Long road ahead for green travel
Are the government’s pledges on net-zero really sustainable? Ian Handford fears there will be U-turns to come in order to keep powering the nation
ANOTHER Climate Change conference dawns next month where we can assume our Government will repeat its commitment to the zero-carbon emissions debate and green energy while at the same time continuing to promise abolition of all diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles by 2030 (originally 2035). The COP26 global conference in Glasgow is also likely to see confirmation of bans on all new conventional gas boilers for domestic premises after 2035, yet another highly controversial topic which in my view will ultimately see Government U-turning.
These proposals are all unquestionably unsustainable, mainly due to the fact of Britain’s high dependency on fossil fuels. Politicians and officials on the other hand seem very convinced that by 2035 all drivers in Britain will be using only electrically powered vehicles on our roads in spite of the fact that no-one has properly addressed how the vehicles (domestic and commercial) are to be charged at every home base.
With literally thousands of electric chargers having already been installed in Britain, in overall percentage terms the quantity is miniscule. Pod Point Company, founded in 2009, is one of the main installers of home charging points, controlling around 50% of the home market and having a wide network of 13,000 public-charging points in the UK. Currently Britain has over twenty eight million homes with tens of thousands of added business premises all of which require external charging points if the electric dream is to take root.
Just contemplating safe power points at every property raises many unanswered questions. For instance what happens to premises accessed from the rear or situated on an upper floor or with no adjacent hard standing for vehicles. Many apartment buildings with multiple floors and high street offices, commercial premises and shops have no parking whatsoever. Yet their electric car, van or lorry owner etc, will need instant access to a charger to ‘top up’. New homes now under construction may be required by law to provide an external power-point, although adjacent parking will also be required, as extension leads (electric cables) via a door or window will not only be judged unsafe but likely, illegal.
In my humble view it will be absolutely impossible for many terraced homes on streets with no parking or situated in a precinct to have charging points. Britain currently has 28 million owners or rented homes and my guess is all fear the day when diesel or petrol fuel is banned. In addition there is the cost of providing charging points and the high cost of switching from a traditional to electric vehicle. Some experts say that hundreds of new public charge points have been installed in inappropriate locations due to the flawed information issued by the Department for Transport (DfT) to Local Authorities. The DfT give advice to local authorities on the best places to install charging points, which can draw extra financial help from Government. However, the data source of ‘registered keepers’ is questionable. It seems the ‘keepers’ list takes no account of leasing companies based in an area, which will distort/ flaw all recommendations made. This happened at Milton Keynes where on closer examination the DfT found that of the 21,594 ultra-low emission registered keeper figures, 92% were owned by a leasing company in the town. Having reworked the figures the number of electric vehicles in Milton Keynes was actually 1592. That may partially explain why so many electric vehicle owners already experience huge difficulty in topping-up while on the road.
But as a user of a conventional road vehicle my real concern is what will happen if large percentages of power points do become reality. Would the National Grid even be able to cope if tens of millions of individuals and businesses start to top up 365 days a year. Today there certainly are more electric vehicles in ownership than at anytime in UK history, yet in overall terms the percentage is minimal. In America its leading car supplier Tesla has only this month sold more electric cars (33,000), being 15% of the home market, more than any other US car supplier. Our two countries are definitely on different routes due to cheap energy in the US due to fracking. The US now produces 67% of its natural gas and 51% of its oil from shale production while at home consumers have just been advised to expect their energy costs to rise heavily next year.
Fracking is the first choice of energy production in the US while at home, it is not even a choice. Following a prolonged moratorium in 2019, Parliament eventually passed legislation stating that from early 2021 all fracking is banned in Britain. So the antifrackers have won the first round, yet in my view it is almost inevitable there will be a U-turn as was seen with nuclear power which today appears more acceptable than any energy derived from any fossil fuel.