It may not be THE answer, but it is AN answer.

Top Gear got me thinking this evening. For those of you who didn’t see it, Clarkson and May conducted an uncharacteristic sober and objective review of the two 100% electric offerings from Nissan and Peugeot. Nicely made cars, on the expensive side (the Peugeot especially which was monumentally ugly and prohibitively expensive for what you get at £30k) but the consensus was positive. Except for the electro-motors Achilles heels – range and charge rate.

The distances that electrical cars are capable of covering are just too limited to be of practical use for anyone looking to cover much more than 30 miles a day, and the charge times (around 12 hours from flat to full charge) are just too long for most users.

With the best will in the world we have to accept that reserves of oil are very definitely finite, bugger the ecological aspect, just for logistics and economics we need to develop alternatives and develop them now.

I’m far from convinced that electrically powered cars are the answer. Not just for reasons of practicality, but also the cost of the unit, the cost of charging (they have to be charged from the mains and electricity bills are soaring almost as much as the charges we see for petrol and diesel) and the fact that the electricity has to come from somewhere. The juice flowing from the wall to the car does not magically appear from nowhere, there is a power station at the end of the line, either burning coal or gas – themselves using limited fossil reserves, or nuclear. Nuke stations I have no problem with, but plenty of the people who will gladly shell out the extra for a leccy car will have a very real problem with it, and sorry, wind and solar just ain’t gonna provide the power.

James May reasonably made the point that Honda have the answer in hydrogen powered cars. Yes, getting the hydrogen into a tank and powering a motor isn’t an easy task, but is it really much more difficult than the extraction, refining and distribution process for crude oil?

In the short term, if we do need to wean ourselves off petrol electric cars then electric is the only answer, if only we could get around the range and charging issues. Well, that and the decidedly ecologically unfriendly way the cars have to be made.

The Top Gear guys came up with the tongue-in-cheek idea of running a dodgem style wire grid over the top of the road. Obviously and intentionally ridiculous. But there is a solution to the problem, and it is a very old solution as well.

Back in the days before cars and trains there was a network of horse drawn stagecoaches around the country, in order to keep to some semblance of a timetable, once you factored in the bloody awful roads, cracked wheels axles and people holding you up for your lupins, at points on the route, the tired horses would be changed for fresh ones with the old horses being stabled, given some oats and some kip before being hitched to another stagecoach when they were ready.

How difficult would it be for the car producers to use a battery of uniform dimension and connection? How much of a cushion against the oil running out would it be for the petrol stations and oil companies to offer a service where you pull up onto the forecourt, remove your expiring battery, place it into the charging rack, take a fully charged one, insert it into the car, pay up and drive off?

Yes, there would be logistical issues, but surely it couldn’t be that difficult, could it? The USB has done the same for computing, why not a similar interface for cars?

Just saying.

Also available on thesnowolf.com

The One That Can Prove They Want Us Dead. . .

Problem.

You have a huge welfare budget and in the current climate you cannot afford to foot the bill.

You cannot cut the benefits you hand out, as to do so would be political suicide.

How to rationalise your outgoings? You cannot restrict the access for some targeted areas of society as you would be open to accusations of certain '-isms'.

Your research shows that your biggest drains on the public purse, beyond your 5-A-day officers and your Community Cohesion Empowerment Outreach Advisors are young single mothers, their pre-school children and the elderly.

You notice that all your biggest drains all do the same thing. They hang around the centre of town aimlessly milling around until they are allowed back into the B&B or the social pop-in day centre opens for its one afternoon that week.

I know, let's kill them! Let's kill them and make it look like we had nothing to do with it!

That is exactly what Ashford Borough Council has done with its introduction of shared space.

Shared space is public roads where there is no division of usage for motor-traffic, cycle traffic and pedestrian traffic. What could be a better idea?

I grew up in the borough of Ashford and have very strong links to the town, I am a fanatical supporter of the town's football team and have a number of friends who live there. I have yet to see this wonderful idea with my own eyes, but hope to rectify this on Saturday. The feedback I've received from everyone in the town is the same; 'madness, complete madness, somebody will die.'

But it will reduce the burden on the tax payer when these people are killed, plus you can also use this to continue your campaign of hate against motorists. 'Look! Look at the bad motorist who ploughed into this young woman of 14 and her three kids. His attention was probably diverted by the filthy cigarette he was smoking.'

Perhaps those at Ashford Borough Council had been down to Howletts Wildlife Park, one of the local attractions (and a very impressive one at that) where they have used the same theory of shared space between animals and visitors. Of course it should be pointed out that you are sharing space with a family of lemurs. I don't think there are any plans to tear down the very sturdy fences between guests and tigers just yet. Although this seems to be what Ashford Borough Council have done.

It is only a matter of time before lessons are learned.

As an aside, I've also been told by an Ashford resident that there is a plan for the fun-fair to come to town and for bumper cars, coconut shy and all to be set up for the enjoyment of all. . . in an underground car park.

World class!