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Brown's electric dream for Britain
Exclusive: PM reveals plans to create first 'green' cities geared towards electric cars in drive to create 400,000 new jobs
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Independent Minds
Gordon Brown has promised an environmentally friendly Budget later this month to kick start a "green recovery" – including the mass introduction of electric cars on Britain's roads.
In an exclusive interview with The Independent, the Prime Minister trailed measures to make Britain "a world leader" in producing and exporting electric cars, hybrid petrol-electric vehicles and lighter cars using less petrol. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, will announce in his Budget that trials for electric cars in two or three cities will begin next year. Councils will be invited to bid to become Britain's first "green cities". The Government will open talks with power companies to ensure the vehicles can have their batteries recharged at a national network of power points at the roadside.
Mr Darling will also set a target of creating 400,000 jobs in "green industries" over the next five years.
Other green measures to be outlined by the Government shortly include relaxing planning rules to allow the building of more wind farms to ensure Britain hits its target to generate 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. "Smart meters" will eventually be installed in every home so people can see how much energy they use. Ministers also want to develop a "clean coal" industry by approving an experiment with carbon capture and storage.
In his first newspaper interview since last week's G20 summit, Mr Brown kept open the option of a limited further fiscal stimulus in the Budget. But with public borrowing in the current financial year likely to rise from the forecast £118bn to around £150bn, he hinted that the Chancellor might have to announce more tax rises for the medium term to balance the nation's books.
"It is not just what we do to give real help now, but about setting a path for the future as well. We always take into account what we need and what is best future for the fiscal position," he said.
Pledging a raft of measures to ensure Britain emerges from the recession as a "low carbon" economy, the Prime Minister said the country could increase its output of environmental goods and services by 50 per cent to £1.5bn in the next few years.
"This is a major part of our plan for recovery in the Budget," he said. He added that the Government would provide incentives to help the car industry become a market leader across the world for electric and hybrid cars. Yesterday, the plans received a boost when the European Investment Bank approved a £340m loan to Jaguar Land Rover to develop "green" vehicles, with a further £373m to be split between Nissan's plants in Sunderland and Spain.
Mr Brown said he would consider buying a fleet of electric cars for ministers to set an example. To help Britain's struggling car industry, he said the Government was considering a "scrappage" scheme under which motorists would get up to £2,000 for trading in a polluting older car for a cleaner new vehicle.
"A different type of economy will emerge in the recovery – if we are prepared to invest in the future," he said. "Britain has a very strong and successful future ahead of us. We are leading in a number of key sectors."
The jobs of the future would come from a "green revolution" and an expansion in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, health care, education, the creative industries, information technology, bioscience and advanced manufacturing. Despite fears of a much smaller financial sector, he insisted that London would still be "one of the most attractive places to do business from".
Mr Brown said the push would enjoy widespread public support. "This is a job creator, a quality of life improver and an environment-enhancing measure," he said. "We want to harness a desire among people to be part of this. A better Britain means building a greener Britain."
Mr Brown struck an upbeat note about the United Nations-led talks on a new climate change treaty, to be held in Copenhagen in December. Despite fears that President Obama might not be ready to sign up by then, Mr Brown insisted: "He is determined to move the environmental agenda forward."
He added: "We have been brought down by a global banking crisis. We in Britain are capable and well placed – with our natural strength and our enterprising past and present, to be able to meet all these challenges in the future."
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Comments
yes a green new deal..we get it ..we want it...
NOW get on with it for christ's sake
full steam ahead
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I think your T&C?s stink and I?m not entirely sure they are completely legal, based on the same grounds that companies who make large profits from employers? inventions or ideas, now have to reward them accordingly.
Firstly there is the huge existing investment in petroleum technology which nobody in the oil industry wants to see abandoned -see "Who killed the electric car'.
Secondly, the world ecnomy is collapsing due to resource constraints which will be exacerbated by any attempt to 'kick start' anything. Peak Oil was almost certianly 3 years ago, and hte only reason oil prices are low now is substnatial demand destruction.
Thirdly, despite 40 years of optimism abolout breakthroughs, battery technology is still not up to the job long term.
Fourthly, where is the additional electricity needed to charge cars going to come from? The energy system is already stressed to the maximum, with natural gas and decomissioning of nuclear plants being particularly weak links in the chain.
Fifthly, even if super-efficient electric cars were possible, they would still be emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide indirectly -via the embedded CO2 involved in mining ores, refining, manufacure of the vehiclesm and during the charging process. So they would continue to upset the carbon balance of the planet.
Carbon capture and storage is just another scam designed to keep the masses believing there can be a future for present arrangements, and of course, there is no such thing as 'clean coal'.
The reality is, thie transition to a green economy should have implemented 30 years ago, but it wasn't. It's too late now: Britian has squandered its resources on an insane consumer society (as have most other nations) and is paying the price for the madness. The window of opportunity has gone.
However, 'Brown's electric dream for Britain' makes an appeaking headline.
That is not what most people want to hear, of course.
Another tax and another useless measure, since we don't have the infrastructure for electric cars and who's going to pay for them, the fuel companies? Haha
We have enough jobs now. We will build a factory to provide jobs for the women and men and kids, and then we will produce the wheels. There too we will provide jobs. We have the battery station refilling the cars. We will have jobs. We need land that I do not know where to get. Any suggestion? The Airport needs expansions to provide work for the new recruits. We have to teach them the new tactics of fighting.
In the same paper, we have jobs going, going, gone?
Royal Bank of Scotland said yesterday that it planned to lose 9,000 jobs, half of them in Britain, on top of the 2,700 it has already cut here this year.
British Airways has proposed a shake-up of employee pay and conditions in a move that could lead to substantial cuts in remuneration and holidays for its 13,500 cabin crew.
London bankers' mighty pay has fallen from the highest level among global financial centres to the lowest, with Wall Street financiers grabbing the top spot, a poll showed on Sunday.
According to the survey across a range of businesses and countries by Napier Scott recruiters, London bankers saw an average drop of 62 percent in their salaries and bonuses for 2008, and took home 40 percent less in remuneration than their New York counterparts.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
And for all the negative people who have been saying 'boo sucks' to this article - note the word 'greener' in my post. Its not the ideal, but its a massive and bold idealogical step forward towards a less polluting society and governments that put the environment first because it makes good business sense.
And for my own opinion, I think car and petrol companies are suddenly going to have a massive ideological shift in the near future and we will read headlines such as: "Ford and Shell announce new green fuel car: oil giant has been perefecting new fuel for 30 years in massive dersert factory amid fears oil is running out."
Ford has already chosen Smith as its partner for producing electric vans in the USA. Smith is already the world leader in the production of roadgoing commercial electric vehicles. It would be good to see the government backing them instead of funelling funds into bailing out failing motormakers who merely promise to become a tiny bit greener.
Smith is owned by Tanfield Group, a stockmarket listed company via which people and institutions can directly invest in this greener future.
But Gordon has gone planning mad. Every week it is something new. We are seeing a man desperate to cling onto power at all costs and he will say whatever he has to get people to vote for him. This week the greens, last week the bankers. Next week the NHS.
About time we had someone with clear beliefs and consistent behaviour. Too little too late Mr G Brown. Could have done better
Come on please, please, we need to know ?
Is there real real change afoot ?
Come on please, please, we need to know ?
Is there real real change afoot ?"
Humble_sparrow, I fear this is another illusion from a man desperate to be re-elected. Yes I too am sad, the truth is harsh - Mr G Brown doesn't give a D*** about anything except himself
He hasn't grasped yet that we are running out of generating capacity.Most of our coal fired plants have to be replaced almost immediately.And of course the Grid is well placed to fulfil this idea not to mention transmission losses.
We are rapidly becoming dependent on imported electricity and what does he want to do ? Make it worse classic stupidity by an idiot that wants the glory headline.Money money money,spend spend spend waste waste waste Brown at his best/worst.
This is the Green man who dramatically REDUCED photo voltaic cell grants the micro generation at point of usage that made sense.
Then ask the intellectual midget where all the batteries and their disposal is going to come from/go to
Still I guess a special recycling landfill tax will take care of that .I suspect the future of the car may be hydrogen but that needs energy.
Add to this the time necessary to research, design, produce a prototype, tool up and manufacture electric cars and we end up with just another aspiration. Brown is either completely deluded or he is, as always, trying to pull the wool over our collective eyes.
Funny how Brown follows Obama's rhetoric. Mr President keeps banging on about millions of green jobs and many sane Americans are beginning to realise this is justa pipe dream.
A magnificent post.
Recently Shell have abandoned all that rhetoric about greenery.
As recently as 28 February the New Scientist carried a full-page ad from Shell extolling its green cred which mentioned wind and solar among its investments.
On 17 March The Guardian reported that they were dumping both in favour of the CCS scam.
Since it is vanishingly unlikely that Mr 'Atlantic', a.k.a. Gordon Brown, would consider anything other than private sector 'solutions' to the problems posed by climate change and peak oil, it's clear that nothing will be done.
Only yesterday a European Investment Bank bailout for the car industry failed to mention anything about reducing CO2 emissions.
Carry on spinning, Gordo!
As James & Jeremy tell you - 200miles + 10 hour recharge time is no contest for 200miles + 2 minutes to refuel. The future is the car with Fuel cells and not a car using batteries.
But hey-ho Gordon has been wrong on so many things recently.......
At first glance looks a win win, and hence welcome.
However, the elephant in the room, or the 500kg flat battery in the middle of nowhere, is the not so small enviROI issue of what produces the 'leccy for now and into the foreseeable future.
At least there is a suggestion that the UK exports most of these vehicles to countries where the power to the wheels does not come with a carbon consequence, but I'd be keen to find out more on this as it is currently 'vague'. And many in the MSM seem unchallenging on this.
I am sure things can happen in complement, but wouldn't it make more sense for emissions to have the power supply sorted first (which can surely have the knock-on of helping micro-generation networks?) or at least well in advance?
There is also the not so small matter of what no to low carbon is actually going to be developed to generate this 'leccy; a matter I fear not best decided by desperate pols looking to score a short term point with the media and hence public, egged on by EU targets, subsidy-addicted lobbyists, etc.
1) Where will all the electricity come from to power these cars?
2) Just how long will the queues be at the national network of power points at the roadside where the car batteries will be recharged? (Just think the time it takes to recharge a mobile phone or an electric shaver.)
3) Where will the materials come from to manufacture these batteries?
4) And how do we dispose of these batteries?
In Quantum Physics there is a principle called Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Fundamentally it says that the more certain you make one thing the more uncertain you make another.
This is just a cheap attempt at vote buying - show us the detail Emperor Brown - but get dressed first.