Colchester Residents were horrified to discover some truths behind so called Green technologies which are being pushed through by governement and local councils. They decided to meet with their council officials to raise their concerns and find out the justification for such measures.
LITHIUM PRODUCTION
Do you know that in order to extract lithium, a single mine can use over 5 thousand tons of sulphuric acid, per day. To remove the acid, over 3,000 gallons of water is used per minute.
Every year, that single mine produces over 350 million cubic yards of permanent waste laced with sulphuric acid & radioactive uranium. And they anticipate what’s left of the water supply, in the area indigenous people rely on, could be contaminated for an estimated 300 years.
That information was provided by the US Bureau of Land Management about a mine in Nevada.
COBALT PRODUCTION
Cobalt is also required for rechargeable batteries…
Are you aware that unfortunately it isn’t possible to meet council standards and ethical principles because 70% of Cobalt is mined using child labour which is mixed in at the factories with the 30% that isn’t.
Professor Kara from Harvard University, a slavery researcher,who visited these supposedly audited eco mines in the Congo where children work and die in unimaginably awful conditions says “There is no clean cobalt. There is not a single company on planet earth that makes a device that has a rechargeable battery in it that can reliably and justifiably claim that their cobalt isn’t coming from sources like that.”
FAR FROM “GREEN”
And considering most of the electricity used to charge EVs is not from renewable green sources, clearly, anything with a lithium battery, which can’t be easily recycled, isn’t green!
We do not consent to public money being spent on any lithium battery operated vehicles which will cause an exponential increase in mining devastation.
So no matter how enticing the financial incentives are, can we have the council’s absolute assurance that you will do what is right and not allow yourselves to be pressured by the government into any actions that do more harm than good for the environment?
Achieving net zero cannot come at the expense of the environment it’s meant to save!
JCB have developed a zero emission hydrogen engine that works in their diggers, but it’s also suitable for lorries & presumably busses and it doesn’t have the weight issues EV’s do so won’t wreck our already crumbling roads.
EVs ARE A FIRE HAZARD
A freedom of information request shows that in London in the last 5 years there have been over 500 fires caused by the batteries in electric vehicles – over 200 of the fires were cars, over one hundred electric bikes, over 60 scooters, 19 busses & 10 HGVs fires.
The following information comes from a fire expert who holds a senior position in the fire service, training fire crews nationally and abroad.
The fire service require the burnt out vehicles to stay at the fire site for 24 hours due to the fact they can reignite and explode. But if it’s inside, the whole building has to be shut off for 48 hours. Sometimes a hole has been dug and filled with water and the car or scooter pushed into it until it goes out. We have enough issues with pot holes, let alone car size ones!
Is there a (council) plan in place if there’s a fire at an electric charging station or multi story car park & how long these would need to be shut for bearing in mind the number of electric vehicles that could ignite if one catches on fire? Who would be responsible for the shut down of the area and would the council compensate any businesses that have to close for 24/48 hours?
If an electric refuse lorry caught fire on a housing estate have evacuation procedures been put in place to get people away from the toxic fumes?
Is the panel aware that whilst it’s the fire service’s responsibility for the polluted water run off, they admit they aren’t able to secure this toxic waste water so would the council take on this responsibility? It can take 30,000 litres of water to put out an electric car fire…
The Fire Service are soon issuing new electric vehicle fire regulations, do your safety measures meet up to these new regulations?
If not, we request you draw up safety plans with the fire service in accordance with the new regulations for the existing electric scooters and any fleet vehicles. And immediately remove the scooters until that revised safety plan is in place and public safety can be guaranteed.
As councillors and council officers you have a duty of care to the public. The fire hazards of electric bikes and cars etc, are well documented. Which means any officer that recommends EVs and councillors that authorises their use to the public could be held personally liable, as they have violated their duty of care, and indemnity insurance is unlikely to cover this.
With all these points in mind, unless you can guarantee they are 100% safe, we request that you don’t go ahead with more electric vehicles as we feel they are of great danger to the public and will eventually have to be scrapped, which will waste millions and won’t help the environment. Especially as there are safer, greener, alternative options available.
SOLAR PANELS
Solar Panels use lithium and it very concerning to know that a lithium mine causes millions of tons of waste every year, laced with sulphuric acid & radioactive uranium polluting the water supply for 300 years. Not to mention the unacceptable human costs with child labour to mine cobalt.
When researching solar panelsfor personal use, we did not, for one minute consider if it would be made by people trapped in razor-wire enclosed labour camps, being exposed to large quantities of quartz dust which causes silicosis! Please note that The Ethical Consumer organisation, report that it’s hard to avoid forced labour in the solar panel supply chain.
Solar panels are also extremely difficult to recycle, costing more than the production of the panel. And lithium batteries pose steep challenges too.
WIND TURBINES
Wind turbines which last about 20 years, consume a colossal amount of resources & energy to manufacture & install (not to mention the blight and bird kill), they require diesel engines to start them up and then gallons of oil to lubricate. And they can’t readily be recycled.
CORPORATE GREED AND EXPLOITATION FOR HUGE PROFITS
Do not support this corporate greed and exploitation, especially when there are good green alternatives to EVs. And if there aren’t electric vehicles to charge, then the large, ugly power lines marching through our countryside won’t be needed either.
These so called green or ethical solutions aren’t solutions at all, just very good marketing from the 1.5 TRILLION dollar a year climate change industry (that’s 4 billion dollars a day btw!).
Add to that the human suffering, which we’ve all unwittingly been part of just by owning a laptop or mobile phone, which is minimal compared to what’s required for an EV or solar farm.
None of us can undo what’s already been done, but what we can all do, is make sure this doesn’t escalate exponentially, like with fleets of unnecessary EVs and acres of solar farms eating up precious farmland.
LINKS
https://cesafety.co.uk/news/data-reveals-extent-of-electric-vehicle-fires-around-the-uk/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/may/02/e-bike-e-scooter-battery-fires-uk-data
https://futurism.com/search?q=electric+vehicle+fires
LINKS
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/business/lithium-mining-race.html – lithium mining Nevada
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/thacker-pass-feis-chapters1-6-508/f5d9956ac05f6601/full.pdf
https://twitter.com/siddharthkara – Cobalt Red author
JCB Hydrogen lorry prototype https://www.jcb.com/en-gb/campaigns/hydrogen/hydrogen-truck
https://www.jcb.com/en-us/campaigns/hydrogen https://www.mdi.lu/airpod-2-0