Fuel for thought

F u e l f o r THOUGHT

A road map for going electric – Updated, 6 months on

We've been dwelling on the very latest, long awaited, government strategic plans for zero carbon road transport, with their massive grants towards electrification, much of it for the motor industry, and tax breaks and incentives for businesses and company car users to switch to EVs. It is evident that such planning proposes little change in Britain regarding general patterns of personal and commercial transport. Unless there's a hidden agenda, private cars and HGVs will not become relics of the past, as did horses when motor cars appeared. It took some decades for horses to disappear, during which period motor cars were primarily for the rich. Could the same be the case with fossil fuel cars and electric vehicles, if we have a long wait for the truly affordable EV to match Henry Ford's “car for the masses”, the Model T? Many are crying out for an expansion of public transport, where buses, trains, and coaches can be clean and energy efficient when running close to capacity. But, with the service obligations of regional bus and train franchises, many buses and trains at times run near empty, yet often run at 120% capacity in peak hours, with people standing in crowded corridors, some having had reserved seats stolen by opportunists, with no staff available to ensure fair play. That's shameful behaviour, when people have paid good money for a seat.

But Britain's prime choice to boost future rail travel was HS2. It's hard to be optimistic that this project makes sense, it's been very badly promoted, and its costs have escalated madly. The price equates to several thousand pounds for every UK household, vast numbers of which will see no direct benefits. Hidden advantages are claimed though for motorists, as it's projected that HS2 will free up existing rail tracks for large numbers of freight trains, each of which will, in theory, take 75 trucks off the road, thereby freeing those roads up for motorists. But the projected cost of HS2, quoted at around £300 million per mile, and still rising, compares badly with new motorways, which cost a mere fraction of that figure, and we could have had around 1,400 miles of new motorway for the price of 140 miles of HS2 Stage One. For example, new motorways from Norwich to Swansea, from Dover to Exeter, Felixstowe to Liverpool, and from Cambridge to Bristol, plus another 500 miles. It's been a devil of a decision to proceed with HS2, and only history will tell whether the gamble will be worth it. To be fair, countries like Japan and France have thrived for decades on fast train transport, so should we decry the obvious efficiency of such systems? The problem is that HS2 is, at best, going to cover just 330 miles, versus around 1,700 miles of high speed rail in France or Japan. To put Britain on a par with them would cost around five times the price of HS2!

So what future transport prospects for Britain might just cheer us up? A recent study says we could eliminate the vast emissions of road freight with overhead charging cables for electrified trucks, using E-Highways, strategically spread across the country. The planned network would, they say, cost a mere £20 billion, a fraction of HS2, and put all but the most remote parts of the UK within reach by the 2030s. A trial 19-mile stretch of E-Highway on the M180 in North Lincolnshire has been mooted for tests by 2024, although we've heard very little about the electrified trucks to run on it. It offers a realistic alternative to spending billions switching freight transport to hydrogen power when there's precious little truly green hydrogen available. What green hydrogen there is, would, some argue, be better fed into existing natural gas networks for domestic heating, avoiding the scrappage of millions of perfectly fit, and many very efficient, modern gas boilers that are easily modified to use hydrogen/natural gas mixes, and in time pure hydrogen.

What about similar on-road charging of passenger EVs? We know that trials have taken place, both here and in Sweden, using electrified rails set in the road, feeding the cars electric energy, just like Scalextric cars, but with a small storage battery. You don't need to electrify all the roads, just a core network, with a relatively small storage battery to take you maybe 50 or 100 miles off the charging network, depending on needs. That alone could greatly reduce demand for costly, and scarce, battery raw materials, reduce electric vehicle weights, and solve a lot of charging problems. Victor Harman