As more than one commentator has noted, we cannot convert our present motor vehicle fleet to non fossil liquid or gas fuels, because there is not enough bio-mass/arable land available, and internal combustion engines are very energy inefficient. Buses use a trivial amount of fuel compared to trucks and cars. Converting buses to run on electricity is already practical and with renewable generation, sustainable. Sadly people with cars are not willing to ride on buses. (In towns) Most  journeys are short, 75% less than 5miles long, 50% less than 3miles, so short car trips could be walked or cycled, given safe and attractive routes, as in many continental cities. The Galway tram scheme (www.GLUAS.ie) has embedded renewable power generation, so the (City Class) trams will be sustainable, and as the most energy frugal in its class (1kWh/km operated) very efficient.

From Professor Lewis Lesley

Hi all
Thanks for your contributions.
I have been asked to write a report about what Herefordshire (and presumably elsewhere…) could learn from global best practice in terms of ecological sustainability in general and Co2 emission reduction in particular.
My brief is extremely wide; transport, buildings, business, agriculture etc.
I was asked to do this because I already write, give talks and teach an evening class on this subject matter. But I’m not a technologist/engineer.
I’m writing the transport section now. Next week I’ll be into buildings. Just very general ideas, not detailed feasibility studies.

Electric trams/light rail will feature as one of my proposals. I’ve cited Croydon Tramlink as an eg of success. Are there better ones, especially in smallish cities of around 50-60,000.? I notice Galway is considering the City Class Trams.
I am looking for a zero carbon bus system that is up and running, ideally using hydrogen/methane/ammonia etc… I had thought of Cambridge’s hydrogen/pv system that was announced in 2001. Am I right to think that this scheme was never built?
Oslo has what I’ve heard is an excellent system of 200 (some reports say 400?) bio-methane buses, where the methane is produced at the city sewage works by anaerobic digestion.
If anyone wants to make suggestions of cities with bus fleets up and running on non-fossil-fuels then please let me know, and say why they represent global best practice.

There are many reasons for wanting less cars in our cities irrespective of their emissions. However good public transport is it will never be that effective in rural areas, and there will of course be some residual demand for cars however good the walking/cycling and public transport provision in cities. Quite what these cars will be fuelled with in 10 or 20 years time is obviously hotly contested. I understand lots of technologies are workable, just which will prove saleable and sustainable is the question.

Best wishes
Richard P

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Truth of the matter  – from the marvelous Electrical Review Gossage Column.

There has been much ribald laughter at the expense of the energy regulator, from the moment it published its grandiose ‘Discovery’ set of five scenarios for the next decade. Each of which admits the existing electricity system simply isn’t working.

Ever since electricity privatisation over 20 years ago, the regulator (then Offer, now Ofgem) has been the official cheerleader for the joys of total liberalisation. The philosophy was always that the untrammelled marketplace would deliver the most efficient services for everybody. Instead the converse is now admitted to be true.

Of course, Ofgem doesn’t quite put it like that in the commentary it provides. Allow me to provide the true interpretation:

Ofgem; “There is a need for unprecedented levels of investment to be sustained over many years in difficult financial conditions, and against a background of increased risk and uncertainty.”

Gossage: “We have let the fat cats and their shareholders take far too many dividend rises and bonuses, rather than investing in the infrastructure required to handle North Sea depletion”

Ofgem: “Short term price signals at times of system stress do not fully reflect the value that customers place on supply security, which may mean the incentives to make additional peak energy supplies available and to invest in peaking capacity are not enough”.

Gossage: “We have been using completely foolish regulatory criteria, sending precisely the wrong signals to the energy companies.”

Ofgem: “The higher costs of gas and electricity mean increasing numbers of customers are not able to afford adequate levels of energy.”

Gossage: “Our doctrinaire policies have been the cause of record numbers of households in fuel poverty. We’re panicking - the public will realise this, and want to string us all up from the nearest (unlit) street light”.

New breed of traders

My more devoted readers will have realised, on the whole, I think being part of the European Union is rather a good thing. I am therefore congenitally disinclined to pay much attention to the ranting of Europhobe organisations like Open Europe. However when they provide some useful insights which play to another of my prejudices, I am prepared to give them house room.

They have issued a study which analyses the impact of the EU emissions trading scheme. Courtesy of the trenchant words of the powerful House of Commons environmental audit committee, we all know the price of the permits has fallen through the floor – partly due to recession, mostly the over-generous supply of permits by European governments. This has been of very little benefit to the environment, as electricity companies aren’t motivated to switch to low carbon generation. And other participants in heavy industry aren’t motivated to use the electricity they buy even more efficiently.

But there is one sector benefiting from the trading scheme in a big way, says Open Europe. And those are the emission trading exchanges, through which all the permit trading goes. The two largest are called Bluenext and the European Climate Exchange.  Never heard of them? Think they are just entrepreneurial start-ups? Think again.

These entities include members like Barclays, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch. The very breed of banking folk who brought us the present recession. Who between them last year earned a combined average of €250,000 a day, just in transaction fees from the trading of carbon permits.

“Instead of producing a firm carbon price to encourage investment in greener technologies, the emissions trading scheme has become a subsidy to some of the biggest polluters, and has simply created a new breed of carbon traders, which are cashing in on a policy that is failing to achieve its core objective”, thunder Open Europe.  I have to admit. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

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