Open Letter to G Pascoe-Watson

Open letter to g.pascoewatson@the-sun.co.uk

The generation of electricity for charging the batteries of all the electric cars allegedly envisaged by Boris Johnson and The Establishment - how eco-friendly will that be - and where will all that power come from?

Dear Mr Pascoe-Watson, just glanced at page 2 of the Sun, and I had to make a quick check that I am in fact living on the same planet as those persons (irrespective of political party they belong to) that are either ignorant of, or choosing to ignore the laws of applied physics.
It's all very well Mr Johnson (presumably still a Tory) declaring his intention to install 25,000 (time span not specified in your article of 09-04-2009) power-points for an unspecified number of vehicles per day, but plainly he like most of the politicians do not have a clue with regard to the logistics of electricity generation and distribution. Or any other kind of Network for that matter - for instance Communications & Data Networks. Which of the power companies are jumping up and saying "Wait a minute you just can't do it like that!"?
Electron powered cars, from rechargeable fuel cells such as Lithium Ion Batteries, may well have zero carbon emissions at the point of power delivery, but what about the electron source required to charge up these cells? What about all the power stations connected to the national grid? What about the extra pollution, carbon based or otherwise (nuclear), from these? Oh I know, we'll just use the oil we save in refining petrol, and burn it to produce more electricity! At least we can centralise the pollution problem to the power generating station sites. Doh!
There is a far more pressing eco-problem than electric cars.
Below is an extract from a letter sent to the Bucks Herald

Dear Editor,
Great breaking news (Saturday March 28) for those like myself in Aylesbury Vale who are concerned regarding the consequences of ‘shoe-horning’ another 20,000 dwellings and at least 50,000 occupants into this area. Apparently, new house building has dropped from 185,000 per year to 60.000 due to the meltdown of the UK economy. And may well drop further in the inevitable depression that will predictably ensue. This may well be bad news for the 5 million reportedly on UK Housing Waiting Lists but can only be good news for those opposing expansion in the Aylesbury area.
There are good logical and practical reasons why the proposed expansion cannot be supported.

Forget about schools, teachers, hospitals, doctors, roads etc., just consider the Water Cycle for example. The daily water requirement of 50,000 persons is about 7.5 million litres or 1.65 million gallons. Which waterworks are going to supply and treat all this extra water?
Where will the extra daily minimum of 1.65 million gallons of sewage and drainage be treated – surely not the local Sewage Works' that allegedly struggle to deal with the current loading?
Or are the Water Companies intending to save enough water by metering ALL properties in The Vale, fixing all the leaks in the aging distribution network and then pricing water high enough to decrease the unit daily consumption by at least 50%? Incidentally, doing this would decrease the resulting volume of sewage, but the biological pollution loading would still be the same at any sewage treatment plants.
What about gas and electricity supplies for 20,000 homes?
My 1976 3-bedroom property in Aylesbury Vale, with two occupants, has double-glazing and wall and roof insulation, with cooking using electricity, and water heating and central heating by gas. Our peak usage of electricity is roughly 10 kW hours (Units) per day in winter, and includes power for tumble dryer and the electric oven. Assuming the new houses would be of similar design and with the same thermal efficiency as mine we would be looking at an extra peak daily electricity demand of 200,000 kW hours. Would the National Grid and the local electricity distribution network have the capacity to cope? Let us not forget that by 2025 the big PFB Data Centre at the old Molins site (as featured in the Bucks Herald Business News) may possibly be gobbling up enough electricity to power 78,000 homes - where’s all that coming from?
Gas is even more problematic when one considers that recently the UK had reportedly just 4 days’ worth of gas reserves in hand. The total gas consumption for our house during January 2009 was the equivalent of 1754 kW hrs to give a daily average for that month of about 56 kW hrs – nearly six times that of the electricity. For another 20,000 homes like ours we would be talking about 1.12 million extra gas equivalent kW hrs. No wonder the energy companies won’t bring down the price of gas!
Although I guess I know the answer, apart from the so-called ‘key workers’, and military personnel exactly who are these 5 million entrants in the House Waiting Lists? And what mix would the 50,000 Aylesbury Vale Settlers consist of.

Name and address supplied.

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