Satellite image analysis shows 329 hectares of forest cleared during development
of factory in Germany
The development of a Tesla gigafactory near Berlin has resulted in about 500,000
trees being felled, according to satellite analysis.
The building of the German factory has been highly controversial and attracted
significant protests, as well as prompting a debate about the trade-offs
involved in developing a green economy.
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Tag - Travel and transport
The country has long been the world’s biggest market – but the government’s
interest is more geopolitical than environmental
When Kenzi, an advertising worker in Shanghai, bought an electric vehicle in
November she wasn’t even thinking about the environmental benefits. She had read
Elon Musk’s biography and thought the Tesla 3 looked good. She also knew that if
she bought an EV she could bypass the long wait and cost of getting licence
plates, which are rationed by the government.
“It’s not easy to get a licence plate in Shanghai, but you get a licence for
free when you buy an EV,” she said.
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Electric vehicles are ‘batteries on wheels’ that can put energy back into the
National Grid when solar panels and windfarms do not provide much power
Electric cars make some people afraid of the dark. While the batteries produce
much less carbon, they require much more electricity to run. This has prompted
ominous warnings that Great Britain and other wealthy countries set on banning
new petrol and diesel cars risk plunging their populations into darkness.
In recent months British net zero-sceptical newspapers have warned that the
shift to EVs would “risk overwhelming the grid, and threaten catastrophic
blackouts” when intermittent sun and wind fail to provide the necessary power.
Another article claimed: “It won’t take an enemy power to put us all in the dark
– just energy customers doing normal things on a normal winter’s evening.”
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