Banter 137: 16Sep26 Engineering our way out of Climate Change 102, with Graham Stoddart-Stones

climate change solutions, carbon-storing concrete, forests and fungal networks in carbon sequestration, carbon capture in grasslands versus forests

Video Timeline:

00:00 - 36:26 Presentation

36:26: 53:30 (end) Q & A

Presentation:

You are welcome to view or download (click on menu icon, second from right, above) this presentation. A markdown version (text only) is available at the bottom of this page

Meeting Summary:

Sep 16, 2026 11:58 AM LondonID: 834 5460 8536

Quick recap

The meeting focused on climate change solutions and the need to redesign current practices to reduce greenhouse gases. Graham presented on various topics,including the potential of carbon-storing concrete, and the importance of forests and fungal networks in carbon sequestration. He discussed technological advancements like solar potential mapping, geothermal energy, and battery storage. The conversation also covered the challenges of implementing changes, such as the complexity of land use decisions and the need for education to overcome resistance. Participants like Frank and David Newman shared insights on the nuances of carbon capture in grasslands versus forests and the potential uses of agricultural waste. The discussion emphasised the availability of technology and the importance of community and individual actions, such as reducing food waste and adopting composting toilets.

Next steps

Frank

Reach out to the organizers behind the Halloween hire and party packs in Yatton to find out who is running the initiative and how they operate.

Graham

Prepare and deliver future presentations on specific topics mentioned, including ocean chemistry and biochar, for the group.
Incorporate the point about the potential of gardens to act as carbon sinks and for biodiversity into future presentations or discussions.

Summary

Climate Change Strategies Discussion

Graham discussed strategies for addressing climate change, emphasizing the need for multiple approaches rather than single solutions. He explained that while reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important, removing existing gases is also necessary, highlighting that land and food contribute significantly to greenhouse gases through methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Graham apologized for not having prepared a fully developed presentation due to recent animal emergencies and noted that some of the content might be familiar to attendees from previous meetings.

Energy Storage Technology Presentation

Graham presented a chart showing indicators for energy solutions, categorizing them by timeline and readiness. He discussed MIT's research on carbon black concrete, which can store electricity and measure stress in materials, with its capacity increasing tenfold in two years. Graham explained that this technology could potentially provide enough energy storage for a home in a basement built with carbon black concrete.

Forest Management and Renewable Energy

Graham discussed the importance of forests, particularly highlighting the "fungal internet" - the largest living thing on planet consisting of plant root systems that communicate and store carbon. He explained how forests can be managed for regular timber supply while maintaining carbon storage, and emphasised the benefits of clean electricity generation including recent progress in wind, solar, and ocean power. Graham demonstrated the new Ordnance Survey National Geographic Database which shows solar potential for buildings at the parish level, using a Somerset village example to illustrate how communities can assess and plan solar panel installations.

Clean Energy Technology Innovations

Graham discussed various clean energy technologies including geothermal power from deep rock formations, energy storage solutions like iron-air batteries and thermal storage using sand and stone, and the development of long-lasting battery-powered sensors for environmental monitoring. He mentioned that a bulk carrier ship is transitioning to full electric operation in 2031 and shared insights about how altering aircraft flight paths can reduce contrail formation, noting that thin clouds like contrails trap more heat than they reflect back into space. Graham also highlighted the efficiency benefits of heat pumps, which can generate three to five units of heat from one unit of electricity.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Solutions

Graham discussed various solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact, including the use of clean hydrogen for steel production, capturing carbon in concrete, and detecting methane leaks using satellites. He emphasized the importance of reducing excess fertilizer use through satellite imaging and drone technology to minimize runoff and algae blooms. Graham also highlighted the need for dietary changes, particularly reducing meat consumption, and mentioned the use of sterile insects for pest control instead of pesticides. He concluded by discussing the importance of hedgerows in promoting biodiversity and reducing erosion and water runoff.

Climate Solutions and Technology Discussion

Graham discussed various technologies and practices for reducing carbon emissions and water usage, including hedgerow planting, sewage recycling using reverse osmosis, composting toilets, and food waste reduction. He emphasized the importance of education in adopting new technologies and highlighted the need for nuanced approaches in farming and land management. The group discussed the complexity of implementing climate solutions, with Frank noting the importance of considering local ecosystems and David Newman sharing insights on agricultural waste utilization. The conversation concluded with agreement on the central role of education in overcoming resistance to new practices and technologies.

Chat:

00:09:57 Jane Whild: Hello, I have to leave at 12.40! 00:25:48 David Newman: There are already battery ferries across the River Plate. 00:27:53 David Newman: Enthalpy 00:38:18 David Newman: Desalinating seawater is very expensive. 00:39:51 David Morgan-Jones: 🧪 Pollutant Removal A standard residential RO system is actually a multi-stage process that combines sediment filters, carbon filters, and the RO membrane. Together, they target different pollutant classes: [1, 2] Pollutant CategoryﾠExamplesﾠRemoval Effectiveness Heavy MetalsﾠLead, Arsenic, Mercury, Chromium-6ﾠ95% – 99% Dissolved Salts & MineralsﾠSodium, Chloride, Fluoride, Calciumﾠ95% – 99% Chemicals & Organic MatterﾠNitrates, PFAS ("forever chemicals"), Pesticidesﾠ90% – 98% Emerging ContaminantsﾠMicroplastics, Pharmaceuticalsﾠ>99% 00:40:05 Jane Whild: The water transfer schemes would have less water to move if we all moved to composting toilets? 00:43:25 Jane Whild: Thank you Graham. I have to leave. I will watch the end on catch up. See you soon.

Audio-transcript:

106 00:09:22.300 --> 00:09:39.040 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Let me just say good day to Jane. Nice to see you, and I ought to get going, because people have got timetables, and there's lots of slides to go through, and a few people haven't turned up yet, but they may not do so, so I'll get into it. I'll start, first of all, with an apology.

107 00:09:39.040 --> 00:09:48.109 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Because, I've been away for the last few days because of these animal emergencies, and, therefore haven't actually written the…

108 00:09:50.180 --> 00:10:09.910 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the ideal, presentation that I was aiming towards, so I apologize, some of this will be, a little bit familiar, to people who were here a couple of weeks ago, but, woo, okay, we get on with Jane, who's got a timetable problem. But, my apologies, but let's race on, and we'll see where we get to.

109 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:15.589 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, I think we're here,

110 00:10:23.420 --> 00:10:29.249 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Let's so you're going to slideshow on top of the slide. All right, so we're seeing my slide?

111 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:45.150 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, what I'm suggesting, and here is an idea, is that we need to redesign what we're doing at the moment to make the best advantage of what is already in place, and we will discuss some new stuff as well, but,

112 00:10:45.270 --> 00:10:52.460 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: If we were designing the world to get rid of the issues that we've got with climate change, how would we do it?

113 00:10:52.950 --> 00:11:05.740 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, we'd say that there isn't a single, solution, but we need lots of people working together on different, events so that they all come together as a reduction in heat

114 00:11:06.560 --> 00:11:21.870 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, the main tasks are, whatever you are doing, stop adding, more climate gases. So, you know, if you're driving a petrol-driven car, switch it. If you're,

115 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:38.969 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: creating a lot of waste food, try and solve that. If you're eating beef, strawpping that, all sorts of things to stop actually adding to the problem. If the problem is… if you're already creating gases, then what can you do about it? And…

116 00:11:39.290 --> 00:11:47.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: you can certainly start removing the greenhouse gases, because the latest edict from the Climate Change Committee is that

117 00:11:47.250 --> 00:11:55.470 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: just stopping, creating new greenhouse gases is not going to solve the problem. We do have to start removing.

118 00:11:57.080 --> 00:12:07.349 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, this is a common chart, I'm sure you all know this, but I like to sort of take the numbers and say, we're talking about, sort of, this particular problem, because it's large.

119 00:12:08.120 --> 00:12:18.620 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And so, generating heat, obviously, is fairly substantial. Transport is pretty substantial, but one of the largest, much to everyone's amazement, is

120 00:12:18.800 --> 00:12:23.869 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That land and food are a major contributor to the greenhouse gases.

121 00:12:26.030 --> 00:12:34.359 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And what you've got needs different solutions. So CO2, obviously, we all know comes from, using,

122 00:12:35.570 --> 00:12:38.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Oil-based, issues.

123 00:12:38.420 --> 00:12:41.330 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: People tend to forget about methane,

124 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:50.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Coming from, animals, cows, coming from the tundra as they, the frozen lands…

125 00:12:51.080 --> 00:12:56.329 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Release the peat underneath, in particular, will release more methane.

126 00:12:56.410 --> 00:13:16.140 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, ditto, nitrous oxide, which comes from fertilizer, goes back to that one I was saying about the land creating so much of the problem. Both CH4 and N2O are hugely more of a problem than CO2, alright? I mean, everyone knows about CO2, because it's the big factor that's out there.

127 00:13:16.370 --> 00:13:25.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But the potency of methane and nitrous oxide is far greater, and therefore, although they are smaller in terms of volume.

128 00:13:25.210 --> 00:13:28.109 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: They are equally deadly in terms of,

129 00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:35.260 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Precisely. And then we've got all the refrigerant gases, the fions and so forth, that we need to

130 00:13:35.390 --> 00:13:37.310 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Change to something different.

131 00:13:38.910 --> 00:13:41.320 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

132 00:13:43.630 --> 00:13:49.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: This slide is one of the ones that I would have removed, because I've forgotten why I wrote it.

133 00:13:50.890 --> 00:13:52.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I'm sure it's very useful.

134 00:13:53.500 --> 00:13:58.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And the indicators in this chart are basically,

135 00:13:59.900 --> 00:14:09.339 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: We're looking to see what can be done now, what can be done in the next decade, and then what can be done afterwards, and where do we stand in cost.

136 00:14:09.760 --> 00:14:11.600 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: and certainty.

137 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:20.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then the readiness factor is, are we actually doing it? Is it… has it reached the demo stage, or is it still sitting in the laboratory as somebody's idea?

138 00:14:21.810 --> 00:14:24.160 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

139 00:14:24.390 --> 00:14:42.020 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Some of this is what I touched on last time, but basically, it would be something new, wouldn't it, to think of your house as a power station, where it can generate more energy than it needs, it can store the excess, and it can provide it back when you need it.

140 00:14:42.020 --> 00:14:50.080 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And the excess can also be, sent elsewhere to deal with your… to help out your neighbors, or your,

141 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:52.600 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: EV cars, or whatever it happens to be.

142 00:14:54.550 --> 00:15:07.840 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, this again is, sorry, I'm just going to nip through this, because it was the one I talked about last week, but MIT has been working on how can we make concrete more useful in the terms of climate change.

143 00:15:08.110 --> 00:15:11.579 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The problem with wind and solar, of course, is they aren't always there.

144 00:15:11.930 --> 00:15:15.349 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But the electricity you need all the time.

145 00:15:15.820 --> 00:15:29.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And suppose the concrete itself stored electricity. So, they're doing this with… this is a slide I slowed last time, but basically, MIT has come up with a mixture of carbon black going into concrete,

146 00:15:30.930 --> 00:15:31.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And…

147 00:15:31.920 --> 00:15:41.329 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It… not only does it, help store concrete, it works as a large capacitor or a supercapacitor, but also enables you to measure

148 00:15:41.470 --> 00:15:50.069 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the stress in the material, so you can actually have a built-in gauge that tells you whether your house is going to fall down, which I think can be very useful.

149 00:15:50.870 --> 00:15:52.679 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And it… and it works.

150 00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:55.799 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And in the last 2 years.

151 00:15:56.160 --> 00:16:02.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: They've increased its capacity by a factor of 10, so it's a bit like the way that,

152 00:16:02.890 --> 00:16:14.689 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the cost of solar panels has come down by 90% since they first started, and so this thing is going up, it's multiplied by 10 in just a couple of years. So, what will it be as they keep going?

153 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:16.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

154 00:16:17.260 --> 00:16:30.849 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the idea is that if you, build this carbon black concrete into your basement, then one wall would be sufficient to store the electricity you need for a home. So if you've got, you know, a four-wall

155 00:16:30.910 --> 00:16:41.560 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And a ceiling basement, all built in concrete, then you could have plenty of energy capacity to store it, and send it to other people, should you wish to.

156 00:16:43.910 --> 00:16:46.330 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The oldest certified carbon machine

157 00:16:46.680 --> 00:17:02.999 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: arguably is a tree. I think other people would say it's the ocean, but, it's where you go. Then trees, in forests are much more than just, places to sequester carbon, right? Because at the same time, they also,

158 00:17:03.280 --> 00:17:12.450 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: give you oxygen, shade, habitat, they have homes for lots of animals, wonderful for bugs. I was reading this morning about,

159 00:17:13.069 --> 00:17:22.569 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: something that they call, I think they're calling it now, the fungal internet, but the largest living thing on the planet is indeed the sort of all the roots

160 00:17:22.670 --> 00:17:27.300 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And the systems of all the plants and the flowers in the world,

161 00:17:27.569 --> 00:17:46.539 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And they all interact with each other. They interlace, they touch, they send a message saying, I've got water, but have you got food, and vice versa. And they all talk to each other. And we're talking about quadrillions of miles of nerve endings, if you will, all talking to each other across the planet. It's the largest single living thing.

162 00:17:46.590 --> 00:17:51.390 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That we have, and a wonderful source of storing carbon.

163 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:57.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, all these things you can do in a forest. So, we all know that forests are important.

164 00:17:59.800 --> 00:18:06.169 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And you've got to look after them, a bit like, Corsham was saying last week, that you've got to,

165 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:18.509 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: You can arrange your forests so that they produce a regular supply of timber, which in his case he wanted to use for buildings, but as long as you don't burn it, then of course the carbon stays locked up.

166 00:18:20.030 --> 00:18:29.389 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And there are all sorts of different things that you can do to, change the way the planet is operating, just by what you… you plant.

167 00:18:29.600 --> 00:18:31.170 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And where you plant it.

168 00:18:32.810 --> 00:18:39.959 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And so you, you need to break up the chances of fire, you need to break up the dark and snowy areas with,

169 00:18:40.290 --> 00:18:45.699 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Planting, agroforestry, if you like, so that you mitigate

170 00:18:45.930 --> 00:18:49.409 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The… the dark side of this feature.

171 00:18:51.390 --> 00:19:00.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So… Here is the enormous amount of carbon stored in the ocean. The question is, what…

172 00:19:01.110 --> 00:19:06.069 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: if anything, is there that you can do to increase that? And we'll touch on that in a second.

173 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:23.519 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, I think, again, I knew in this slide, that basically the more we switch to electricity, provided that we're generating it cleanly, then the more good we're doing everybody, including ourselves, because the costs should come hurtling down.

174 00:19:24.320 --> 00:19:31.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: You probably… everyone knows that last year, we generated more than half of our electricity.

175 00:19:31.760 --> 00:19:35.729 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: from… Wind and solar, and ocean.

176 00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:49.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: They are… Working out ways of vastly improving the, Efficiency of the solar cells.

177 00:19:49.670 --> 00:19:57.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And we're now getting able to stack them on top of each other, or at least stack the layers, so as to get more power out of the same area.

178 00:19:59.520 --> 00:20:00.350 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Then…

179 00:20:01.420 --> 00:20:09.139 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: big developments in this area, because, you can buy SolarWizard and ask them to generate, how much

180 00:20:09.900 --> 00:20:13.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Capacity that exists in your community or on your house.

181 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:25.049 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: or the Ordnance Survey is now, producing the NGD, which is actually called the National Geographic Database. I'm sorry I caught this one short, which is now available to those of you who use

182 00:20:25.070 --> 00:20:38.160 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: parish online. We're going to see a couple of examples of that working. But basically, at the parochial level, at parishes, or towns, or even communities, you can work out which are the best roofs

183 00:20:38.280 --> 00:20:39.510 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: for,

184 00:20:40.610 --> 00:20:58.319 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: putting solar roofs on, and it used to be a manual thing, but now it's much more automatic, which is really good. So, here is an example. You've got a little village, in this case, in Somerset, and every single building now has a solar potential.

185 00:20:58.320 --> 00:21:09.639 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: judgment on it. So, the colors… I'll get you to a legend shortly which shows you what they mean, but basically, reds are residential buildings, blue are, commercial.

186 00:21:09.940 --> 00:21:11.839 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Or, or non-residential.

187 00:21:12.460 --> 00:21:20.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then the color coding tells you what the potential is, and then the database will tell you whether you've actually got solar panels on that roof yet or not.

188 00:21:20.950 --> 00:21:23.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, if we go on to the next slide.

189 00:21:24.090 --> 00:21:31.369 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I've looked at one of these buildings, and it tells me that it's got a potential of 15 kilowatt hours.

190 00:21:31.830 --> 00:21:45.979 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It's an ancillary building, and it does not have any solar panels. So, you could very quickly build up a picture of your community and find out just what the potential power that you can generate is there.

191 00:21:46.210 --> 00:21:59.719 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And this will all go into a later presentation about the resilience that it gives you. If you are independently powered in your entire community, that is a huge bonus when things go wrong.

192 00:22:00.780 --> 00:22:08.990 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then, just to show you the color coding, so that you get a view of just what the capacity is from the colors out there.

193 00:22:09.150 --> 00:22:24.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And these are the buildings that are non-residential, and then these are all the residential ones. But lots of really useful data generated by Ordnance Survey, and available to people who want to use it.

194 00:22:26.070 --> 00:22:26.980 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

195 00:22:28.280 --> 00:22:39.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There is a new… people have now worked out how to drill in much narrower, holes, so they can go down deeper, more quickly, because they're not removing as much material.

196 00:22:40.010 --> 00:22:48.649 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then they're getting down to several miles down, where they're getting rock that is so warm that it can generate steam very easily.

197 00:22:49.050 --> 00:22:56.120 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So again, it's another source of non-polluting, non-toxic electricity.

198 00:22:58.360 --> 00:23:08.840 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: People are now working on fun things in the laboratory, so there's… Form Energy is already commercializing batteries, just out of iron and air.

199 00:23:11.080 --> 00:23:20.879 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: You can store the energy in almost anything nowadays, so you can store it in forms of heat, or you can store it in forms of compressed gases.

200 00:23:21.270 --> 00:23:25.080 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Or you can just, use gravity.

201 00:23:25.510 --> 00:23:34.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: To, help you in really long shafts. You know, the weight of the material that you're storing is useful at the bottom.

202 00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:37.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And…

203 00:23:37.690 --> 00:23:49.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: examples of where it's being done. So, Finland has already got a way of using sand and stone to store heat, and of course, Finland needs more heat than many places.

204 00:23:49.760 --> 00:23:55.989 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Vanillium flow is, going to run for 30 years.

205 00:23:56.140 --> 00:24:06.279 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Which I think is worth investigating if you're looking to do community energy, and you want to store community energy, then these are the sorts of things that are useful.

206 00:24:06.550 --> 00:24:08.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then…

207 00:24:08.820 --> 00:24:25.319 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: A lot of what we're doing in climate change nowadays involves sensors that will tell you what's happening, you know, what is my carbon generation, and what is the availability of… sorry, what is the percentage of gases? Lots of sensors needed.

208 00:24:25.320 --> 00:24:29.160 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And now you can get long-lived batteries to power them.

209 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:43.769 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, we're not talking big battery storage, we're talking little microwatt devices, but that's all you need to run many of the sensors that… it's really useful to stick them up on a pole and forget about them, because you don't need to get power to them.

210 00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:53.699 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And you're not dependent upon a solar panel that may or may not operate if there's been a sort of a volcanic cloud covering the sun for the last week or two.

211 00:24:54.240 --> 00:25:02.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Just all the things that are getting better towards enabling us to be more survivable and to be, more…

212 00:25:02.600 --> 00:25:05.170 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Or rather less polluting.

213 00:25:06.630 --> 00:25:13.890 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, how are things developing? Can you now run a ship entirely on batteries? Well, I did see yesterday

214 00:25:14.210 --> 00:25:18.750 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: that, somebody is building a cruise liner.

215 00:25:18.870 --> 00:25:23.609 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Which will be entirely running on batteries. So that… that has been laid down.

216 00:25:23.820 --> 00:25:27.520 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But this is a bulk carrier that does exist, it's up and running.

217 00:25:27.670 --> 00:25:32.399 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: At the moment, it's using hybrid power.

218 00:25:32.540 --> 00:25:42.829 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But they're expecting to switch it to full electric operation, in a couple… in 2031. So, it's up and running, it is, moving in,

219 00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:46.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: grain, actually, I think, at the moment.

220 00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:51.740 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, running along on batteries, or hybrid most of the time.

221 00:25:52.810 --> 00:26:03.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I spent a few weeks earlier this year in Norway on a hybrid ferry, and it was just marvelous. Very quiet, very clean, no smoke.

222 00:26:05.500 --> 00:26:19.649 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I did touch on this one in the last show, so my apologies for repeating this, but, if we can just change the altitudes or the routes that jet aircraft are flying, then we can stop them generating, contrails.

223 00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:26.729 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Tristan asked last time, why does a cloud of contrails,

224 00:26:28.990 --> 00:26:44.949 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: trap heat rather than reflect the heat back into the atmosphere. So, I had to look that up for him and came to the conclusion it depends upon the thickness of the cloud. Thin stuff like cirrus or contrails reflects, less heat

225 00:26:44.950 --> 00:26:54.129 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: back into the atmosphere, sorry, into the space, then it does store the heat below by not letting, hot air rise. So…

226 00:26:54.380 --> 00:27:04.249 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: If you have big, thick clouds, like Coumaris, for some strange reason, they're much better at reflecting the light, so they actually do, increase the albedo of the

227 00:27:04.410 --> 00:27:06.680 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The planet, but thin clouds don't.

228 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:14.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So there is this substantial effect you can have just by rerouting aircrafts where they stop forming contrails.

229 00:27:18.800 --> 00:27:30.519 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Changing the flights, bringing them down a few hundred feet, used a bit more fuel, but it certainly saved a lot more pollution than the fuel increased.

230 00:27:32.650 --> 00:27:48.179 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Again, I think everybody knows that one of the big reasons for switching to heat pumps is that they multiply the number of units that you put in effectively. So one unit of electricity in generates somewhere between 3 and 5 units of heat moved.

231 00:27:48.540 --> 00:27:51.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And they're moving heat rather than generating it.

232 00:27:56.310 --> 00:28:08.330 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: tell this to the Welsh miners, but yes, if we can get clean hydrogen, and of course a lot of people are now working on hydrogen, you don't need any coal to create your steel.

233 00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:11.319 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And you have nice, clean water as the byproduct.

234 00:28:13.870 --> 00:28:25.080 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And they're now working on, what happens if you… Put carbon dioxide into

235 00:28:25.730 --> 00:28:38.199 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: concrete. And the answer is, is that you can capture carbon that way, and then as the concrete, cures, the whole thing dismineralizes and becomes no longer

236 00:28:38.370 --> 00:28:41.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: A carbon-producing problem.

237 00:28:44.010 --> 00:28:44.940 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

238 00:28:45.370 --> 00:28:55.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: If people are looking for quick fixes, or how are we going to get there much more efficiently than anything else, then the methane leaks are the big one, and the last…

239 00:28:55.560 --> 00:29:05.489 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: slide I showed on this one says that they've now got satellites which will detect the leaks, more or less instantly.

240 00:29:05.490 --> 00:29:18.539 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think they said it takes a day or so to pick up a methane leak, as opposed to the months that it used to take, when people would have to send an engineer around with a sensor to check if anything was leaking anywhere, but now they can do it by satellite.

241 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:30.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Which means that, provided you can get the oil companies to do their part, then we should be able to reduce the leaks, not only quickly, but very efficiently. So, without much

242 00:29:31.040 --> 00:29:33.209 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Extra money being involved.

243 00:29:33.320 --> 00:29:37.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: You can reduce what we're polluting the atmosphere with.

244 00:29:38.650 --> 00:29:43.460 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Excess fertilizer, again, we're back to the,

245 00:29:43.610 --> 00:29:46.469 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Issue now where farmers can be taught

246 00:29:46.710 --> 00:29:54.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: With satellite images or, drone images, where they actually need fertilizer and how much.

247 00:29:55.060 --> 00:30:09.750 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, as they get better and better devices to help them squirt the right amount of fertilizer at the right plant, according to the diagram generated by the drone or the satellite.

248 00:30:09.810 --> 00:30:21.620 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Then they're helping reduce this awful runoff that we get at the moment of nitrogen going into the water of our streams and creating all the algae blooms and so forth that we see.

249 00:30:21.740 --> 00:30:32.639 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Contrails, I've mentioned, and wasted energy is self-evident, of course, but again, you can use your satellites and so forth to see where

250 00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:46.620 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: There's too much heat being used, or too much being lost, so you can walk around with your infrared camera and show people just where their houses are radiating heat, and it comes as a substantial astonishment to quite a lot of people.

251 00:30:52.140 --> 00:31:06.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: This diagram, I'm just sort of keeping quiet to let people read, the words, because if you've got 8 billion people on the planet, and a substantial percentage of them decide that, growing cattle is indeed

252 00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:14.760 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Probably the least effective way of using the available land and vegetation. Then maybe they should just stop eating.

253 00:31:14.870 --> 00:31:17.769 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Cows, or sheep.

254 00:31:20.020 --> 00:31:35.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I don't suggest you go entirely vegetarian or vegan, but I think that it's going to have to come, that we're all going to have to change our diets, and the more that we can set examples and help people, and say that I've moved to a non-beef or non-sheep

255 00:31:36.580 --> 00:31:44.020 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: diet, and look at the effect. It hasn't reduced my stature one inch, aha! Or whatever.

256 00:31:48.390 --> 00:31:49.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

257 00:31:51.840 --> 00:32:09.439 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: 38% of our available land is used for the production of food, but the food generates somewhere between 23% and 40% of our greenhouse gases. So, the more that we can do, to reduce those, then, of course, the more effectively we're using that 38%.

258 00:32:09.720 --> 00:32:12.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And…

259 00:32:13.770 --> 00:32:26.410 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think, again, people are familiar with the numbers. Something like a third of food that we generate, it just disappears in waste, which I find extraordinary, but nevertheless, those are the numbers that we're being given.

260 00:32:26.770 --> 00:32:27.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

261 00:32:36.620 --> 00:32:44.000 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, we're back to where I was telling you about how you can apply a lot less nitrogen.

262 00:32:44.660 --> 00:32:47.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And I…

263 00:32:48.070 --> 00:32:54.870 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: When I lived in Somerset, I was astonished to find that the neighbor who lived in the house across from me

264 00:32:55.090 --> 00:33:02.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: He ran a… he was part of a business that advised farmers all over the world

265 00:33:02.760 --> 00:33:04.310 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That they didn't need.

266 00:33:04.420 --> 00:33:13.369 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: to use any weed killer at all. That they had the bugs that would do the job without dreadful side effects.

267 00:33:13.570 --> 00:33:19.709 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So they can produce these sterile insects that will come along and eat all your, pests.

268 00:33:20.010 --> 00:33:30.370 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then they've done their job, and so they, they sort of drop dead. They don't generate any new ones. They've just done the task they were sent out to do, and that's it.

269 00:33:30.450 --> 00:33:40.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And you can't help feeling that it's a bit hard on the poor old insects that you're, saying, please go out there, eat yourself to death, and that's it. But,

270 00:33:40.810 --> 00:33:45.789 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: On the other hand, if it stops us putting all this pesticide

271 00:33:45.940 --> 00:33:56.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That we're using at the moment, with all the problems of, affecting water, and having to be cleaned, and all the wasted money that goes into that, the better.

272 00:33:57.580 --> 00:34:10.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Again, hedgerows, people, I think, are getting the message, even the British government now is paying people to increase the mileage of hedgerows around the country. So, we're getting there.

273 00:34:10.570 --> 00:34:25.230 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But not only does it generate diversity and homes for a much wider range of animals, but it also has a lot to do with erosion and water runoff.

274 00:34:25.230 --> 00:34:31.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The more you can slow the water runoff, then the less you get in terms of floods.

275 00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:41.490 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Again, I'm sorry I'm not saying anything that isn't blindingly obvious to everybody, but this isn't really the presentation I expected to come up with today.

276 00:34:42.500 --> 00:34:56.360 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, again, we mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we are the worst in Europe for biodiversity and the richness of our animal and bird life, and therefore we need to

277 00:34:56.840 --> 00:35:11.379 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: do a lot to improve it, and hedgerows are a major part of that. You read a lot about people who want to plant trees, but not so many, I don't think, that suggest actually hedgerows are probably a better use of the land.

278 00:35:15.780 --> 00:35:25.909 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: this is particularly pertinent to me on the Isle of Wight, because we are served by Southern Water, and Southern Water, is running out of

279 00:35:25.910 --> 00:35:41.539 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: fresh water to provide us with our fresh water. They are being banned from using certain rivers in Hampshire, and a lot of the water used by the Isle of Wight comes from Hampshire. It comes in pipes underneath the Solent, and so…

280 00:35:41.540 --> 00:35:55.309 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Southern Water is desperate to find other sources, and what they have decided they're going to do is to recycle, the sewage here on the island into completely fresh water.

281 00:35:55.410 --> 00:36:01.799 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And you will not be surprised that they've come up against an army of objections, but,

282 00:36:02.790 --> 00:36:09.309 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The technique that they're using has not been tried in the UK before, but is,

283 00:36:09.380 --> 00:36:26.189 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: an old technology, if you will, using membranes, that is being used all over the rest of the world. It's just the UK that has decided that they hadn't wanted to use it here now, and Southern Water is saying, okay, we'll build the first one.

284 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:36.480 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then… Obviously, the water will have to pass all sorts of tests, and they're listing those here, but…

285 00:36:36.730 --> 00:36:46.929 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I have a sympathy for the water companies, and obviously they're, lousy at doing their job, and they've been very, what's the word?

286 00:36:47.200 --> 00:36:57.670 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: obscure about how and why they're pouring sewage into the rest of our country, or that… and you have to think also, how can we get round that? It's no good just…

287 00:36:57.840 --> 00:37:03.699 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Arguing with the water companies as what we've got to do is help them get to where they should, where we want them to be.

288 00:37:03.980 --> 00:37:09.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, if this is the sort of plant that's going to help, then I think we ought to give it a try.

289 00:37:09.650 --> 00:37:12.549 David Morgan-Jones: Graeme, are they using reverse osmosis to do that?

290 00:37:12.550 --> 00:37:13.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes.

291 00:37:13.910 --> 00:37:19.319 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes. I would have thought that it was in great use in this country, but apparently not.

292 00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:36.249 David Morgan-Jones: I was going to ask if that, well, A, doing the sewage, I suppose, makes sense from a purely, logical perspective, but why… why not create a reverse osmosis plant, and feed seawater through it?

293 00:37:37.600 --> 00:37:41.270 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I don't know enough about it, I'm afraid.

294 00:37:41.270 --> 00:37:48.710 David Morgan-Jones: Because that's what they do in most of the Middle East countries. Most of their water comes from reverse, desalination, reverse osmosis plants using seawater.

295 00:37:48.710 --> 00:37:53.990 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But they tend to have much less expensive, energy available.

296 00:37:53.990 --> 00:37:54.979 David Morgan-Jones: Yeah, that's true.

297 00:37:54.980 --> 00:38:00.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: They've got sunlight, and they've got oil, which is all running these things.

298 00:38:00.460 --> 00:38:13.450 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, it's a balance like always, isn't it? You can do it, but it's going to take something in terms of energy, or more pollution, or more power, whatever it happens to be. It's never that simple.

299 00:38:13.450 --> 00:38:21.440 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But yes, I think reverse osmosis of seawater makes a lot of sense. There tends to be quite a lot of seawater around here.

300 00:38:22.160 --> 00:38:32.700 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, what I was saying earlier about what happens if you change the actions of 8 billion people, or a large percentage of them, we had a…

301 00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:35.740 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: presentation,

302 00:38:36.150 --> 00:38:50.020 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: about 3 weeks ago on composting toilets, and the lady who was presenting it had put one in her house, and she said she can't understand why, everybody doesn't do it. It's, it works beautifully, it's,

303 00:38:50.320 --> 00:39:11.499 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: reducing her water bill, by an average, I think she's saying, of 100 pounds a year, which doesn't sound a lot until you work out how much water is involved in £100 worth, and it's a huge volume of water. Something like, 40 liters a day, I think, is tended to be used in houses just to flush poo away.

304 00:39:11.690 --> 00:39:28.679 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And if you don't use it, then that's 40 liters that you saved. Multiply that by 8 billion, and all of a sudden, you're talking a lot of water. And of course, we don't seem to have the problem in this country yet, but elsewhere, you've got major wars could easily start over water.

305 00:39:28.720 --> 00:39:52.240 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I can see that India and Bangladesh and all sorts of… certainly in Egypt, and the Sudan and Somalia, all major issues with the Nile on who can stop the water, who can let the water go, who has rights to the water, and I think people will go to war over it if we aren't very careful. And so, if you can come up with ways of using a lot less.

306 00:39:52.530 --> 00:39:58.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: i.e, with composting toilets, then let's get over everyone's sort of built-in objection if they work fine.

307 00:39:59.610 --> 00:40:10.010 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Smarter diets, we've touched on many times about reducing your meat, and increasing your vegetable intake, and food waste is, is hugely

308 00:40:10.380 --> 00:40:13.370 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: worth doing. And if you…

309 00:40:13.720 --> 00:40:33.510 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Obviously, you still need to generate waste, because, you know, plants arrive with rotten leaves and so forth, and you've got to take off the waste to get down to the best bit, whether it's sort of peas in pods, or whether it's Brussels sprouts, where you take off the outer layers, whatever it is, there is going to be waste, but you can do a lot more with it.

310 00:40:35.350 --> 00:40:51.989 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: again, on the Isle of Wight, the garlic farm is using all of the waste from their restaurant, all the food waste which is permitted to be taken. So if it's taken off a plate, you can't do this with it, but if it's from the vegetables that you're producing to, or in the

311 00:40:52.290 --> 00:41:10.229 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: restaurant menus, then you can turn it into compost. The compost goes back onto the gardens, which are producing the, in this case, garlic or other vegetables and fruits, and it's sort of a virtuous circle, and I think we need a lot more virtuous circles around the world.

312 00:41:12.650 --> 00:41:17.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And again, the more people that do this, so…

313 00:41:17.330 --> 00:41:28.190 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I just think that's an extraordinary number. Just reducing food waste alone can reduce gigatons of CO2 equivalent. I mean, that's a huge, huge number.

314 00:41:30.020 --> 00:41:36.330 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And we've got to do it sensibly, because otherwise… We get things wrong.

315 00:41:37.420 --> 00:41:46.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, talking about sensors again, we've got to know, see what we're doing, and watch it, and correct it.

316 00:41:46.450 --> 00:41:47.450 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And then…

317 00:41:47.900 --> 00:42:09.860 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: take the nasty stuff out of the atmosphere. So, having, spent a couple of centuries generating all these gases, now we need to start turning it around and taking them back out of the atmosphere. The problem is, of course, that, yes, we can do it, but it's hugely expensive energy-wise, in terms of large

318 00:42:09.860 --> 00:42:11.090 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: large volumes.

319 00:42:11.190 --> 00:42:19.340 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, again, direct air capture does work, but they're having to, I think, have to come up with the technology to make it a lot more efficient.

320 00:42:22.100 --> 00:42:29.420 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, again, you can inject your CO2 back into reactive rock.

321 00:42:29.910 --> 00:42:35.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I'm not quite sure what happens to it when you have done, but because of it, it mineralizes, so…

322 00:42:35.670 --> 00:42:44.030 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I take it it becomes safe in terms of CO2, and useful in terms of having more minerals in the ground.

323 00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:48.349 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think each of these…

324 00:42:49.530 --> 00:43:03.550 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: topics on their own, on the left-hand side, sort of almost generates a presentation on their own. Certainly, the last two, ocean chemistry and the BioCar, are worthy of future.

325 00:43:03.860 --> 00:43:15.710 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: presentations, which I'll be looking at, because I think they've got… and certainly BioCar is what we can do locally around us, so well worthwhile for parishes and towns to look at.

326 00:43:17.020 --> 00:43:19.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: This is one where, you think.

327 00:43:20.900 --> 00:43:33.109 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: what are the unintended consequences of something like this? But certainly, if you enhance the alinity of the ocean, then it can absorb a whole lot more CO2,

328 00:43:34.400 --> 00:43:36.699 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The question is.

329 00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:44.769 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Are we doing anything else in achieving that, that we ought not to, in terms of,

330 00:43:44.940 --> 00:43:53.680 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: who lives in the oceans, how clean they stay, how, supportive of life they remain. I think Alfinity is a very,

331 00:43:54.290 --> 00:44:01.409 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Weird topic, and you have to be very, very careful, but clearly there is the opportunity to do a lot.

332 00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:05.219 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And you need lots of care, yeah.

333 00:44:05.970 --> 00:44:14.250 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But if you can improve the atmospheric, or reduce the atmospheric carbon by, you know, 50 times, then you think, well, that's well worth doing.

334 00:44:15.250 --> 00:44:22.640 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I've mentioned this before, that the carbon-14 diamond batteries are basically good for life,

335 00:44:22.830 --> 00:44:28.690 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And useful for anywhere where you need to put up a sensor, where there isn't electricity.

336 00:44:30.340 --> 00:44:35.209 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, all things to look at in the future, which I will be doing on future topics,

337 00:44:38.100 --> 00:44:47.480 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: fusion magnets, you know, the things that they're now doing. When I was looking at fusion a few years ago as part of a nuclear engineering course.

338 00:44:47.550 --> 00:45:06.939 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: there was only one way of generating fusion, and that was in a tokamak Domart-type reactor, and now there are umpteen ways. There's all sorts of people coming up with completely different ways of looking at fusion, which bears no resemblance to the stuff that they're doing in the really large experiments, but…

339 00:45:07.090 --> 00:45:16.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think there's one company that is expecting to generate electricity in 1932 from their fusion reactor, which is a date,

340 00:45:16.600 --> 00:45:31.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: far earlier than I've seen it from anywhere else. Not even Hinkley Point, which is just a plain old fission reactor, is going to get generated electricity by 2032, so… I think that's extraordinary. So, basically, lots of things happening.

341 00:45:31.900 --> 00:45:42.489 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I'm very sorry that I didn't mention more specific ones in this presentation, which is what I initially intended to do, but I'm afraid stuff got in the way.

342 00:45:44.720 --> 00:45:48.029 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Again, I don't think there's much here that people didn't already know.

343 00:45:48.390 --> 00:45:50.390 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: This, they thought, was perhaps

344 00:45:50.920 --> 00:45:58.369 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: One of the most reassuring slides that we already have the technology to do this.

345 00:45:58.860 --> 00:46:04.470 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Most of it is the… getting it deployed, and getting people to accept,

346 00:46:04.610 --> 00:46:15.819 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: that there are different ways of doing things, and that they will have to change their lives accordingly. You know, getting farmers to switch to satellites that tell them where to put their fertilizer is…

347 00:46:17.140 --> 00:46:24.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Can be tricky until you show them the savings that they can make, and the problems that they will have with, matched and runoff.

348 00:46:25.050 --> 00:46:33.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And so forth. And getting people to accept that heat pumps are, going to be a vast improvement over their oil or gas-fired boiler.

349 00:46:34.040 --> 00:46:38.210 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And… All, all, lots of…

350 00:46:38.740 --> 00:46:51.799 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: education needed to get people to accept these technologies, but the technologies are not necessarily new. They are there, they are available, and we just need to get them up and running.

351 00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:56.130 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think I've got some sources here, and that's it.

352 00:46:56.300 --> 00:46:59.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So let me come out of here and stop sharing.

353 00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:06.049 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Oh, good morning, David, or afternoon, David. Nice to see you. Sorry we had to lose Ruth.

354 00:47:07.140 --> 00:47:11.630 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Gary, good day to you, and please do start the ball rolling.

355 00:47:13.470 --> 00:47:19.949 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Yeah, thanks for that, Graham. I just wanted to point out that everything you were saying about farming

356 00:47:20.240 --> 00:47:22.859 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: You could also apply to gardens.

357 00:47:23.170 --> 00:47:27.919 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: So, what you're talking about, like, the food production, the fact they can be carbon…

358 00:47:27.960 --> 00:47:43.679 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: sinks, they can absorb carbon, they can help with flooding and water management, they can also help with biodiversity, of course. So if all of, you know, the UK's gardens were more kind of, like, aligned as well as farming, that's a… that's a big…

359 00:47:43.930 --> 00:47:45.959 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: A big result that you get.

360 00:47:45.960 --> 00:47:57.640 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think there are lots of operations doing that, aren't there? I've seen the stuff. It's a good opportunity that I missed, but thank you very much. I will stick it in as an afterthought.

361 00:47:57.640 --> 00:48:09.689 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: And it's something that people individually can do, of course, you know, and there is a lot of potential there, because there are a lot of gardens that obviously don't do any of those things at the moment, so, you know, it's…

362 00:48:09.850 --> 00:48:11.620 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: worth… Considering.

363 00:48:11.620 --> 00:48:15.609 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It's one of the, what's the word I'm looking for?

364 00:48:15.850 --> 00:48:31.500 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: paradoxes of our life, that often the most untidy gardens, the ones that are least looked after, are in fact the ones that are most biodiverse and the most helpful in terms of capturing carbon. But, yes, you're right.

365 00:48:31.720 --> 00:48:32.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Thank you.

366 00:48:36.830 --> 00:48:39.650 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I've stunned everybody else into silence.

367 00:48:40.820 --> 00:48:48.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So I'm sorry, I felt that this was a bit lacking today, but as I said, broken dogs got in the way.

368 00:48:49.350 --> 00:48:50.669 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Go on then, Frank.

369 00:48:50.920 --> 00:48:58.670 Frank Deas: No, I think it's really good, and it's obviously some we knew already, others it just reminds us of, and others are new, so it's some great stuff in there. I think…

370 00:48:59.430 --> 00:49:10.999 Frank Deas: My feeling looking at it all is the challenge is the complexity that underlies it, so that's the first situation, but then you have to sort of say, and you did allude to this in things like forestry, that

371 00:49:11.070 --> 00:49:23.239 Frank Deas: new trees take a long time to get. I think we're near the benefit of all trees, but we're still, as the people in the know, trying to do these things, focusing on climate forests, and ignoring things like ancient grassland.

372 00:49:23.240 --> 00:49:41.569 Frank Deas: Where the captured carbon in the mycelium that you find in ancient grassland, or species-rich grassland, is often higher than you'll get in a forest that's under about 50 or 60 years. But we produce grants, as governments, to plow up ancient grassland and plant trees, because that's how you capture carbon.

373 00:49:41.910 --> 00:49:50.429 Frank Deas: And likewise, in terms of moving away from livestock, you're absolutely right, but the area of sterling that I'm in.

374 00:49:50.550 --> 00:49:54.299 Frank Deas: There's so much marginal land that we'll never support arable

375 00:49:54.530 --> 00:50:04.450 Frank Deas: farming of any sort. It's marginal land that sheep or cattle can give you some return on. Without much chemical intervention or without much additional work.

376 00:50:04.520 --> 00:50:19.500 Frank Deas: If we move away entirely from livestock, and move away from that, we're actually increasing our food insecurity and reducing our resilience. So, it's not that any of the things you're saying aren't right, it's how we do them in a nuanced way, or,

377 00:50:19.720 --> 00:50:29.920 Frank Deas: We're doing work at both communities on air source heat pumps, and one of the challenges is governments are still driving people into going on to this, because it's the right thing to do.

378 00:50:30.020 --> 00:50:46.699 Frank Deas: But if you've not done energy retrofit, if you've not done a fabric-first approach, all it will do is push your bill up for heating, because you're not actually in a house that can be benefiting from air source. So it's just how we manage that next iteration, and the one after that, to acknowledge the complexity.

379 00:50:47.730 --> 00:50:52.309 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: You're right, I'm just looking at something that I saw this morning,

380 00:50:56.280 --> 00:50:58.859 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Bear with me a second, I'm just looking it up.

381 00:51:01.200 --> 00:51:07.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That had to do with a new map that's been produced of the areas that you're speaking about.

382 00:51:08.270 --> 00:51:16.359 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: If anyone else has anything to talk about, please do, whilst I'm just looking for this.

383 00:51:59.260 --> 00:52:01.179 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Okay, let's go with this one.

384 00:52:15.160 --> 00:52:17.609 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, sorry, I'm just going to share this one now.

385 00:52:29.170 --> 00:52:30.230 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Except I'm not.

386 00:52:30.590 --> 00:52:33.489 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Just trying to… So here we have…

387 00:52:33.850 --> 00:52:38.259 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: an article which came out, I think, just… just yesterday.

388 00:52:38.750 --> 00:52:49.100 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And there's a fungal wood-wide web, if you will. I mean, I did mention this during our presentation, about all these,

389 00:52:49.350 --> 00:53:04.049 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: layers going on, but they've now produced a map to show what is the largest piece of infrastructure on the planet, and what does it do, which is where the bit I thought you'd be interested in later on. So…

390 00:53:08.040 --> 00:53:19.040 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: you'd expect places to be blank or bright, such as deserts, for instance. So, going back to your bit about the UK,

391 00:53:19.910 --> 00:53:20.900 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So…

392 00:53:21.010 --> 00:53:31.629 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the density, in the north of Ireland and Great Britain, the light green bits, is far greater around New Scotland in your little, sort of, bit of sterling here.

393 00:53:32.060 --> 00:53:34.409 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Than it is down south.

394 00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:44.719 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, weirdly, there's almost none in Poland, which I find extraordinary, because right next door, you've got, you know, Germany and Russia and so forth, and they're all…

395 00:53:44.840 --> 00:53:51.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: quite good, but for some reason, this area is completely blank. The…

396 00:53:51.930 --> 00:54:03.850 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: area here, you'd expect the Arabian desert to have virtually none, but lo and behold, there's a crescent all around it that you sort of tend to completely forget. And then this is the one that the

397 00:54:03.960 --> 00:54:23.240 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: This is the top of the Tibetan Plateau, which is what you were saying about the ancient grasslands up here, and along the steps and so forth, is by far the most brilliant area for growing things. I'm just looking to see if the one that…

398 00:54:27.030 --> 00:54:30.559 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Highly responsive to elevation, so the, the big

399 00:54:30.830 --> 00:54:42.519 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: grasslands, particularly in North America and Europe, and of course Russia and Asia, are wonderful places to be. In terms of,

400 00:54:42.750 --> 00:54:43.880 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Helping

401 00:54:44.040 --> 00:54:51.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: CO2 capture, because the numbers that they've got here, I think, are extraordinary. I'm just trying to find the one that says

402 00:54:53.860 --> 00:55:01.149 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: 40% of the world's micro-regional network is buried beneath the fields of grass on the Tepitin Plateau.

403 00:55:01.320 --> 00:55:07.400 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And the flooded grasslands of the Everglades. I mean, really, who thought that Florida would be important, but lo and behold.

404 00:55:07.960 --> 00:55:10.600 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: In South Sudan, I find extraordinary.

405 00:55:10.920 --> 00:55:16.029 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, every day's… oh, here we go, 4 billion tons of CO2.

406 00:55:16.420 --> 00:55:18.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Trapped.

407 00:55:19.720 --> 00:55:27.579 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So it's… the fungal network moves around 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the soil each year.

408 00:55:27.870 --> 00:55:47.720 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: 11% of humanity's annual emissions. So, I just think it's extraordinary, and I have to say, today was the first I had heard of it. And so, Frank, it's very interesting that you came up and mentioned that, lo and behold, Scotland has got a much higher density of fungal, networking than we have down south.

409 00:55:49.310 --> 00:56:03.610 Frank Deas: And the challenge is, if we ignore that at our peril, if we suddenly think, well, actually, we'll do what they're doing down south, because they probably know what they're doing, and plow it all up and plant trees. It's also great as providing sinks.

410 00:56:03.780 --> 00:56:22.300 Frank Deas: If you plant trees, you generally improve the drainage of the soil to improve the trees' recovery, but that increases runoff, so we had a neighboring village that was about to wreck grassland, plant trees, and thereby increase its flood potential, because the water would no longer be held up in the campuses, it would just drain straight off into the village.

411 00:56:22.300 --> 00:56:23.890 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And were you able to correct them entirely?

412 00:56:23.890 --> 00:56:42.240 Frank Deas: Yeah, yeah. It's got about 30 species of wax caps, which I didn't know anything about the type of fungi, so it's now a site of special scientific interest, due to local ecologists identifying this, measuring it, producing the stats, and then throwing it in the face of the Scottish Government and Nature's government and saying, you can't let this happen.

413 00:56:42.740 --> 00:56:44.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Fantastic. David Newman.

414 00:56:45.220 --> 00:56:46.779 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Good day to you, David.

415 00:56:47.690 --> 00:56:55.559 David Newman: Hi, hello, I'm a bit late because we were down in town setting up a bank account for Nature in the lease.

416 00:56:55.560 --> 00:56:56.080 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right?

417 00:56:56.610 --> 00:57:07.470 David Newman: So… I wasn't surprised by A third of vegetables wasted.

418 00:57:07.860 --> 00:57:13.250 David Newman: My PhD was on use of agricultural waste.

419 00:57:14.560 --> 00:57:19.220 David Newman: In sugarcane, only 15% of it is sugar.

420 00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:25.489 David Newman: And the big problem was what to do with the molasses.

421 00:57:25.740 --> 00:57:27.909 David Newman: Well, obviously, you make rum from that.

422 00:57:28.330 --> 00:57:30.520 David Newman: The baguette?

423 00:57:30.770 --> 00:57:36.990 David Newman: Where you can make particle board, which falls apart when you nail it, and companies go bust.

424 00:57:37.590 --> 00:57:39.339 David Newman: Bit of filter, man.

425 00:57:39.730 --> 00:57:45.999 David Newman: And it's actually quite a big thing in agriculture. When we're eating wheat.

426 00:57:46.140 --> 00:57:49.680 David Newman: There's a hell of a lot of stalk we're not eating.

427 00:57:50.300 --> 00:57:50.820 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes.

428 00:57:50.820 --> 00:57:55.949 David Newman: That is one of the few advantages of ruminants. The…

429 00:57:56.490 --> 00:58:15.949 David Newman: And, this was all known and worked on in the 70s. At the same time, there was the Association for Conservation of Energy that couldn't persuade businesses to change their production, their factories, to conserve energy.

430 00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:22.990 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I remember when the big fuss came out about… was it Freon?

431 00:58:23.120 --> 00:58:32.540 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Or, that nasty, really nasty stuff they used in, Transformers. Pcbs, was it?

432 00:58:33.580 --> 00:58:43.549 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And they discovered that not only could, something else be used, but that something else was, in fact, cheaper than the product that they were replacing.

433 00:58:43.550 --> 00:58:44.020 David Newman: Hmm.

434 00:58:44.020 --> 00:58:57.280 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And I think, as you're saying, that people are finding out that, if you look at the facts rather carefully, there's no particular reason why things are done the way they're done today,

435 00:58:57.540 --> 00:59:04.450 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: if you can come up with a better way, you've still got a huge job to persuade people, as you said. But I agree, it's,

436 00:59:04.620 --> 00:59:18.699 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: I think everything we've… I've said many times, in the long run, everything comes back down to education, that if you can change the way that people think, and change the way they look at problems, then, a lot of the problems will disappear.

437 00:59:20.090 --> 00:59:21.950 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But… thank you.

438 00:59:22.260 --> 00:59:27.520 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Apart from feeding rumorants, what else can you do with the, the wheat shaft?

439 00:59:28.240 --> 00:59:29.250 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the stalk.

440 00:59:30.750 --> 00:59:32.309 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Does it have other uses?

441 00:59:32.310 --> 00:59:41.350 David Newman: It's not strong enough Unlike bagass, it's not all that good for building materials.

442 00:59:41.710 --> 00:59:43.929 David Newman: It is, however.

443 00:59:44.590 --> 01:00:00.759 David Newman: something that can be converted to sugars. We're using microorganisms. You can separate out lignin from the cellulose, and use a cellulose to make artificial fibers.

444 01:00:01.210 --> 01:00:08.109 David Newman: And, of course, it does actually burn easily. In Mauritius.

445 01:00:08.110 --> 01:00:08.780 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Put your.

446 01:00:08.780 --> 01:00:16.310 David Newman: Well, all the electricity comes from sugarcane baggas being… excess bag gas being burnt in the sugar factories.

447 01:00:16.900 --> 01:00:17.620 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah.

448 01:00:18.710 --> 01:00:22.730 David Newman: It's a thing, of course, for ordinary

449 01:00:23.010 --> 01:00:29.450 David Newman: Wheat stalks and so on, the usual thing is getting it dry enough to make it worse burning.

450 01:00:30.930 --> 01:00:34.550 David Newman: Because otherwise, the energy goes in removing the water.

451 01:00:35.910 --> 01:00:41.620 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: No, there was a time, was there not, when it was just plowed back in under the stalks?

452 01:00:42.410 --> 01:00:45.049 David Newman: Well, it's a fair bit used for mulching.

453 01:00:45.210 --> 01:00:46.930 David Newman: But that's not all of it.

454 01:00:47.540 --> 01:00:48.420 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: No.

455 01:00:49.370 --> 01:00:50.200 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

456 01:00:51.300 --> 01:01:04.149 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, I think you've come up with another principle, which is that there's lots we can do with what we've got, if only we could turn our minds to it, or get past people's, resistance.

457 01:01:04.570 --> 01:01:08.239 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And often identifying what the cause of the resistance is, is…

458 01:01:08.820 --> 01:01:15.059 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: A bit frightening, because you can't believe that people have been going on like that for so many years without…

459 01:01:15.270 --> 01:01:17.239 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Questioning why they do it.

460 01:01:18.940 --> 01:01:24.190 David Newman: Actually, it's the education in learning how to use the new things.

461 01:01:24.720 --> 01:01:30.620 David Newman: When they made Particle Board in Mauritius, carpenters thought you could just nail it.

462 01:01:31.450 --> 01:01:32.180 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

463 01:01:32.350 --> 01:01:34.559 David Newman: And it falls apart when you do that.

464 01:01:34.800 --> 01:01:43.550 David Newman: And they didn't have either a training program or a factory to make furniture, showing people everything.

465 01:01:47.250 --> 01:01:47.830 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Nope.

466 01:01:47.950 --> 01:01:49.599 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: We're humans, aren't we?

467 01:01:50.030 --> 01:01:58.030 David Newman: Or when they made baker's yeast for molasses, they didn't… They just showed…

468 01:01:58.320 --> 01:02:08.069 David Newman: had a little turnkey thing where you built a factory, but no knowledge of how to make sure it was active by the time it got to India 3 months later.

469 01:02:09.880 --> 01:02:10.700 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

470 01:02:11.620 --> 01:02:15.279 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That was a failed, enterprise, was it?

471 01:02:15.490 --> 01:02:18.720 David Newman: Well, the point is, it's integrating.

472 01:02:19.380 --> 01:02:24.069 David Newman: It's integrated systems that aren't just the factories.

473 01:02:24.190 --> 01:02:24.730 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: But…

474 01:02:24.730 --> 01:02:36.970 David Newman: the whole chain from getting the things, to marketing, to using, to approving it. It's the systems where there's a bit missing that make it fail.

475 01:02:37.860 --> 01:02:38.580 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes.

476 01:02:39.900 --> 01:02:42.330 David Newman: And actually, education is part of that.

477 01:02:43.570 --> 01:02:44.260 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Right.

478 01:02:46.150 --> 01:02:51.099 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Gentlemen, thank you all so much for your time,

479 01:02:51.620 --> 01:02:57.530 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It was very nice to see you, very decent of you to show up, thank you, and next time we'll do better. Take care.

480 01:02:57.930 --> 01:02:59.949 David Morgan-Jones: Cheers, Graham, bye.

481 01:02:59.950 --> 01:03:00.599 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Am I?

Markdown of presentation:

Certainly. Below is the presentation converted into Markdown text, preserving the slide sequence and the main explanatory material. Community-climate-action

Climate Action, Close to Home

Individuals, farms and small communities in the UK

We can improve daily life while cutting emissions.

This presentation offers a practical sequence and a menu of possibilities — not a requirement for every household or community to do everything.

STOP – SWITCH – STORE

STOP — Unnecessary emissions

Waste less.
Share more.
Use less energy.

SWITCH — Away from fossil fuels

Heat pumps.
Cleaner travel.
Renewable electricity.

STORE — Carbon from the atmosphere

Restore living landscapes.
Support durable carbon removal.

Emissions cuts come first. Removal complements them.

Six Stages, Different Jobs

AVOID + REDUCE

Prevent an activity altogether, or meet the same need with less energy and material.

Examples:

Borrow a drill instead of buying one.
Insulate a home.
Reduce wasted food.
Avoid an unnecessary journey.

ELECTRIFY + RENEW

Replace fossil-fuel equipment and supply more renewable electricity.

Examples:

Replace an oil or gas boiler with a heat pump.
Generate electricity using solar panels.
Move appropriate transport from fossil fuels to electricity.

REMOVE + STORE

Take CO₂ from the atmosphere and then keep the carbon out of the atmosphere for a meaningful length of time.

Examples include plants, direct air capture, biochar, minerals and geological storage.

Important distinction: capturing fossil CO₂ at a chimney prevents an emission. It is not atmospheric carbon removal.

Where the Big Opportunities Lie

31% — Domestic transport

Share of UK territorial greenhouse-gas emissions, 2025.

22% — Buildings + products

From the same national inventory. Heating is a major contributor.

60% — Electrification

Share of emissions cuts by 2040 in the Climate Change Committee's Balanced Pathway.

The first two figures describe emissions today. The third describes a modelled route forward — not a guaranteed outcome or household saving.

Less Energy, More Comfort

A measured building is easier to improve

A village hall — or a household — can start simply:

Read meters and bills.
Match heating to occupancy.
Find draughts and heat loss.
Review the results monthly.
Improve insulation where appropriate.
Draught-proof sensibly.
Use LEDs and effective controls.

A useful parish project could be to appoint a hall energy lead and record electricity and heating fuel use each month, together with occupancy and weather information.

Check timer settings before buying new equipment.

Heat Pumps Move Heat

1 unit of electricity ≈ 3 units of heat

This is a typical illustration, not a fixed efficiency.

Heat pumps obtain additional heat from the outside air or ground.

Before installing one, consider:

Building heat loss
Radiators or other heat emitters
Hot-water requirements
Noise
Electrical supply
Electricity tariff

A house does not have to be perfectly insulated before a heat pump can work.

A useful community initiative could be trusted advice sessions and visits to successful local installations.

Cleaner Journeys That Work Locally

Short journeys

Walking, wheeling and cycling where routes are safe and accessible.

Shared journeys

Better bus links, car clubs and community transport where demand supports them.

Necessary car journeys

An appropriately sized EV when the vehicle needs replacement, provided there is a workable charging plan.

Rural journeys differ from urban journeys. Residents should not be blamed for failing to use alternatives that don't exist.

A parish can help by identifying dangerous routes, working with the highway authority, providing secure cycle parking and exploring shared transport.

Local Solar, Shared Benefits

GENERATE

Suitable roofs on:

Village halls
Farms
Schools
Homes

can host solar panels.

USE + SHIFT

Match flexible demand and EV charging to periods when low-carbon electricity is available.

STORE ELECTRICITY

A battery can move available electricity from one part of the day to another.

An electricity battery is energy storage — not carbon storage.

A useful village feasibility study might examine:

Roof condition
Shading
Electricity consumption
Grid connection capacity
Ownership
Maintenance
Potential community ownership

A Library of Things

One useful tool. Many households.

Borrow

Drills
Carpet cleaners
Garden tools
Other infrequently used equipment

Keep things in use

Repair cafés
Reuse
Second-hand purchases

The climate benefit arises when sharing actually replaces new production.

A parish could provide a venue or work with an existing library or volunteer group.

Start with things residents actually want to borrow.

Food and Flights: Choices with Reach

FOOD

Put less edible food in the bin.
Eat more plant-rich meals.
Eat less beef and lamb where feasible.
Plan meals.
Store food properly.
Use leftovers.
Redistribute safe surplus food.

Community kitchens and shared meals can make lower-waste habits easier.

FLIGHTS

Fly less frequently where possible.
Make longer visits rather than several short ones.
Use rail where practical.
Treat claims of "carbon-neutral" flying with care.

Aviation has climate effects beyond its direct CO₂ emissions.

Living Landscapes Need Long-Term Care

HEDGES + TREES

Protect what is already there.
Restore gaps.
Choose species and sites carefully.

HEALTHY SOILS

Keep living roots.
Maintain ground cover.
Reduce erosion.
Avoid unnecessary disturbance.

WETLANDS + PEAT

Protect carbon-rich habitats and work with specialists on restoration.

Trees and hedges can draw down CO₂ while also providing shade and habitat.

But planting trees in the wrong place can damage species-rich grassland or peat.

Long-term management matters as much as planting.

The Fungal Network Beneath Our Feet

Plants supply sugars to fungi.

Fungi help plants obtain nutrients.

But:

Carbon moving into soil is not necessarily the same thing as carbon staying there.

Practical priorities include:

Living roots
Diverse planting
Less unnecessary soil disturbance

Mycorrhizal fungi form associations with plant roots and play important roles in nutrient exchange, carbon cycling and soil structure.

Research — including work at the University of Sheffield — is investigating these relationships.

Community trials could examine plant performance and soil condition, but should not promise carbon credits simply from fungal inoculation.

Biochar: A Possible Local Partnership

Plant residues → pyrolysis → biochar

THE OPPORTUNITY

Convert suitable biomass into a more persistent carbon-rich material.

THE LOCAL ROLE

Partner with a qualified producer.
Trial a tested product with land managers.

Pyrolysis heats biomass with limited oxygen.

Some of the carbon can remain in biochar for centuries or longer, depending upon the feedstock, production process and environment.

But proper assessment must include:

Source of biomass
What would otherwise have happened to it
Transport
Process emissions
Air quality
Contaminants
Product quality
Permitted uses

For a village, a partnership feasibility study is generally more appropriate than assuming the community should buy its own kiln.

Enhanced Weathering: A Farm-Scale Trial

Crushed silicate rock can accelerate natural CO₂-consuming reactions.

This is promising, but measurement is challenging.

Important considerations include:

Rock chemistry
Grinding and transport
Soil effects
Water effects
Verified net carbon removal

The best local approach would be a monitored trial with researchers and an experienced farming partner.

Removal rates depend upon the mineral, soil, climate and subsequent chemical processes.

Unsupervised coastal spreading should be avoided.

The Technology Frontier

DIRECT AIR CAPTURE

Captures CO₂ directly from the atmosphere.

Durable storage and low-carbon energy are needed to complete the job.

BECCS

Bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage.

Land use and biomass sourcing are crucial.

EMERGING METHODS

These include:

Electrochemical capture
Ocean alkalinity
Biologically accelerated weathering

These technologies are worth watching, but they generally require research or specialist infrastructure rather than being first projects for a parish.

An announced plant capacity is not the same thing as verified tonnes of CO₂ permanently stored.

Removal Only Helps if Storage Lasts

TREES + SOILS

Valuable living carbon stores, but fire, decay and changes in management can release the carbon again.

BIOCHAR

Potentially stores carbon for centuries or longer.

Durability depends upon the material and how it is used.

MINERALS + GEOLOGY

Potentially provide very long-term storage.

Verification and site integrity still matter.

When assessing a carbon-removal proposal, ask:

Is the removal additional?
Is the amount net of all associated emissions?
Has the removal actually happened?
How long will the carbon remain stored?
Who monitors it?
What happens if the storage reverses?
Is the carbon benefit being counted only once?

Carbon removal complements deep emissions reductions. It cannot currently substitute for them.

A Practical Division of Effort

INDIVIDUALS

Develop a home energy plan.
Avoid wasted purchases.
Consider the climate implications of the next heating decision.
Consider the next transport decision.

PARISH + VILLAGE

Improve community buildings.
Develop safer walking and cycling routes.
Establish shared tools.
Investigate community solar.

FARMS + LANDOWNERS

Care for hedgerows.
Protect soils.
Consider properly monitored biochar partnerships.
Consider enhanced-weathering trials with suitable research partners.

Community projects should include tenants, people without cars or driveways, residents on low incomes and people with mobility needs.

The First 90 Days

DAYS 1–30

Listen to residents.
Measure the village hall.
Identify potential partners.
Appoint an accountable lead.

DAYS 31–60

Choose:

one energy project, and
one sharing or landscape project.

DAYS 61–90

Agree costs.
Agree responsibilities.
Begin.
Measure what happens.
Share the results.

Track real measures:

Energy in kWh as well as £.
Lending activity alongside purchases avoided.
Planting survival as well as area planted.

Keep records of emissions avoided separate from carbon removed.

Success need not mean installing something. A well-supported feasibility study that tells a community what not to do can also be a successful project.

Our Village Carbon Hierarchy

AVOID

Borrow a tool • Skip a flight

↓

REDUCE

Insulate • Waste less food

↓

ELECTRIFY

Heat pumps • EVs where needed

↓

RENEW

Rooftop solar • Flexible demand

↓

REMOVE

Grow hedges • Verified carbon removal

↓

STORE

Stable biochar • Minerals • Geology

STOP → SWITCH → STORE

The priorities broadly run from left to right, although action can happen in parallel.

STOP: Avoid unnecessary demand and reduce what remains.

SWITCH: Electrify suitable activities and expand renewable electricity.

STORE: Remove atmospheric carbon and provide durable storage for residual emissions that are hardest to eliminate.

The central principle is simple:

Don't start by asking how we can remove our carbon emissions. Start by asking which emissions we don't need to create in the first place.

And for a village or small community, perhaps the most useful final question is:

Which project could we start together?

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Last updated 16 days ago