Posts by Peter Clarkson 5 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2007
You're absolutely right.
I had assumed that it was practical to drive to your destination, plug in at a charging station somewhere while you do your Birmingham-based business and then drive home. That is probably not a realistic assumption, especially for early adopters of this technology.
However, you failed to spot the more glaring error in my post... why would anyone want to leave London to go to Birmingham in the first place?
It seems electric cars are finally becoming practical. An acceptable range and an acceptable top speed mean this car is not limited to being a city run-around. It would happily do London-Birmingham (for a UK-centric example), and be capable of motorway speed.
Charging a car should surely be over night (4.63 UK pence per off-peak kWh), so you're only using the electricity at a time of low demand. Running power plants at full load constantly rather than having to turn up and turn down every morning and night has considerable operational benefits... but it's difficult to know to what extent that would translate into environmental benefits - perhaps some clever engineer could enlighten?
At any rate, it's important to distinguish between day-time and night-time electricity, not just for costs but also for the fact that a big fat chunk of road transport (34% in the US, according to 'Environmental Science and Technology' journal... not sure about the UK) could be run on electricity with no new power generation needing to be built.
"negligible carbon emissions"
Encouraging Segways on the road would only draw people away from its nearest equivalents, the bike and the trusty foot.
Compared to a bike, which goes faster, and has a lower energy cost in manufacture in the first place, I'd say the lifecycle carbon emissions for a Segway are pretty high for what you're getting. After all, there's nothing 'carbon-free' about electricity.
So let's not be duped into thinking the Segway is green.
I might be in a minority of one here, but I think there might be a little kernel of a good idea in all of this...
I had this same idea when I was half-heartedly giving up smoking. Picking up a ten-pack for £2.80 at the cornershop on my way to the pub was easy, but if I had to send off for a licence I probably would have stuck to my original decision to give up. Taking up smoking again after giving up is an impulse decision.
The thing would be for the tobacco companies to issue the licences themselves, so it wouldn't cost the government a thing. I would also find it unlikely that the tobacco companies would charge smokers a great deal, if anything, for a smoking licence.
Of course there are many ways you can round a licence - get a smoking friend to buy you cigarettes etcetera but what it does do is stop you buying cigarettes just on an impulse, which helps those who want to break the addiction.
Now charging every smoker £200 and getting a doctor to sign it off is another thing entirely!
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