The Blogs

To kick start the debate we've invited a panel of well known experts to share their views on the proliferation of hybrid cars.

View by category:

View by contributor:

Blogroll

Calendar

Options

  • Where will the hybrid fleet get its energy? by Roger Kemp
  • Politics & Energy | 9:26 a.m. | Thu 13 Dec 2007

  • Many of the UK’s power stations are ageing and will need to be replaced in the next 10 years. But if we set ourselves the goal of making every car on the road a hybrid, we’d have accommodate new electrical loads of 25 million large battery-chargers. This would require either three more fossil-fuel power stations like Drax in North Yorkshire; six new nuclear plants like Heysham in Lancashire; or 10,000 wind turbines.

    The easy option for the government would be to build more power stations fuelled by oil, gas or coal. But this would not fulfil the potential of a hybrid fleet, since there is no point generating electricity from fossil-fuels and transmitting it across the country through the national grid, only to put it through a battery charger and into the battery of an electric vehicle. One might as well just burn petrol or diesel in the car.

    Natural gas produces rather less CO2 than oil, but the UK is already concerned about security of supply when most of our gas comes from Russia and its eastern neighbours.

    Coal is more plentiful, but coal-fired power stations produce far more CO2 than other fossil fuels. It is theoretically possible to capture the CO2 using a chemical process before the fuel is burned (the creation of so-called "clean coal"), or by extracting it from power station exhaust fumes. However, these techniques have so far only been demonstrated at 1/1000th scale, and to build a fleet of power stations using such technology would, at present, be a formidable challenge.

    Nuclear power is therefore at the core of the government’s energy strategy. However, plans to build new reactors are facing major resistance from the public and special-interest groups, over worries about proliferation and long-term waste policy.

    The final option, renewable energy, is in principle the ideal solution. But, so far, it accounts for only a few per cent of the UK’s electricity generating capacity, and there is no point using it for road vehicles if, to provide electricity for homes and businesses, we then have to burn more coal or gas.

  • comment

Comments

Your thoughts