7 September 2013
It seemed like a good idea, in the heat of the moment, to go and visit a Physiotherapist friend in deepest mid Wales in an Electric car but was it really? Battery exhausting mountains, few and far between charging points,a large dog and a three month old baby in tow. Would it all end in disaster? We headed for Llangollen first as we had a special arrangement with the Sun Inn from previous trips to the Eglwyseg escarpment- order a meal and the chef would plug the charging cable in through the kitchen window while you eat.
A journey in this country dosen’t seem to offer much adventure or challenge compared to a range of mountains on foot or a remote range of rainforested hills on a mountain bike. We just simply get in our car and go there with only the possibility of getting a bit lost or a traffic jam as any real excitement and, unfortunately, at a massive cost to the environment and to the peace and quiet of people who live on that route.
Obviously the best way to travel in this country is public transport , bike or on foot. A bike or train can use as little as 3kwh of energy compared to the massive 80kwh per 100km travelled that a car uses (1). The average petrol engine is 25% efficient whereas an electric motor can be 90% efficient(1). Our Citroen C zero uses 18kwh of energy per 100km, so is a compromise, and moves along in ghost-like silence. It costs about two pounds to drive 80 miles at current electricity prices, is leased for 180 pounds a month, has no road tax or service costs so actually works out cheaper to run than a lot of conventional vehicles. We charge it when possible using solar energy or at night when wind or other low carbon energy production predominates and the national demand drops dramatically. Electric cars batteries when plugged in to the grid may even provide a reservoir in the future for excess electricity production to help cope with peak demand.
We drove through Snowdonia recovering the energy lost on the way up the huge inclines on the way down and stopped for the night at Machynlleth, charging up the next morning at The Centre of Alternative Energy on mountain stream hydroelectricity whilst looking round the centre. This is a really thought provoking place looking to find solutions to possibly the worlds most pressing issue- global warming. A water driven funicular takes you up to the centre, on the site of an old mine, showing how we can generate alternative energy, sustainable building methods with gardens demonstrating permaculture and composting techniques. We had lunch in the amazing cafe eating delicious healthy local produce and then headed on, car charged up again by C.A.T’s hydroelectric scheme.
We headed down the coast making one or two diversions to places such as the Machynlleth sixth form education centre, which is Britains first commercial Passivehaus building. Passivehaus is a system adopted in Germany over twenty years ago for designing buildings to have incredibly low heating and electricity energy usage. This is achieved in the education centre by having heavily insulated walls, floors and ceilings with airtight tripleglazed windows and heat exchange ventilation and is a beautiful building clad in local Larch. The director gave us a tour round the light, airy and incredibly comfortable building and explained that last years heating bill for a building the size of five average houses had been only one hundred and thirty six pounds. PassiveHaus is now becoming a compulsory building standard in new construction in parts of Germany, light years ahead of the building industry in this country. We also stopped also at the Osprey Centre just outside Machynlleth, an area of marshy estuary that had been non-native forestry seven years earlier but has now been regenerated with native species and the help of some very happy water buffalo to turn the ground over. A nesting pair of Osprey were in residence in the centre of the transformed landscape and another newly observed Osprey even passed over looking for nesting sites while we were there.
We headed on towards Cardigan, into one of the least populated regions of Wales. No charging points in any direction for miles! The hills in Midwales are still quite large and, with all the diversions we had made, as we neared Cardigan, the battery was getting dangerously low. Nervously we stopped at a garage where the owner thought it hilarious when asked if we could plug in for half an hour and took photos whilst refusing any money. It turned out to be all downhill from there to our destination so we needn’t have bothered after all. There seems to be a lot of worry about the range of electric cars, which does perhaps become an issue when crossing Wales but hasn’t been for us otherwise in the last year. The vast majority of car journeys made in this country are well within the 80 mile range of this car and in this age of hypermobility should the question really be why we are not using public transport for longer journeys?
Several days later and we were heading back. We decided to stop in Aberwystwyth for lunch and charge up at the University technology park whilst there. A medical technology firm there provides the only charging place in this area and has a huge Photovoltaic array to supply the charging point. We headed on to Welshpool, and stopped at a B and B farm at the side of Offa’s Dyke. The farmer explained that evening that the county of Powys that stretches from the borders across to the coast has always been a progressive place and that when secondary education was first introduced for the masses in England and Wales in the 19th century, Powys was one of the first areas to raise donations and build the first school. As we cruised home to Cheshire the next morning I wondered if this history of progressive thought was one of the reasons why across this county there are numerous wind turbines, low energy school buildings, regenerated landscapes and an enlightened council(2). When would the North West of England catch up?
(1) Sustainable energy without the hot air. David JC Mackay (available online)
(2) Powys ‘efficient services for the green heart of Wales.’ www.powys.gov.uk
Warrington and Halton Green Party RSS Feed