Carbon offsetting - ideas please?

[Jason]

I'm not really a fan of just paying your way out of carbon emissions to some faceless organisation so I'm looking for ideas that show a tangible, easy to understand way of offsetting our carbon foot print when we run a RBRR. Whilst all ideas are useful, consider these things:

• It's got to be understandable and relevant to the British public 
• It cannot raise the entry fee - we need to keep that down to avoid raising the financial turnover of the Club and creeping into VAT registration - so something that crews can buy direct would be preferred
• It needs to be visible so we can put details on the cars - I am keen that the general public can see that we are taking carbon offsetting into account when they see RBRR cars on the roads
• Physical projects in the UK we can see, point to and even visit would be preferable - e.g. woodland planting on the Dundreggan estate in Scotland

I'm no expert in this but I thought I'd enlist your thoughts to see what's out there and feed that into the debate.

I use the term "offsetting" but I'm not sure it's entirely the right term, what I want to be able to do is show that we have made amends for the emissions we've created - as well as raised money for Charity (whilst enjoying our cars in the meantime) - if indeed all that's possible!

 

 

 

[ferny]

Would something like this be of interest? 

https://stumpupfortrees.org/

You can watch more about the family here; 

https://www.my5.tv/show/ben-fogle-new-lives-in-the-wild/season-15/episode-2

 

[Jason]

On 03/11/2021 at 18:53, ferny said:

Would something like this be of interest? 

https://stumpupfortrees.org/

You can watch more about the family here; 

https://www.my5.tv/show/ben-fogle-new-lives-in-the-wild/season-15/episode-2

 

Yes, that's the sort of thing I had in mind - you can see it working, visit it, even participate. It's not just paying money to some faceless organisation that apparently does something in a far away land that we'd never be able to actually validate.

[Chriss]

Hi Jason

We have been working on a club wide CO2 neutralisations scheme at Main Committee level for some months following an initiative from Malcolm Warren.  I have been appointed to the Committee to work on the details. 

We (CT) have identified the following main threats to CT:

1.       The environmental and political challenges presented by the continued use of fossil fuels

2.       The continued availability of fuels suitable for internal combustion engines

3.       The active participation of younger generations in historic and classic vehicle activities.

and are working with the FBHVC to dovetail into a soon to be announced national scheme for Historic Vehicle clubs with the following aims:

1.       To support the FBHVC in lobbying politicians and industry to protect the Historic Vehicle Movement and to help create a united approach to self defence within the movement

2.       To provide members with a counter to negative reaction when in contact with the general public. (e.g. RBRR sponsorship canvassing)

3.       To give Club Triumph members the opportunity to neutralise the impact of their classic car activities

4.       To enhance the profile of Club Triumph with periodic publicity opportunities

5.       To demonstrate social awareness to the public and to encourage younger membership.

Providing a way of mitigating our emissions is still under discussion, but covers the points that you make above. However there is no simple, straight forward and timely solution to mitigating our emissions (negligible as they are). There are major downsides to most possible solutions  and some acceptable compromise will have to be sought.

You correctly recognise an increase to CT turnover that may result from such a scheme. This is a major complication for which the FBVHC could provide a solution.  

Were it not for Covid-19 I would have introduced a CO2 mitigation scheme to the C2C this year.  Unfortunately given the circumstances of organising the event I just did not have the bandwidth.

The scheme I am working on will cover members' general mileage and include mileage during all events. It will respond to members input on how to collect and spend funds. It will be focused on countering the threats through a scheme that achieves the objectives.

 Details will be announced when we have been able to hold further discussions about how a national scheme would work with the FBVHC.

[Jason]

Thanks Chris, a wide remit there so much to do! 

Personally, I like the idea of tree planting, even though it's been a bit mis-managed around the world (planting sapling and not managing them, effectively leaving them to die).

There's never going to be one way to 'fix' a problem that has so many causes but if we can come up with enough different ways, perhaps we can have an impact.

[Nick Jones]

Hmmm, I’ve planted 6 trees, 20m of beech hedge and 25m of yew hedge in the last few years…… not sure it’s enough though…..🤔

Need more land!

Nick

[Chriss]

Hi again Jason

It is good to see others in the club and particularly yourself are thinking along similar lines.  However there will be some club members that are strongly opposed to this line of thinking. It will not be easy to come up with something that most members support, although I feel from our past experience in 2006/8 with the RBRR there will be strong support from members who participate in events. Your input on likely levels of support from RBRR entrants would be most welcome, along with other suggestions.

Club Triumph's contribution (at about 200 tons CO2 pa through events ) is infinitesimal.  Probably members mileage accounts for more.  Were we able to negate all our emissions it would not have much impact, and also the case if all historic vehicle clubs were able to to the same.  

The impact we can have is to increase the chance that when politicians decide to outlaw the i/c engine from private use on the road the combined historic vehicle movement can negotiate some exemptions. Also a further impact we can have is to reduce the chance of incidents such as the the one I witnessed (from a distance) at the services at Wetherby during the RBRR when a member of the public verbally assaulted one of our members and to provide for some response, if not protection.

I look forward to further discussions on this subject.

 

Chris

 

 

[Chriss]

Nick

To plant the number of trees we would need to offset our event mileage we would need an area 1/2 mile * 1/2 mile each year for the next 20 years.

That would be some garden! 

[Dave Bunney]

I did hear of one example where you paid a monthly fee that offset your output to "X" amount of trees be planted. 

The fee ranged on what vehicle you drove petrol/diesel and engine size.

It was a great idea an much cheaper than these £8 per day "green" zones. 

 

But can't for the life of me remember what it was called...... 

 

[AlistairV]

Jason,

Planting trees is a great idea- especially in a specific woodland area- although I've no idea how to calculate the number of trees one would need to plant to offset 48 hours of emissions from a Triumph. There's probably some formula, somewhere; however, agreeing not to fly anywhere in a RBRR year is an easy way to compensate for burning petrol in a car, by not increasing CO2 created by aviation fuel.

[Chriss]

Alistair

2,000 miles in a car doing 25mpg generates approximately 1 ton of CO2.  CT during its events generates about 200 Tons CO2 pa.  That would take 2000 broad leaf trees to offset that amount of CO2.  But there is a problem, it would take about 15 years for the trees to grow big enough to absorb that amount and then they would only absorb that amount of CO2 for another 15 years.

[DVD3500]

Here are some ideas I have had in the past:

1. Work with local farmers to promote local produce: Transport causes CO2....

2. Run a "bring your broken device" event where people can bring their toasters, etc. and have them fixed. Electronic waste (and waste in general) has a not-insignificant impact

3. Run a "get your car greener" event where you teach people the simple things they can do to make their cars run greener e.g. ensure tire pressure is up (or slightly above), regular oil checks and topping up, learn to shift at low revs and not let the car idle unnecessarily

4. Set up an online community to share things like lawn mowers and other equipment. Reduces waste as well..

5. Set up seminars about renewable energy.

6. Get several kegs of beer and kilos of beans and mack a renewable methane-powered engine... Ok... maybe not they last one. 😄

 

[Chadow441]

It's only a thought, but maybe the FBVHC could have more of a role to play in negating the pollution concept?

On a recent trip to Hereford in my Stag, I was accosted by a chap in the hotel car park and confronted with the idea that I was single-handedly killing the planet.  Firstly, I pointed out that my car was 50 years old - or had lived the lifetimes of 8 -10 modern cars and was made mostly of steel, leather and wood. Not plastic, lithium, cadmium, nickel and all the other heavy metals or materials that really are polluting the planet.  Neither did it require extra miles of copper (mined in Africa and shipped here) to allow it to plug in, let alone 1000 tons of concrete to keep a windmill upright.  It was, therefore, the ultimate in re-use and recycling and was a lot more eco than the battery driven monster that he was driving.

Not sure he accepted all, or indeed any, of my opinions but he did leave me alone.

I was polite - I had a Club Triumph sticker in the window, but might media coverage be the real answer to avoid future problems and knee jerk reactions?

The RBRR is a terrific event that raises money for worthy causes, it should have more media coverage and classic cars could be presented in a far more favourable light.

Just a thought...

Chas

 

 

[Jason]

All good ideas, thank you. It's clear that one size does not fit all and we are going to need a basket of measures to appeal to all, so keep the ideas and calculations coming!

[Chriss]

Chas, you wrote

"On a recent trip to Hereford in my Stag, I was accosted by a chap in the hotel car park and confronted with the idea that I was single-handedly killing the planet.  Firstly, I pointed out that my car was 50 years old - or had lived the lifetimes of 8 -10 modern cars and was made mostly of steel, leather and wood. Not plastic, lithium, cadmium, nickel and all the other heavy metals or materials that really are polluting the planet.  Neither did it require extra miles of copper (mined in Africa and shipped here) to allow it to plug in, let alone 1000 tons of concrete to keep a windmill upright.  It was, therefore, the ultimate in re-use and recycling and was a lot more eco than the battery driven monster that he was driving."

An excellent response.  Please may I quote this in my future work?

I witnessed a similar incident to this at Wetherby Services during the RBRR.  It is precisely the kind of thing that that we want to be able to avoid / deflect.  A major aim of the scheme that I am working on will be to help CT members who find themselves in this type of situation and it is one of the reasons why we need to work with the FBHVC and other clubs and tackle this at a national level as well as club level.

 

[Jason]

What I'd really like to see is a sort of menu of offsets that we can make available to members - so if members want to pay a fiver, plant a tree, buy a cooking stove, research wave power, or something else then we as club can enable that in tbe easiest way.

Ambitious maybe but I do like an aiming point (even if I don't always hit the mark).

 

[Nick Jones]

If you are feeling strong….. this is actually pretty interesting, with full EV and PHEV not coming out that well

 

[Chriss]

Hi NIck,  Chas & all

The guy from Hereford should see this video, maybe it would make him rethink.

It goes to show that there are very few people that really know enough about this subject to make rational decisions. To every solution there is usually a downside, and often this is an inconvenient truth for a group with a vested interest.  Clearly BEVs are not the panacea that many make them out to be, in fact in the short term they make the situation worse because of their up front emissions caused by their manufacture.  I have been sceptical about this for some time. I have just done the fag packet calculation below and am surprised by the result.

My daily driver is a 1993 Saab 900.  It is 27 years old and in good condition with 175,000 miles on the clock.  If 14 years is a normal lifespan for a car this one had had 2 lives already, and in the condition it is in could have 3. The CO2 cost of this car has been approximately construction; 12 tons, operation, fuel 60 Tons, spares & tyres etc say, 4 tons.  Equals 76 Tons or an average of 0.0004 tons per mile. The CO2 Cost of a BEV with a life of say 14 years? Construction 25 Tons, electricity generation 8 tons, spares and tyres say 1 ton (without a replacement battery) and 70,000 miles life. Equals  34 tons or 0.0005 tons per mile.  There is quite a bit of latitude in these figures, but they won't be too significantly inaccurate. I think that this shows (approximately) that the lifetime generation of CO2 for a BEV and a classic car are of the same order.

It shows that the BEV is, short term, more damaging to the environment than an old i/c car because of the up front manufacturing CO2 cost and the continuing CO2 cost of electricity generation, which is far from CO2 free.  This does not consider the CO2 cost of constructing wind farms with their imported concrete and steel, mostly from distant shores, which can total 400,000 Tons for a very large wind farm. Nor does it consider that most BEV drivers will replace their car after about 3 years.

Constructing a new car of any type is about the worst thing we can do short term, maybe should concentrate on getting more life out of what we have got already.

It would seem to me that the people in the above video have some idea of what they are talking about, however the view of the man from Hereford prevails.  We will have to work on it.

 

[Nick Jones]

Preaching to the converted here Chris. I have a 25 year old Audi TDI with 337k on it. In purely CO2 terms I reckon it takes some beating, though maybe not so rosy on NOx and particulates.  It is old and primitive enough to run on used chip oil too (though I don’t at this time).

Doesn’t stop me getting occasional abuse from the green washed but ignorant.

Nick

[Greta]

As you say, people want to see something tangible and want to salve their conscience. But the Club has neither the time nor resources to administer a separate scheme so it seems clear that along with raising money for the nominated charity we should consider also partnering with a national conservation charity.
We are a national club, with events that cover much of the country ( so as much as I'd love to see us rewild part of the former Canley site ) I think perhaps supporting The National Forest or Woodland Trust would come close to meeting members expectations. 2000 trees for 2000 miles! 

I disagree with you that it can be achieved without increasing the cost or impacting the charitable donations ... ultimately it is the event participants that create the environmental impact.... "The user pays" ... at whatever the calculated rate of offset is deemed appropriate I believe the entrants to events should be the ones that pay & not the general membership. Are our numbers sufficient to make One Tree / One Event Mile an achievable goal?? ... the funding of such to be paid to The Woodland Trust to plant within The National Forest ??

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Greta

[DVD3500]

I liked that video. They correctly point out that the main problem is energy and how that generated and that human behavior plays a major role as well.

For example out Renault tells you all kinds of stats from its onboard computer and I routinely get better mileage and lower emissions than my wife even though I drive a but more "sportingly" (she says aggressively)

I would like to see more about the tire wear comment. I have seen and read studies that have both confirmed and or debunked that. Things like the fact that an electric car hardly uses any braking and usually has no clutch offsets the added wear and tear or that there are special tire compounds that don't wear as much etc. etc. etc.

No single technology is the perfect answer but many are better than what came before.

I often point out people that you can usually reduce your impact by 10-20%  without really changing your lifestyle.

From regular maintenance to adjusting systems (i.e. heating, lighting, cooking, driving) to a more efficient method.

IMHO the problem is that people don't take the time to understand how things work. If they had a better understanding of how it works they would understand the impact of changing anything.

The company that installed my furnace got very stroppy because I wanted to know exactly how the whole thing worked...

Now I use about as much energy as the other houses in the street although we are home more and there are 4 of us and the other houses only have 2 people...

 

[Chadow441]

An excellent response.  Please may I quote this in my future work?

Hi Chriss, of course you can, as a further thought, rather than planting trees/hedges/offsetting, is there any way that the club could assist in the development of Hydrogen technology?  I have seen that this government is very keen on H2 and Sheffield(?) University is working on producing more green Hydrogen - fund raising/contibution to funds by a special run?

Again, another thought!

 

[DVD3500]

To generate green hydrogen you need a lot of power for electrolysis that has to be generated... greenly...

Once you have created it you have to store and then ship to where it is needed, again greenly...

Might as well just pump the power straight into a house at this point...

[Chadow441]

On 01/12/2021 at 14:53, DVD3500 said:

To generate green hydrogen you need a lot of power for electrolysis that has to be generated... greenly...

Once you have created it you have to store and then ship to where it is needed, again greenly...

Might as well just pump the power straight into a house at this point...

Lots of interesting work done on this in Norway - amongst others, using solar panels. Shipping it within our existing gas transmissions network is more than possible now with plastic lining the existing steel and cast iron pipes and existing gas storage facilities.  More interesting work done in storing Hydrogen - both in Shetland and Japan. Still a way to go though, but huge progress in a very short time in recent years.

[Batch]

Hi

I see from the FBHVC Christmas Newsletter that they have recently launched their own offsetting scheme, or as they term it 'carbon balancing balancing', details here  https://trees.fbhvc.co.uk/. They say offers individuals, clubs and those organising events within the historic vehicle community a quick and convenient way to carbon balance their emissions thanks to the planting of new woodland here in the UK.

I would have thought it well worth considering  for CT events and members.

Dave