FOUNDATION - Thomas Jefferson often referred to the term 'good government.' In his opinion, a Government ought to be judged by how well it meets its legitimate objectives. "Legitimate," being the operative word.

"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread is has earned. This is the sum of good government. "

From the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Transport is the life blood of any nation. We have guzzled our way into the 21st Century like a bull in a china shop without any regard for air quality or climate change, because oil is (or appeared to be) cheap energy. In fact it is not cheap at all when you consider the cost of cleaning up the mess we've made of planet earth. The same can be said of deriving electricity from coal. The resulting smog's from industrialization are carcinogenic to land based life forms as we breathe in the poisons, filtering down to acid oceans for marine life. Nuclear power is also a misnomer, with radioactive leaks and disposal problems that are unacceptable in the 'Godzilla' sense.

According to our Government website, a modern road network helps traffic move around the country more easily and is essential for economic growth. The present Conservative Government claim to have set out a long-term funding programme to create smooth, smart and sustainable roads. The say that their aim is to ensure that highways work is properly managed, and that parking enforcement on local roads is fair and effective. Great, but is the strategy working. We found no mention about the EV super highways of the future and parking enforcement is hardly applicable to strategic road provision. Let's get our priorities right shall we.

What we need is a plan of action to provide energy for 25 million low carbon vehicles before 2050. The author of this piece will be ninety by then and the rest of our present team retired, along with most of the politicians in the mix at the moment. What will our legacy be? Such an Climate Action Plan (CAP) for EVs (CAPEV), must mesh with house building of necessity for a SMART solution. The Government does not have a CAP, they have a Nip And Tuck (NAT) policy, fighting shy of cutting new cloth. If we are ever to settle our National Debt, we must build a sustainable society. A Circular Economy is not one that gets deeper into debt with each successive government's NAT policies. A Circular Economy must be built on sound economics, rather than let's win another election economics - and this means Honest Politics and Honest Politicians. The policies at the moment are anything but Honest direct or plain, they are vague and variable, and that means that they cannot be either Right or Honourable.

OFFICE FOR LOW EMISSION VEHICLES - Ministers Jesse Norman and Claire Perry have called for local authorities to do more to help reduce carbon emissions and tackle air quality after it emerged just 5 councils in the whole of the UK have taken advantage of an electric car scheme.

In 2016 the Department for Transport launched the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme, offering funding for local authorities to buy and install electric car charge points. But the take-up more than a year later has been extremely disappointing, meaning people up and down the country are being denied the opportunity to take advantage of the technology.

The two government ministers have written to councils urging them to take up the scheme which makes available up to 75% of the cost of procuring and installing chargepoints. Local authorities can fund the remaining costs through public and private sources.

Transport Minister, Jesse Norman said:

We are in the early stages of an electric revolution in the UK transport sector, and connectivity is at its heart.

Millions of homes in the UK do not have off-street parking, so this funding is important to help local councils ensure that all their residents can take advantage of this revolution.

Charge points can be anything from new points popping up on streets to adapting existing lampposts to make the best use of space. The money has been available since 2016 but so far only 5 councils have come forward, so there is £4.5 million still available for them – enough for thousands of extra points.

Prepared for the electric revolution

With a host of different support schemes for electric vehicles announced in the Autumn Statement, including a Charging Investment Infrastructure Fund to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure, and more money to help people buy electric cars, the on-street scheme is an important part of the toolkit.

Around a third of homes in England do not have off-street parking, making it extremely difficult to charge an electric vehicle overnight. As a result, on-street charge points like those being offered through this scheme have the potential to entice drivers to switch to electric.

Now government ministers Jesse Norman and Claire Perry are writing to council leaders to remind them about the scheme and highlight the opportunities that making electric vehicles accessible to their residents can bring.

The number of electric vehicles bought in the UK was up nearly 30% last year, and having committed to ending the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040, government is also making sure we have the right infrastructure in place to support drivers.

A set of schemes for electric vehicles were announced in the Autumn Budget in November, including a further £100 million to help consumers purchasing electric vehicles. Following that, government is today (January 12 2018) also announcing the extension of current grant rates for both the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, and Plug-in Car Grant which provides up to £4,500 to help motorists make the switch to electric.

Our Clean Growth Strategy, National Air Quality Plan and Industrial Strategy, all highlight the importance of electric vehicles, which is why the Prime Minister announced In December that the UK would host a Zero Emission Vehicle Summit in Autumn 2018.

All this work is part of our plan to meet long-term climate change and air quality targets and for the opportunities that new green industries can bring with jobs and growth. With 1 in every 5 battery electric vehicles sold in Europe in 2016 already built in the UK, we are already leading the way on the electric revolution.

TRANSPORT RECAP - We tamed horses for transport and invented the wheel to build carts and carriages. Carts became trucks and carriages cars, and now we have electric vehicles, but councils are fighting shy of using them and governments do not have the vision to see what is needed next. If our political leaders don't know what to do, what chance have we and why did we elect them? We need strong leaders not wishy-washy wimps at the helm. If you leave a cookie jar open and look the other way - of course the children are going to dip  their hands in. A strong leader closes the cookie jar, doling out rewards for good deeds.

PETROL CARS - The sales of new petrol cars will be banned after 2040, a great idea to send shock waves through the car industry where at the moment they are more than happy to keep selling cars that contribute to climate change. Talk about corporate irresponsibility.

While charging points represent a quick fix and a way of kick starting the electric economy of the future via car sales, this is hardly a means to give us trucks for the delivery of heavy goods - that will need either a complete revamp of the National Grid or some way of load-leveling - such as the Bluebird™ cartridge based service forecourts - that are at the moment just a concept based on the design of a flatpack unit that continuously cycles and provides cartridges on demand to vehicles with a built in loading system.

INNOVATION - There are only two cars in existence with such a system and both are in a Museum. One was built in 1995, the other in 2013. Not long after 1996 the inventor was told by the Dti that there was no future in battery electric cars. This was in repose to an application for a SMART grant to develop the cartridge system. How wrong can a Government be! Imagine if the Conservative Boffins had got that one right. More than likely we'd now have a prototype EV service station. For this reason we do not have much faith in Civil Servant planners, Committees, Quangos or bodies of that ilk. The same applies to local councils when it comes to innovative planning. Most unfortunate, but true. A Quango never invents, nor does a Committee; they only invite proposals from innovators.

HAULAGE - The UK does not have the infrastructure to support heavy (low carbon) haulage and is unlikely to with the present rate of innovation funding, leaving aside the blindness of project assessors.

At the moment electric cars need chargers capable of providing a lot of juice in a short amount of time. In the UK, currently, there are not enough fast charging points for self-driving cars as any EV operator will tell you.

HOW MANY TO DATE - Currently there are 14,000 electric chargers in the UK (for 125,000 plug-in vehicles). 2,620 of the 14,000 offer fast charging - giving at least 80 per cent of a full battery in 30 minutes. Not bad, but if all petrol cars are being banned in 22 years time, surely we need a phased in approach to cope with the other 25,000,000 million users.

The infrastructure at the moment is just a drop in the ocean. Home charging should be encouraged, but we will need EV parks at supermarkets and car parks near shopping centers.

More electric cars means more demand for chargers, and more demand means you're far more likely to need to queue to charge up your car. That is bound to happen if we fail to plan ahead for the inevitable.

The government has reaffirmed its dedication to electric vehicles over the course of last year, and the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill contains a section that notes the government may force large petrol retailers to install EV chargers - though so far companies have been more than willing to do it themselves. Great, but if all the users at any given location have to wait 30 minutes - all hell will break loose - not to mention the queues.

The Conservative Government envisions a 'smart' EV charging network that can directly interact with the national grid and manage demand. But can you give what is not there to give. It's like firing blanks at nothing.

The issue of infrastructure is going to be a long process and very painful to investors as competing technology comes up for a look see - without some kind of agreement from motor vehicle manufacturers (MVMs) is to building in safeguards. One obvious move to future proof MMVMs is for a general agreement between parties as to a standard size for batteries and the general shape to enable cartridges to be stored and charged off-peak.

TREND - Sales of electric vehicles in the UK surged by 35 per cent in 2017 as diesel car sales continued to plummet.

The private sector has ramped up investment in charging infrastructure to respond to growing demand. The UK's largest EV charging network, POLAR, yesterday said it had added 700 new charging points to its UK network last year, representing 43 per cent of the total installed in the UK in 2017. Around 200 of these were rapid chargers, it explained, of which around 80 per cent were supplied free of charge, representing private investment of more than £1.2m.

David Martell, chief executive of EV infrastructure firm Chargemaster - which operates the POLAR network - said the company also planned to add more than 1,400 charge points to its network in 2018. "We already have 40,000 users and POLAR will maintain its position as the national network of choice for EV drivers in the UK," he said.

Indeed, EV chargepoints also represent a burgeoning business opportunity, with Dutch chargepoint firm Fastned today announcing strong year-on-year growth during the final quarter of 2017, boosting its revenue by over €170,000 - 110 per cent - over the period.

Yet fears remain that the rollout of chargepoints is still not happening nearly quick enough to keep up with the growing number of EVs, with some commentators even suggesting this could lead to 'charge rage' disputes as drivers compete over limited public spots to power up their cars.

Matthew Trevaskis, head of electric vehicles at the Renewable Energy Association (REA), described creating a mass market for EVs as a "chicken and egg scenario". "Prices for new electric cars are falling and widespread uptake will bring benefits for the UK and consumers, but a viable charging infrastructure needs to be in place for them to really become commonplace across the country," he said.

Trevaskis added that local authorities therefore have a crucial role to play in the UK shift to low emission road transport, but stressed that they should be going much further than just using central government funding schemes. For example, he explained that under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 councils have the power to compel developers to build EV charge units on their properties, alongside other measures such as requirements for buildings to self-generate a portion of their own power through onsite renewables.

TRANSPORT STATS - The number of cars on England's roads increased by almost 600,000 in one year. The figures for 2015 showed there were 25.8 million licensed cars in the third quarter of 2015 compared with 25.2 million in the same period of 2014.

Since 2011, the number has increased by about 1.6 million in England, 142,000 in Scotland and 69,000 in Wales. The largest rise has been in south-east England, with 373,200 more cars over five years.

If we are to provide enough charging points to cope with an all electric 2040, we will need to install around 280,000 units per year for the next 22 years. That is on the assumption that one in four cars will be charging at any one time in 2040.

Of course, petrol and diesel IC vehicles will continue to be used until they rust away until about 2050, hence that buys us another 10 years of phase in.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said there had been 2.63 million new cars made during 2015, a 6.3% rise on the year before. Production also hit a seven-year high.

Department for Transport statistics reveal in five out of nine English regions, there is now at least one car for every two people. The south-east of England has 561 cars for every 1,000 people. The writing is on the wall.

ROADS - In order to make all of this possible we need to install the foundations of a sustainable society, where no other exists at the moment; for an electric society. Roads that are smooth and wide enough to improve transit times are essential as is a traffic light system that helps drivers reach their destination efficiently, not hanging around waiting - hence - better sensors should be fitted to replacement signals. 

Potholes in roads are not only dangerous, but also soak up energy with every bump that hinders progress. Pothole Politics is the name for policies that fail to address climate change (sustainable society) issues, but may apply to our pathetic record on adapting to meet the challenges ahead..

FORMAT AGREEMENT - Without the infrastructure for transport built into the equation for Smart town and cities, the zero carbon society is likely to take a lot longer to achieve. Transports infrastructure is therefore the starting point in the fight against climate change. The starting point for a viable infrastructure is a Universal Energy Cartridge something along the lines of the draft design in these diagrams. Getting vehicle makers to agree a suitable format is probably one of the biggest hurdles to overcome and is likely to require national and international agreements and the passing of laws in the signatory states.

Meantime, when upgrading your roads, why not build in the electrical cabling for electric service stations of the future. Thinking ahead like this will save a lot of road works and driver aggravation, digging up streets that should have had services and the need for upgrades built into the equation, perhaps with side access ducts.

THE EASY OR THE HARD WAY - Teaching councils who will not listen to reason because of (alternative agendas) budgets that they would rather spend elsewhere, we term "Potty Training," after the famous case where Wealden attempted to prevent a citizen from having his legal entitlement to basic sanitation. It took a High Court Judge to explain to this Council that toilets could be refitted in a property to comply with Health & Safety Regulations. That little exercise cost the Wealden tax payer £52,000 pounds. Surely though, this was a lesson that should never have been necessary. Money spent arguing the unarguable is climate change madness - because money wasted equals a bigger carbon footprint. An efficient planning department is a prerequisite to a sustainable society. So is an efficient legal department.

SMART SERVICE STATIONS - Seen above is a concept 7.68 - 15.36MW solar assisted service station containing 48-96 cartridges on a continuous charge cycle. Five of these stations (76.8MW) could recharge (refuel) up to 10 trucks or cars a minute. Next time you visit your Amoco, Chevron, BP Shell, Texaco or Supermarket fuel pump, count the number of cars leaving the station in a minute. You will find that an electric forecourt holds the potential to be quicker. During rush hour, 300 vehicles might be serviced in one hour. The truck shown here is 3.55 wide x 3.5 high x 7.7M long (8 x 11.5 x 25 feet). This station could accommodate trucks 4.46M (14.77 feet) high as shown, or with a raised roof, almost any truck currently on the market - though longer thinner trucks are more fuel efficient.

During an eight hour day 2,400 trucks might be serviced using five forecourts on the assumption that we start every morning with 96 x 5 = 480 slow charged cartridges from off-peak supplies. The same forecourt might be used to service fuel-cell cars powered by stabilized hydrogen. One size fits all. The secret is to KISS the design (Keep It Simple Silly). There are only 28* moving parts in this station, not including the gearbox for the solar powered drive motor. This is possible because with this system the vehicles load the cartridges themselves. Learn more about this concept.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES - In cities we already have an electric society to all intents save for heating and vehicles. The increase in popularity of electric vehicles is likely to tip the balance in favour of a cleaner society, provided that we install a practical infrastructure to enable on street and other charging systems. We predict that EV service stations will eventually take over from petrol/diesel and natural gas forecourts, as trucks become a viable proposition for freight hauliers. The latest E trucks from entrepreneur Elon Musk (Tesla) may help to pave the way to a clean transport system of the future.

We wonder if Mr Musk can be persuaded to install handy cartridges in his trucks?

Map of the Wealden District showing the A21 and A22 as the main arteries for traffic. All roads in this district are is dire need of a re-vamp if we are to achieve a sustainable economy.

WATER SUPPLY - FOOD TO LIVE - HOUSING FOR SECURITY - ENERGY FOR LIFE

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A TRANSPORT SYSTEM - INDUSTRY & MINING - EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT

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HEALTH CARE - POLICING - FIRE FIGHTING - COMMUNICATIONS - DEFENSE

EV LINKS

https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/road-network-and-traffic

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35312562

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-low-emission-vehicles

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/01/insurance-boss-claims-the-uk-doesnt-have-the-infrastructure-for-widespread-electric-car-adoption/

OFFSHORE - The great thing about electricity is that energy generated at sea can be used to power vehicles on land. Wind energy can be captured with turbines on land and offshore. Land based development can be less of a navigation hazard and is certainly more efficient for micro-generation closer to the user where voltage drop - hence energy wasted in transmission is negligible. The permitted development rights from 2015 that came about as a result of the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006, are not sufficiently encouraging to home owners and businesses to have made any real impact in reaching our carbon reduction targets.