Economy

Japan

In the second week of May 2017 our small group of habitual fellow travellers Craig and Sonia; Wendy and I; took a package introductory tour: Discover Japan 2017 visiting: Narita; Tokyo; Yokohama; Atami; Toyohashi; Kyoto; and Osaka.  

My car owning philosophies

I have owned well over a dozen cars and driven a lot more, in numerous countries. 

It seems to me that there are a limited number of reasons to own a car:

1. As a tool of business where time is critical and tools of trade need to be carried about in a dedicated vehicle.
2. Convenient, fast, comfortable, transport particularly to difficult to get to places not easily accessible by public transport or cabs or in unpleasant weather conditions, when cabs may be hard to get.
3. Like clothes, a car can help define you to others and perhaps to yourself, as an extension of your personality.
4. A car can make a statement about one's success in life.
5. A car can be a work of art, something re-created as an aesthetic project.
6. A car is essential equipment in the sport of driving.

The Chimera of Clean Coal

The Chimera^‡ - also known as carbon capture and storage (CCS) or Carbon Sequestration

Carbon Sequestration Source: Wikimedia Commons

Whenever the prospect of increased carbon consumption is debated someone is sure to hold out the imminent availability of Clean Coal Technology; always just a few years away. 

I have discussed this at length in the article Carbon Sequestration (Carbon Capture and Storage) on this website. 

In that detailed analysis I dismissed CCS as a realistic solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions for the following reasons: