All-electric cars are simply not feasible

THE future for all electric cars in the UK is an ideal environmentalist dream to be supported into reality as soon as possible – if possible. Sadly this can never happen overnight, as many of “green fundamentalists” foolishly think.

It just cannot happen at the “flick of a switch” or a government “rubber-stamping” a major policy document. Let’s look at a few

average facts – these are not exact – but they are nearly correct for a quick summary. Most can be found by Googling government statistics and other reputable sources.

UK current National Grid power supplies and distributes on average about 40,000MW.

It varies between day and night and the day of the week, and seasonal changes with weather and hours of daylight and darkness.

It has a maximum capacity of about 65,000MW. Above all it must supply steady load on demand, which erratic weak renewables cannot do.

There must be a big “base load” to serve the UK otherwise lights go out and the country would grind to a halt, including hospitals.

Currently the UK has about 32 million cars (plus millions of lorries and tractors).

At present the UK has just about 40,000 electric cars. The first allelectric car was the one-off The 1897 Bersey Taxi – so we have not come very far in electrifying cars in 132 years.

Our UK cars average about 8,000 miles a year with average engine size of 1,600cc.

Petrol cars average 52 miles per gallon and diesel cars about 61 mpg.

That’s a lot of carbon-based fuel for the UK alone.

To go over to all-electric cars would need big changes to our National Grid and our country’s infrastructure.

An all-electric car can get a quick “part-battery re-charge” at a service station for a short journey in under half an hour.

To get a complete empty-to-full charge could be overnight. Nearly every home in every village and town will need a charging point metred into the home supply.

How can you do that if you live in a high-rise block of flats or if you cannot park directly outside your home?

Every village community would need a new electric supply line – I checked for my village with my supplier and was told it would currently be impossible without new increased power load lines with inevitable transformers, and would be very costly.

Now we come to the very big issue – it is estimated the UK would need about 15 big new nuclear power stations costing about £25bn each taking at least 10 years to build – facing neighbourhood oppositions of “not in my back yard”.

Another option could be at least 60,000 of the biggest wind turbines across the country – but how would people charge their cars on windless nights?

So what are we talking about here? It is that nothing instant can possibly happen.

About £400bn for extra nuclear power stations.

Probably an equally staggering amount of cost on a new National Grid and a new Local Grid.

New car factories to manufacture 32 million all-electric cars (plus millions of lorries and tractors) or do we order them from overseas?

What can we do to enforce the rest of the world to lead us or to follow us in cutting down on their carbon emissions?

Climate change and Earth’s atmosphere is global, not local.

I am all for all-electric cars – but I am also all for reality.

The next time you encounter a smug “greenie” owner of an all-electric car, just quote all the above to that person and smile and grimace, saying, “Well done, you!” Ioan Richard Swansea