Flush from his “successful” summit at the G20, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now preparing for his next test: his budget in two weeks times.
His room for manoeuvre is limited with the pot of money largely seen as being empty. Even still Brown is promising a green Budget month to kick start moves towards a low carbon economy, including the mass introduction of electric cars on Britain’s roads.
In an exclusive interview with the Independent, Gordon Brown promised to make Britain a world leader in producing and exporting electric cars, hybrid petrol-electric vehicles and lighter cars using less petrol. He intends to create “green” cities geared towards electric cars in the drive to create 400,000 new jobs. Trials for electric cars in two or three cities will begin next year with councils invited to bid to become Britain’s first “green cities”.
But no one is saying how the electricity to produce these cars would be produced: if it was coal, oil, gas – this could exacerbate climate change. And nuclear is no solution either.
Other measures to be outlined by the Government include relaxing planning rules to allow the building of more wind farms to ensure Britain hits its target to generate 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
But then “Green Gordon” will trip up by announcing that his government wants to develop a “clean coal” industry. Many climate scientists, such as Jim Hansen from NASA, believe that this would be a disaster.
Gordon you should know that, what-ever way you spin it, coal can never be green, and you if you develop it you would always be Brown, and never Green.
1. They are more efficient than cobutsmion engines, they always provide maximum torque, and don’t require a transmission.2. They can accelerate faster than ANY car that runs on gas (look up videos of electric cars smoking Ferraris!).3. Oil is only getting more expensive, and the price of oil will outpace the speed that we can make cars more oil efficient. Electric cars are the only long-term cheap method of transportation.4. Electric cars have been running on U.S. roads and highways for over a decade without problem (check out the Rav4-EV)5. Hydrogen isn’t safe. For hydrogen cars, you take electricity and convert it into hydrogen, and then convert it back into electricity, why not just store the electricity in a battery?6. 100% Electric cars are lighter than hybrids (no cobutsmion engine, no transmission), they also have a lower center of gravity and better handling.7. Electric cars cost more than 25% less to maintain (less parts)8. In 2008, U.S. spent $600 billion on oil, over 2/3 of which was imported and accounted for 30-59% of u.s. trade deficit. Electric cars could pump money back into the country and revitalize the economy. As we became less dependent on oil, we could stop purchasing it from unfriendly governments which threaten us, and we would have to spend less military power protecting our oil infrastructure, meaning we would be a richer and safer country.9. Although jobs will be lost if we start moving towards electric cars, jobs will also be created. A new study released estimates the net change in jobs would be 13,000 250,000 new jobs created.10. There are too many more reasons to fit in a list of ten. The price of healthcare would go down, cities would be quieter, the electric grid is already at a capacity to handle charging electric cars, electric cars are fun If electric cars are great, why aren’t they more popular? Car companies can’t access the best battery packs for electric cars (high powered NiMH batteries) because Chevron owns the patents for them and refuses to license them. Before Chevron owned the patent, GM and Toyota both had 100% electric cars that worked great. We need to demand the government force Chevron to license these batteries. There are plenty of places to learn more about electric cars on the internet, and elsewhere. I recommend the movie “Who killed the electric car?” and the book “Two cents per mile” by Nevres Cefo. If nothing else, remember that electric cars could be more than luxury vehicles- that they could change the way we think about transportation.