HAS “GREEN” GORD BEEN “CHARGED”

Gord has gone electric, or at least he wants all of us to, the latest “brainwave” from No10 is to give motorists up to £5,000 to encourage them to buy electric and hybrid cars BBC NEWS

And don’t forget Ali, he is expected to reveal an incentive scheme of £2,000 for motorists to trade old cars in for new ones in next week's Budget.

Several problems there chaps, there are 26 million cars in the UK, less than 0.1% are electric, that means that over 25 million cars will need to be replaced.

The snag with this is: this country doesn’t produce any electric cars, apart from the G-Wiz which is about as attractive as the rear end of an elephant uk-battery-plug-in-electric-cars and the foreign cars that are available are well, about as attractive as the rear end of an elephant.

Another barrier is that to replace our fossil fuel guzzling vehicles we will have to take out credit regardless of the incentives offered, which (and correct me if I am wrong) was the cause of the current recession-too much credit.

A further impediment is the production of electricity, which is mainly fossil fuel generated, because the Gov can’t make its “mind” up regarding methods of production.

And a couple of more snags are;-I can’t afford a new car, and I presume that millions of others can’t either, and what will be the cost to the environment of disposing of over 25 million cars in the UK.

General Motors have a production electric car the Chevy Volt which has a range of only 40 miles per charge and costs £30,000 as well as having a small petrol engine to generate electricity when the batteries are flat, (it kind of defeats the object doesn’t it?)

It is a good idea in principle, but until the technology is there as well as the ability to charge on the go as it were, we are stuck with our smelly gas guzzling cars for a few years yet, and to be honest I am glad, I love my little civic, and like thousands of other drivers do not want to go “green” at least for the foreseeable future.


“Under the rule of the "free market" ideology, we have gone through two decades of an energy crisis without an effective energy policy. Because of an easy and thoughtless reliance on imported oil, we have no adequate policy for the conservation of gasoline and other petroleum products. We have no adequate policy for the development or use of other, less harmful forms of energy. We have no adequate system of public transportation.” Wendell Barry


Angus

NHS Behind the headlines

Angus Dei politico

NHS-THE OTHER SIDE