Fuel cell tram trial in Spain

Details here: http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/10/fuel-cell-tram-trial.html

Electric lorries?

De-carbonising cars by going electric seems feasible, but what about road freight? How could we have hybrid lorries? Interesting blog here, and its worth reading the comments.

http://bit.ly/cvloBx

I’ve been following the http://www.shanghai-to-paris-en.blogspot.com/
Xavier Chevrin and Geraldine Gabin are driving a modified electric Belingo from Beijing to Paris and have crossed into Ukraine. More here: http://www.shanghai-paris.fr/

Are drivers of hybrids more likely to go electric?

I was at SEAT today. Their all electric concept car is five years from the showroom. They will have a plug-in hybrid available later this year. I’m still not sure whether these cars are a necessary stage between petrol and 100% electric. On the one hand the hybrids allow quiet, lower polluting, short range urban travel (@50km) while also allowing longer petrol fuelled journeys. On the other hand the complexity of two drive systems operating in tandem means these cars have greater embedded carbon in their manufacture (roughly equivalent to six years of use?). I wonder whether hybrid drivers are more likely to move on to 100% electric?

Can we apply the drugs argument – Marijuana is a gateway drug to Heroin, hybrids are a gateway to all electric. Bad analogy actually, dope smokers can move on to harder drugs, but overall evidence discredits the ‘gateway’ theory.

A problem with carbon trading

We’ve just spent a day on Tromso, an island where the inhabitants have in theory a carbon negative life-style because their energy co-operatives own wind turbines that export surplus electricity to the rest of Denmark. However the people of Tromso still drive, they are burning the black stuff and emitting CO2. Many eat meat and import food with all the embedded carbon that implies. So they – like all of us – have an absolute impact on the planet. Where they differ is that their export of clean energy reduces the impact (carbon emissions) of others. But they are not actually living a low carbon lifestyle. And this is my fundamental problem with carbon trading – at least in its present form. It can allow people to say their life-style is carbon negative when it is in fact no such thing. To be fair to the people of Tromso, they are working on a new plan to electrify their islands transport, and in their co-operatively owned energy biomass and wind energy plant they are providing social as well as technical models for a low impact, low carbon society. So don’t get me wrong, I think what they have achieved as a community is marvellous, but even they haven’t yet gone far enough on the path to low-impact living.

Ferry capacity to charge electric cars

I have just looked up the vital statistics of the ship that will take us from Harwich to Esbjerg. The m.s Dana Sirena is run by DFDS seaways and has room for 623 passengers and 435 cars. If all those cars were electric and were charging at 2.2 kW (220W x 10A) they would take a total of 957 kW from the ship. The ships two Wartsila engines produce 9450 kW so this is feasible but would add quite a load. It will be interesting to meet the captain tomorrow after we board and see what he has to say on the matter.

http://www.dfdsseaways.co.uk/onboard/shipfacts/danasirena

Record Growth in Photovoltaic Capacity

An estimated 7,300 megawatts (MW) of new solar photovoltaic (PV) power capacity was installed in 2009—20 percent more than was added in 2008. With this record addition, global installed PV capacity surpassed 21,000 megawatts, producing enough power to satisfy the annual electricity use of about 5.5 million households. In addition, 127 MW of solar thermal electric power plants came online in 2009, bringing the total operating capacity of such plants to 613 MW. Solar energy harnessed by PV and thermal electric plants now meets about 1 percent of electricity demand in Germany and more than 2 percent of demand in Spain.

We picked up our car yesterday

This is the THINK city and the team who will travel together around Europe.

Ultracapacitor Buses

The best ultracapacitors can only store about 5 percent of the energy that lithium-ion batteries hold, limiting them to a couple of miles per charge. But what ultracapacitors lack in range they make up in their ability to rapidly charge and discharge. So in vehicles that have to stop frequently and predictably as part of normal operation, energy storage based exclusively on ultracapacitors begins to make sense.

17 forty-one seat municipal buses demonstrate how effective using capacitors can be on the outskirts of Shanghai. Some bus stops along the route are charge stations. Sinautec’s ultracapacitor buses take big sips of electricity every two or three miles at designated charging stations, which double as bus stops. When at these stations, a collector on the top of the bus rises a few feet and touches an overhead charging line. Within a couple of minutes, the ultracapacitor banks stored under the bus seats are fully charged.

BBC Electric Ride leaves 7th June from London

This will be the first you have heard from me for a couple of years. The BBC Radio 4 commissioned Whistledown Radio (and me) to make four documentaries describing our journey by electric car around Europe. Follow us at www.facebook.com/BBCelectricride, twitter/BBCelectricride and youtube/BBCR4electricride

And please listen to BBC Radio 4 Saturday 19th at 10.30am and at the same time for the following three Saturdays.