by turbinetastic
Transport is one of the cornerstones of the modern world. Fast, convenient transportation has allowed us to live and work at very different locations, offering us the ability to live where we want to with the minimum of compromise on our work and careers. It’s also one of the three main pillars which make up our energy use: electricity, heat, and transport. In the UK and in Scotland in particular, most of our efforts in reducing our carbon use has gone on the first of these: generating more low-carbon electricity. But that’s only part of the story.
When it comes to transport, walking, running and cycling are probably the most environmentally-friendly forms of transport you can choose. They all run on the food we consume and on the fat reserves we store. But walking is slow, and we’ve set up our road system in the UK so that cyclists share their road spaces with buses and for me, certainly, that makes cycling seem like a dangerous option.
Electric cars are starting to gain a foothold, though. A couple of years ago it was all about the hybrids, but more recently environmentally-friendly vehicles has meant fully electric cars. But they still have their limitations. We have petrol stations available at regular intervals the length and breadth of the country; we don’t yet have electric recharging points (As Top Gear pointed out). That means their range is limited to hopping from one known charging point to another. Similarly even a large petrol car can be fully refuelled after ten minutes at the pump, while electric cars generally require longer. Even their sheer quietness can be a point against them, as pedestrians and cyclists can’t hear them coming.
But every technology has to start somewhere. And it looks like electric cars are starting to get a real foothold, with the opening of the new Power of Now exhibition in Glasgow from Scottish Hydro. I had a look round it today, and it’s a bit of a strange mix between a science centre exhibit and an electric car hire and charging facility.
The exhibition space is smallish, about the size of a standard city centre retail unit, and is split into three displays, focussing on hydro power, wind power and energy savings at home. Then, next door, there’s a car hire and display unit which contains various models of electric vehicles. If I recall correctly, the staff said there’s charging available for up to six cars at a time, and that facility is free. They also had a DC charger which can charge a car in about half an hour, although apparently it only works on electric cars with Japanese engines (because they’re DC, apparently).
My car is a normal small petrol runabout. I don’t use it much because I live near a train station which gets me to work and back with minimal hassle, and those journeys it is used for tend to be short trips for the shopping and so on. I see no reason why an electric car wouldn’t do me, and thousands like me, almost all of the time. Until the technology and infrastructure catches up, it wouldn’t be hard or expensive to simply hire a petrol car for the occasional longer journey. And apparently Glasgow City Council has committed to free parking for electric vehicles within their jurisdiction.
With free car tax, petrol prices through the roof (didn’t you just know that once the £1 a litre barrier had been broached it’d never really go below it again?), and now free parking, it’s beginning to look feasible. To really take off, it does need corporations with a vision to invest in the technology, and the Big 6 energy companies do have both the incentive and the profits to help us get the infrastructure in place.
Of course, most of our electricity isn’t carbon free at the moment. But then, none of our petrol is either.
It feels like a turning point to me. But we’ll have to wait and see what will happen next.
‘Turbinetastic’ is a wind industry professional who has kindly agreed to syndicate their posts to this blog. This post was originally published on turbinetastic’s own blog on 08/03/2012.
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