Our electric road will be Great Britain green car revolution kickstart | Dale Vince

The point of loading car of ecotricity in Michaelwood M5 services. Photo: Professional images

Today launched the first national freight network for electric cars. This may sound a bit grand, something quite beautifully simple - a series of load jobs installed by Ecotricity in services of Highway across the country. Charging stations for electric cars, are easy to access and free use. That allows drivers of electric cars from Britain to the length and breadth of the country, with all the advantages of pull simply in a motorway service station to the top unit.

Why are we building? After all there are only about 2,000 electric cars on the road today. In fact, is a large part of the reason: the lack of demand.

It is often said that one of the reasons most people don't buy electric cars is the lack of facilities: load, while the reason not built cargo facilities more says that it is because there are not enough people are buying electric cars: Classic things egg and the hen. We are hoping to break this impasse.

Another barrier to the assimilation is "range anxiety": the fear of running out of juice when traveling to any kind of serious distance.

So here is where our network – we hope Britain electric car revolution will help kickstart.

We chose the motorway network for good reason. Emphasis to date, with burden of posts, big cities and centres: I think that it is really where it is needed as a minimum. Car use statistics point to this.

The average in Britain car travels approximately 20 miles a day, a distance that they can sustain more modern electric cars for almost a week without charge. And the majority of car owners have access to private parking (70% apparently) – and are therefore capable of charging at home, at night. Most cars do not need to load, almost every day. It is the longest travel load is needed more.

We have chosen the power of this network is carefully too. Our points will be wind - and in this we are making a serious point. Britain needs to switch to electric cars as fast as possible, but that alone is not enough. Where does the electricity is of vital importance. Electric cars must run on renewable sources of energy, the energy of the wind and the Sun - only then be done full zero potential emissions from driving.

And we can do as a nation? Can you manage all wind-powered electric cars? The Statistics say so.

There are about 28 m cars on the roads of Great Britain, 150bn driving miles a year, burning about 20 million tons of oil and producing 70 million tonnes of CO2 (12 per cent of the total of our emissions). Incredible numbers, but we could power all that with only about 10,000 of today's wind turbines and 5,000 tomorrow (which double in size every few years).

Can the grid take? It should an increase in electricity online through the grid of 12%, much less that many people think that. And context, before the credit crunch, delivery of grid electricity grew around 3% per year (for what they are talking about normal growth in four years only for cars all of United Kingdom). And the majority of load will take place at night, at times of low demand. The grid can easily cope, in fact if Great Britain changed to electric vehicles that the network operates more efficiently.

And this. One of the truly revolutionary aspects of electric cars is that we can be our own oil companies: we can make our own electricity - and our own car of food. A typical 5 kW rooftop solar system, for example, could provide some 5,000 miles of driving for a year, free of pollution (and fuel duty).

Before this, perhaps in due course, "anxiety" about electric cars will increase from motorists to oil companies.

? Dale Vince is the founder of the Ecotricity green energy company

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Hinkley C nuclear power station gets green light for preparations

Station of nuclear energy of Hinkley point. Preparatory work on the site of C Hinkley has given the go-ahead. Photography: Martin Argles the Guardian

The work is to begin at the site of the first nuclear power plant built in Britain for 20 years, despite fierce opposition from activists who say it will ruin the Somerset coast.

Officials have approved plans of Hinkley C to begin preparatory work and the developers of the site, EDF energy, said that the central will help Britain secure supply power and boost the local economy.

Anti-nuclear campaigners believe West Somerset District Council has been pressured by the Government to approve the site and villagers whose lives will be affected to say the project would change forever the area.

Crispin Aubrey, the campaign Stop Hinkley, argued that the work would leave a "devastated Páramo" and said that it was "inaccurate" to describe the work that EDF has given permission for such as "preparatory".

"The measurement of the activity, the removal of Hedges and trees, more vegetation, more than two million cubic meters of Earth and rock excavation, the change of route of groundwater flows, the creation of roads and roundabouts, major changes in the landscape... means indeed is the beginning of the construction of Hinkley C proposed nuclear power station"He said.

He stated that the "primary" to continue pressure had come from the Government and requested Councillors at a meeting of the Somerset District Council Planning Committee west: "are you willing to replace local concerns because the Government is based in"?

"The real purpose of this application is not significantly advance the time of the new plant, it is destroying everything that is valuable on the site so that when the main application for the central to the infrastructure planning Commission [IPC] will meet with less opposition."

"If the site is covered with concrete, then it will be much easier for the decision in their favour."

Nikki Clark, also of the campaign to Stop Hinkley, said had been made there is enough work to assess the risk of Hinkley C damaged due to rising sea levels.

"Course events in Fukushima nuclear sites are a timely reminder of the consequences of coastal floods", added.

A third group member, Helen Grant, told the meeting: "Nuclear was the flavor of the month before Fukishima." "Now the Governments around the world reeling in nuclear."

Opponents of the plan have pointed out that if the Government was cold on nuclear energy or EDF decided to withdraw from the project, the area would be "the largest in Europe bore".

However, not all local residents against the regime, and many feel that it will create jobs in an area that is much needed and has lived with nuclear power plants for more than 50 years.

David Rosser, the Southwest and the regional director for Wales of the Confederation of British industry, said: "We consider fundamental that we are able to guarantee a combination of secure energy and low carbon for United Kingdom in the decades to come."

Rupert Cox, Director Ejecutivo Somerset Chamber of Commerce, said: "is an opportunity for the local economy: thousands of jobs during construction, hundreds of millions of pounds for the local economy and the skills and training in Somerset and the many years of operation kickstart".

EDF will immediately present requests for various necessary permits to construct, Commission, operate and to unsubscribe the Hinkley C. present nuclear power station order of development consent: permission of total planning - this year's infrastructure planning Commission.

The company has promised to restore the site if the compilation does not continue. It says that it will create 500 jobs during the preparatory phase, and is plowing 25 million GBP in minimizing the impact of the work in the communities and the local environment.

He said the plant will be safe and will help to ensure the supply of energy in Great Britain.

The Chief Executive of federated, Vincent Rivaz, thanked the Councillors for granting work permits to proceed.

"Has taken an important decision that allows a project which is vital for the country," he said. "We are committed to listen to the community and to offer this investment in partnership with the people of Somerset".

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Letters: Loosen green ring rules

The National Trust is incorrect to say that the Government is weakening its commitment to protect our environment (planning rules fire sparks green belt warning, 27 June). Preserve the character of the landscape of our country and by checking the dispersion without restrictions of built-up areas are key priorities in our new national planning policy framework.

Illustration: Gillian Blease

This new document guarantees national protection values as green belt areas of natural beauty and sites of special scientific interest, as well as ensuring measures to protect wildlife, biodiversity and cultural heritage, and that against light pollution. It also proposes a new name to protect local green spaces need of special protection. Far from having the potential to cause degradation of the environment, the framework protecting the invasion area and prohibit the development which is clearly in conflict with its powerful environmental protection.

Matrix confusing and contradictory of the above work planning of condensation is part of a series of broader reforms for sustainable development and protecting the environment. Planning has become the reserve of lawyers, City Hall officials and pressure groups; This Government is determined to have a system that truly represents and serves the interests of local communities.

Bob Neill MP

Minister of planning

? A favorite trick of the developers of shrewd speculator is permission during the holidays in summer or Christmas, when the people's attention is elsewhere. Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for the environment, is playing the same game destruction with its new white paper on planning regulations.

The central idea of this new policy, which slipped out, while the Parliament is on vacation, is to loosen rules of planning to ensure that, unless an area is designated a national park or area of natural beauty, there is no defence against any developer that wants to develop anything anywhere.

Britain has a good reputation to protect the beautiful countryside and ancient built environment. Thanks to reasonably strict rules for planning, since the second world war, have medrol protect our heritage against the worst excesses of urban sprawl and sporadic development in rural areas.

No more. The Government, under pressure from big business, wants developers to rule off. Communities and local authorities will be unable to prevent large scale development on greenfield sites. If you object to this document, write to Eric Pickles MP.

Tony Foster

Tywardreath, Cornwall

? While properly concerned about the laws of planning of new proposals, recording "a decent ambition" to involve those affected by planning decisions in the process of making them (Editorial, July 28). But to what extent persons actually affected has something to say in the determination of the laws and the resulting processes?

Most participants in the consultations, in addition to the developers, are national organizations with the resources to get deeply involved. Local residents affected, either alone or in neighbourhood organizations, will fight with the effort and time, not to mention the laborious printing of consultation documents available only online and rarely in local libraries.

Bernard Wainewright

Hatch end, Middlesex

? Peter Hetherington (society, 27 July) regrets the decision of the Government of scrap of planning rules to convert commercial property in the residential. In Britain, the price of real estate residential has increased much more than commercial. Scrap rules could be a relatively cheap way to more homes. Moreover, criticized the decision to leave to the Councils to accept payments from developers, since this would allow "permission to be bought or sold". Really? Is this different from what we saw at work, where the construction of a new supermarket requires x number of affordable housing? Was how costly this process of negotiation for businesses and advice, money and time? The new system could be said that this simplifies and gives advice discretion in what areas they feel need money spent rather than dictated by the central Government.

Paul Negrotti

Greenford, Middlesex

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Jon Huntsman can configure itself as Republican green kamikaze | Suzanne Goldenberg

Many people have already written out Republican Jon Huntsman for the White House term. But their willingness to defend his record as ecologist - at a time when other Republicans fleeing theirs - suggests that Huntsman himself does not assess their chances in the race for the party nomination in 2012. Perhaps determined to go out with their guns blazing: a Republican green kamikaze.

Huntsman, a former Governor of Utah, which until a few months ago Barack Obama Ambassador to China, was the keynote speaker at a dinner organized by the Republicans for environmental protection on the night of Thursday.

Huntsman used the appearance to reaffirm its conviction in the preservation and to review their efforts as Governor of Utah to switch official vehicles to natural gas.

"Conservation is conservative," Huntsman told the group that had less than 200 people at the dinner. "I am not ashamed of being conservation."
He added: "Also I think that science should lead our discussions on climate change".

Let's be clear: Huntsman, during his time in Utah, not anywhere near as green as other Governors even Republican colleagues as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The event on Thursday night was sponsored by the nuclear and natural gas companies. -only allies of Greenpeace. and Huntsman actually uttered the words climate change only once in the 20-minute speech.

He also left the mention of its previous support for CAP and trade. Huntsman appeared in television commercials urging Congress to pass a climate bill. He has since said cap-and-trade would be a major drag on the economy in a recession.

But by Republican standards of the day their points of view on the environment make him a heretic.

Republicans in the House of representatives are using debt crisis to push deep cuts to the budgets of medium environmental. They want to scrap of light bulbs for energy saving, opening of drilling close to the Grand Canyon and strip the protections for manatees.

As Huntsman joked in his speech: many people had been asking him why he dared even to upload. The Republicans for the protection of the environment, already a group of marginal in the party, made an enemy of the conservative party's dominant tea when he publicly demanded they vote against light bulbs. David Jenkins, an official representative, said that it was a "silly bll based entirely on ignorance and false assertions". As the event got underway, a truck in a circle the hotel with posters denouncing Huntsman as a Republican wrong, a whiner "climate" and "Of Utah to the Gore".

So why does he do it?

Huntsman can really believe in what he is saying. Can you believe that it can help their chances establishing himself, apart from other candidates. It can be through this career as a simulacrum of the 2016 elections - and with the hope that the Tea Party movement will have burned it at the time. Or you can think that it would be futile to try to flee from their record of all forms. In this case, it could also occur by its principles.

What do you think? Huntsman destroyed his race for the White House, or he is a man ahead of his time?

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