably, people have to make a living but at what cost? Our actions have to be balanced out. If we planted a minimum of twice as much trees as we take, we would be on a path that’s more sustainable than the one we are on.

How Stumptown Became Known as Portland

Stumptown later became known as Portland after a coin toss, seriously. There were 2 entrepreneurs Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove that bought most of the land that Portland sits on today. Asa Lovejoy from Massachusetts wanted to name it “Boston” and Francis Pettygrove who was from Maine wanted to name it Portland. They had agreed to a coin toss of all things and Francis had won two out of the three tosses. Today there would be meetings, bureaucracy and would take months to years to name a place. Things were obviously far simpler back then. Thankfully it wasn’t named Boston. It doesn’t have the right connotation to it as Portland and would probably result in confusion during conversations of which city is being talked about today.

How Portland is Turning things Around for the Environment

The point of this is to bring awareness to mistakes we have made in the past regarding ecology and forestry. With ghostly reminders like the name “Stumptown” for the now beloved city of Portland Oregon its hard to forget that. No city should be built upon a nickname referring to the destruction of nature. Had it not been for companies keeping the name alive by using Portland’s historic name “Stumptown” in brands and Portland’s general way of life at every level which is to “own it”, it would have been easy for people to forget about over time. To forget what the land they now live upon once looked like and the impact their predecessors had. Sure Portland (or most other cities) may never have been built if such a vast area had never been clear cut back then, but there’s also the possibility we could have done better regarding land/resource management had we been smarter about it.

The City of Portland even recognizes this in a lot of work they do. In We Build Green Cities they’ve created a project under ‘Prosper Portland’ to bring back nature to the city and connect Portland’s green innovations with the world. They’ve even held tree hug events, established the Hoyt Arboretum and have provided a free guide called “From Stumptown to Tree Town” that guides you through the city to show you Portland’s Heritage Trees, all showing you the best ways to get around the city.

Portland today, is a beautiful city. They’re doing a lot of things right there and leading by example when it comes to sustainability and a cleaner future for both humans and the planet. Its one of the world’s most bicycle happy cities, they’re into EV’s and doing things right. I think with a name like “Stumptown” hinting at the cities destructive past, that there is some pressure to live up to better expectations. In reflection of the past, we can take action to change our futures.