Now Brighton and Hove are planning a similar system. They successfully secured a £2.2 million grant from the EU for their project. Their 10 charging points will cost £30 000 altogether or £3000 each, quite a bit cheaper than the London counterparts.
The Australian model will be powered by renewable energy. The recharging stations will be powered by wind turbines.
Project Better Place will raise $1 billion to provide 250 000 recharging stations in the east of the country.
The similar Danish system is also run by wind turbines. Around 20% of Denmark’s electricity production comes from wind, but the fact that the car batteries are traded in to charge – and they store electricity from the grid – with a number of batteries charging at any one time means that wind power can provide base load even when the wind is not blowing.
In fact, 2 million electric cars in circulation would provide Denmark with a standby capacity of electricity over 5 times its needs.
The same company has already done the same in Israel.
Norway has about 50 recharging stations, but plans to have 400 on the go by 2011. The Norwegian Car company Think currently makes around 10 000 electric cars a year and can’t up with demand but does plan to open new factories to increase production.
Not to be left behind the Swedish Government are planning to provide a network of recharging stations across the country. It plans to be oil-independent by 2020.
The Finns seem to have taken a different approach. They have started a scheme where they convert your existing car to electric using lithium ion batteries. They claim that the top speed of your car will be a little less but the acceleration of the car will be better.
Even the Icelanders – slated by new Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy as being in an ‘Arc of Insolvency’ – have just shook hands on a deal with Mitsubishi to fleet test their electric cars in the country in 2009, similar to the New Zealand deal.
Another country in Murphy’s ‘Arc of Insolvency’, Ireland, will shortly announce plans to have 10% of all its cars powered by electricity by 2020. Project Better Place are already in talks with the Irish Government. Its predicted around 50 000 jobs could be created in Ireland with the establishment of such eco-friendly policies.
So much for the environmentally aware Scandanavians and the forward thinking Irish in their Arc of Prosperity you might say. What about Scotland?
Until recently Scotland had only one electric car. That was a G-Wiz, the electric car much used in London, with a slightly dodgy safety record. It also had only one public recharging station, in the Braehead Shopping Centre.
Its been funded by a £37 000 Community Scotland grant.
The Department of Transport is also planning to pilot a ‘green van’ scheme in various locations in England from Newcastle, Gateshead, and Liverpool to Leeds and Coventry. In Scotland only Glasgow has been selected.
James May, of BBC’s Top Gear, is not a fan of the Westminster Government’s ‘green transport’ policy:
‘People think it’s about style or performance, but it’s down to the science. There has to be a hydrogen infrastructure in place to provide the energy to make electric vehicles work properly. We are nowhere near that point.’
Far from ‘kick-starting’ the revolution, May says the Government is simply ‘window-dressing’. ‘There’s a feeble bit of Congestion Charge relief if your drive an electric vehicle. This is no more a Green-vehicle strategy than my cat,’ he says.
Newer electric cars like the Smart Fortwo Electric can plug into a mains socket, has a top speed of 70 mph and can travel for 75 miles without a recharge.
The new Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car, assembled by Lotus. It can do 0 – 60 in 3.9 seconds and can travel 244 miles on a single charge of its battery. Of course it does cost 99 000 euros or around £84 000.
75% of Scots in a recent survey said they would consider changing to an alternative powered car if they became readily available.
But if it doesn’t act soon Scotland could be the poor relation of Europe in electric car takeup.
Spain has announced a target of 1 million electric cars on its roads by 2014.
Germany is launching its own network of electric car recharging stations.
Portugal is also announcing its own network of recharging stations. It will build 1300 stations by 2011.
France has recently announced a $549 million investment in electric and hybrid cars.
With the SNP Government’s commitment to renewal energy surely the Danish model based on wind turbines is the way forward? The combination of providing much more base load than we need and have the rest exported, the reduction of carbon emissions and the prospect of being oil independent when the oil finally runs out must be the favourite way ahead.
‘The wind blows, the waves roll, the sun shines. The moon in the sky plucks at the sea to makes the tides, and Tennyson’s wild cataract leaps in glory. And he wasn’t talking about an eye infection. All of this will go on for as long as there is a world, and we need convert only a very tiny amount of it to electricity to keep driving until the sun goes out.’
In all the furore over the BBC Radio 2 prank call from Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to Fawlty Towers’ actor Andrew Sachs, a brighter type of prank call was played on Sarah Palin by two Quebec DJs Marc Antoine Audette and Sebastian Trudel Audette.
The Masked Avengers, as they are known, phoned Sarah Palin pretending to be Nicholas Sarkozy.
‘Nicholas Sarkozy’ talked to Sarah Palin about hunting, killing baby seals and his wife being so hot in bed! And from his house he could see Belgium!
A transcript of the prank call can be found at Daily Kos.
Eventually the Masked Avengers owned up it was a prank.
It was a prank call in a much better spirit than Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’ effort to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. For Jonathan Ross to tell a 78-year old grandfather that Russell Brand had ‘f**ked his granddaughter’ was in poor taste. Even if the grand-daughter, Georgina Baillie, is in a Burlesque group called The Satanic Sluts.
I don’t so much blame Brand and Ross for their call; sometimes comedy does go over the edge.
I blame the producers putting the show on air. Even after Andrew Sachs complained to the BBC that the call was offensive, it was still put on air.
If the call was pulled from the show and Sachs given a personal apology then all of this hoopla wouldn’t have begun.
Now Russell Brand has resigned, the Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas has resigned, and Jonathan Ross has a 12 week suspension.
Jonathan Ross is an experienced broadcaster and one of the BBC highest earners. His indiscretion, I felt, was worse than Russell Brand’s. Does his £18 million contract intimidate radio producers?
That’s the only thing I can think of why this call was aired.
Brand and Ross may have overstepped the mark. But they were doing their job. The producer wasn’t.
The BBC have now lost Brand and may still lose Ross.
They could probably do worse than give the Masked Avengers a shot.
A short piece on Gordon Brown’s management of the economy by the Renegade Economist Fred Harrison somewhat brings the Prime Minister’s policies into focus.
I don’t think anyone would argue that sport isn’t a factor in modern national identity.
Thats one reason that I don’t support Gordon Brown’s GB Olympic football team in the 2012 London Olympics.
To put at threat four nations football teams in order to promote Gordon Brown’s Britishness agenda is a ridiculuous notion.
But is Gordon Brown’s Britishness agenda beginning to unravel due to lack of public support? If reports from The Times are correct then the planned British Day has bit the dust:
“The great national day debate arrives at a consensus – let’s call it off.
“You can pack up the Union Jacks, cancel the street parties and tell the pet shop that you won’t be needing that bulldog after all. The government has quietly dropped plans to have a British Day.
“Gordon Brown had called for a day to celebrate British identity in a speech delivered in 2006, when he was still chancellor.
“Earlier this year an official report by Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney-general, had proposed that the first patriotic bank holiday should be held to coincide with the 2012 Olympics.
“However, Michael Wills, the justice minister (who says he’s responsible for something called “the governance of Britain agenda”), told MPs last week: “There are no plans to introduce a national day at this time.” “
If anyone doubts the influence of sport in national identity then they should look at today’s historic football match between Palestine and Jordan.
It is the first time the Palestine team will be playing on ‘home soil’. Its in the West Bank in front of a capacity 6500 crowd in the Faisal Al-Husseini International Stadium in AIRam, north Jersualem.
The Palestine football team was only recognised by FIFA in 1998, after the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
So having an actual Palestine football team playing in the West Bank must be incredibly symbolic to Palestinians. It represents another step on the road to a fully independent Palestine.
Personally I think the campaign is a little misplaced:-
I think London Buses are the wrong place for the advert!
The British Humanist Association should instead have targeted Rangers and Celtic football clubs.
Both clubs with a history of sectarian troubles.
Imagine the strips:
Now wouldn’t those make a concerted campaign against sectarianism?
Given that they started the campaign this morning and got enough funds by 10.06am they should now really go for the Old Firm!
It’s backed by well known evolutionist Professor Richard Dawkins:
“Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.
“Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.
“This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”
I thought it was interesting listening to Jim Spowart, founder of Standard Life and Intelligent Finance, on Sunday’s The Politics Show on BBC Scotland.
He offered the view that if the HBOS merger with the Lloyds TSB happened it could break the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England.
He estimated that around 100 000 jobs in Scotland, primarily in the central belt, could be lost if the proposed merger happens.
That figure includes jobs from businesses indirectly linked to the HBOS headquarters in Scotland, as well as the losses expected from HBOS themselves.
An absolutely huge figure.
The merger is seen as supported by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and even caused by his mismanagement of the economy in the first place.
So if 100 000 people did lose their jobs in the central belt I doubt they would have much incentive to vote Labour.
The fact that Labour’s heartlands in Scotland are in the central belt, especially in the west, probably won’t have escaped many Labour councillors, MSPs, MPs etc.
And as witnessed in the Glasgow East by-election those voters will predominately switch to SNP en masse.
The HBOS merger might just lead to Labour meltdown in Scotland.
And bring Scottish independence that much closer.
For all that, I doubt the SNP are cock-a-hoop wanting this merger to happen to finally realise their dream of independence. Independence could happen with any number of political scenarios; I very much doubt the SNP want Scotland to lose 100 000 jobs to achieve it.
Why pick the worst option to achieve independence when there is something inevitable about it happening anyway?
Any number of political scenarios could bring about independence for Scotland. The challenge for the Unionists is that each scenario they have to win; nationalists only have to win once: can anyone name a nation who once democratically free and independent actually wanted to go back to its old imperialist masters? That fact alone suggests that independence must be the best way forward for Scotland.
I don’t see Ireland wanting to be back in under UK rule, or Iceland – even with its current financial troubles – wanting to be back under Danish rule.
Independence will happen anyway. It would be a shame if it happened like this.
Newspapers have been quoting the survey by the World Economic Forum in which business leaders have been rating the solvency of world banks.
The rankings however were compiled just before the recent £50 billion bail-out by the UK, the nationalisation of the Icelandic banks and the larger US bail-out.
Now given this report was a survey of the world’s economists whose advice our banks were no doubt taking; should we believe it?
Are the UK’s banks really behind Peru, El Salvador and Senegal?
Or is it an accurate representation that is slightly out of date, compiled as it was slightly before the bail-outs?
That must depend on whether you believe the bail-outs will work.
If reports are to be believed the Royal Bank of Scotland is next in line to be nationalised tomorrow. If that happens then there will be further pressure on the remaining UK bank’s to be nationalised too. The banking sector could be picked off one by one by the market and the taxpayer forced to pick up the tab.
On that Iain Dale post there have already been comments about the English taxpayer bailing out the Scottish bank.
It must be a pity, to all those who carp, that Scotland is not already independent.
An independent Scotland with a similar oil fund like our neighbour Norway could be similarly insulated from these turbulent times.
It would also have the economic levers to maintain its economy best, not just for the South-East of England as remains the case today. Remember Eddie George, the former Governor of the Bank of England: Unemployment in the north is a price worth paying for affluence in the South!
Although the credit crunch is global, take a look back at those rankings.
Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands. All small countries lying in the top 10.
Even Ireland, who have recently guaranteed all deposits in their banks, are sitting 9th.
The argument that Scotland is too small to be financially unstable is farcical! I don’t hear anyone saying that Denmark is too small and should be run from Berlin. (Not since the days of Adolf Hitler and the Second World War anyway!)
As countries large and small struggle with the credit credit crunch from the U.S. and Russia down to Iceland with its 300 000 population, this population argument of independence must be seen to be invalid. Iceland, with a population slightly smaller than North Lanarkshire, isn’t exactly Miramont Gardens in Pimlico!
What matters now is that we take the right decisions to get out this mess.
Those decisions may be different for each country. They may even be different for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
That’s why its important key economic levers are devolved away from Westminster.
Otherwise the Eddie George syndrome will hamper ‘the North’ recovering for years.
So Gordon Brown has took a trip back in time in his new cabinet reshuffle.
And the shock recall has been the EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson as Business Secretary.
Peter Mandelson, a serial resigner from Cabinet in the past, will become a Lord to take the role.
Just how desperate is Gordon Brown? Appointing a controversial arch-Blairite with a history of trouble to his cabinet. Why??
Is Mandelson to become the new fall guy in the Cabinet, taking the heat from the Prime Minister?
How long will he last this time? And how will the public react?
Jim Murphy is appointed the new Scottish Secretary, taking over from Des Browne who was also relieved of his Defence portfolio. Des Browne was offered the Scottish Secretary job after sacked from Defence but felt the job was an ‘insult’.
So once again the Scottish Secretary is a full time job, as it was in the past.
Although it had been rumoured that the job was to be merged with the Northern Ireland and Wales job, as I hinted at in a previous article it would have been better for the Unionists to keep the jobs separate to try and thwart the nationalist advance in Scotland and Wales.
Definitely a case of the Labour Cabinet’s man in Scotland, not Scotland’s man in the Labour Cabinet.
Just in time to preside over the Glenrothes by-election and Motherwell and Wishaw by-election then.
To me, Jim Murphy’s voice just sounds like the Rev I.M. Jolly; especially when the minister had been partaking on the whisky. Its not what I would call upbeat!
So I look forward to hearing him explaining away the forthcoming by-election results.
“Ah’ve had a helluva year!”
Even if Labour somehow manage to win them both, his voice would send Labour activists jumping off the Erskine Bridge.
In another reshuffle, Alistair Campbell, former Press Officer for Tony Blair, returns to the Labour Government as external advisor.
So its back with Campbell and Mandelson then. The only person missing is Tony Blair and we’d be right back in the Nineties again. Of course, regular readers will recall I pointed out that Labour activists were calling for his return only just recently.
We couldn’t get any more ‘Back to the Future’ if Gordon Brown had arrived at 10 Downing Street in a De Lorean.
He must feel like Marty McFly fading away on stage, awaiting for the public to embrace the New Labour message.
Its a pity for him that we’re on the same trip as he is. Lightning won’t strike that clock tower twice!
The Campaign for an English Parliament has handily printed off Lord Coe’s outburst regarding his attempts to create a British National Football Team at the 2012 Olympics.
(Its just as well because the online version of The London Paper it seems has removed the story. If anyone has the printed edition its on Page 5.)
The key quote is:
But he said the BOA, which selects teams for the Games, has decided to press ahead with a football squad despite the opposition.
When asked last night about the opposition from the Welsh and Scots, Coe replied bluntly: “F*** em!”
Thanks, Seb!
How much are the Scots and Welsh taxpayers paying into the London Olympics bid again?
As I mentioned in a previous post, a joint GB football team would endanger the survival of all the Home Nation football teams. That’s precisely why Lord Coe’s plans have met with such opposition.
Lord Coe also confirmed that Alex Ferguson, the current Manchester United manager, has assured him he will be managing the side.
The London Paper reports that Lord Coe has obviously now changed Ferguson’s mind on the matter, who was initially reluctant.
He might be even more reluctant now.
As for Sebastian Coe? Can’t say I’m surprised. I always preferred Ovett anyway.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has just announced the Conservatives will introduce a freeze in Council Tax in England.
Of course, this successful SNP policy in Scotland was opposed by the Scottish Conservatives in the May 2007 Scottish election.
They argued for a reduction in council tax for pensioners instead.
Just how will they take the new Conservative policy in England?
And there is the rub.
No matter how much David Cameron says he believes in the Union, the Scottish Conservative Party and the UK Conservative Party are becoming more out of sync.
Of course, with devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland policy divergence between the Scottish branch of the Conservative Party (and for that matter the Liberal Democrats and Labour Party) and its UK counterpart is only to be expected.
And the longer devolution makes policy decisions that are only applicable to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the greater this policy divergence will become.
So it seems to me that it would be better for the Conservatives just to have done, and liberate their devolved partners and instead become the English Conservative Party.
This case applies more to the Conservatives who only have 1 MP in Scotland, and 3 MPs in Wales; than Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
That would leave the English Conservatives room to strongly argue the case for an English Parliament, or even ending the Treaty of the Union altogether.
It already has been the most dominant of the main parties giving proposals to try and answer the West Lothian Question. For example here and here and here and here and here are just some of the Conservative proposals. Yet English votes for English matters may just bring about the end of the Treaty of Union anyway.
And ditching its support of the Treaty of the Union could make an English Conservative Party the main party of Government in England for decades to come.
David Cameron may be against Independence for Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales now, but if the planned 2010 referendum in Scotland doesn’t end up with Scotland leaving the UK, he may find that Labour will once again regain control of the UK purely because of its Scottish and Welsh MPs.
And if the West Lothian Question has not been answered by then, the pressure on his party to change position may become unbearable.
Surely taking a long-term view it is better to change now whilst ahead in the polls and in a position of strength?
Right now, their professed support for the Union in words isn’t backed by their actions.
For example, their plans for a high-speed rail network that only goes as far north as Leeds.
Now David Cameron may say that he will run the line up to Scotland at a later date – he doesn’t say when – but I doubt it will convince Scots voters.
Again, a high-speed rail link was SNP policy, but obviously they planned for the service to go between Edinburgh and London.
The Conservatives need to come clean on their view of the Union:
They need to back up their words with actions.
Or will they steal another SNP policy? Independence?
Posted by northbritain 
