Eco charity boss travels length of Britain in electric car - for just £20

An eco-friendly charity boss has completed a gruelling end-to-end journey across Britain by driving 894 miles in an electric car using public charging points.

Kevin Sharpe, 51, stopped six times to charge his Tesla Roadster along the route, at a cost of just £20.

The electricity used by the car was a fraction of the £138 it would have cost in fuel in a typical family vehicle.
Each charge of his car cost Mr Sharpe £3 or £4 and allowed him 200 miles of travel at 70mph before he had to power his vehicle again.
The charity has created the network of nine public charge points in hotel car parks across the country.

They cost £250 to install and users are charged for the electricity they use.

Drivers can opt for a quick three-hour charge or an eight-hour overnight top-up using a 70 amp plug.

Mr Sharpe, of Bath, Somerset, and David Peilow, 34, a satellite systems engineer of Winchester, Hants, set off from John O'Groats in the £86,000 Tesla on May 21.

Mr Sharpe said: 'This is another landmark because these are production cars, not prototypes.

'Nissan has already produced the leaf which costs around £25,000 and Mitsubishi, BMW, Audi and VW are all set to go to market with affordable electric cars in the next two years.

'Tesla are planning a family saloon too with a 300 mile range and 45 minute charge time. 'You could coincide a trip with a meal at a service station say and make a long distance journey in the same time you would now.'

The Tesla Roadster, produced by Tesla Motors in California, is based on a Lotus Elise and is the first production automobile to use lithium-ion battery cells.
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Geo-Engineering Elimate Solutions

Lighter-coloured crops, aerosols in the stratosphere and iron filings in the ocean are among the measures being considered by leading scientists for "geo-engineering" the Earth's climate, leaked documents from the UN climate science body show.

In a move that suggests the UN and rich countries are despairing of reaching agreement by consensus at global climate talks, the US, British and other western scientists will outline a series of ideas to manipulate the world's climate to reduce carbon emissions. But they accept that even though the ideas could theoretically work, they might equally have unintended and even irreversible consequences.

The papers, leaked from inside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ahead of a geo-engineering expert group meeting in Lima in Peru next week, show that around 60 scientists will propose or try to assess a range of radical measures, including:

• blasting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight into space;

• depositing massive quantities of iron filings into the oceans;

• bio-engineering crops to be a lighter colour to reflect sunlight; and

• suppressing cirrus clouds.

Other proposals likely to be suggested include spraying sea water into clouds to reflect sunlight away from the Earth, burying charcoal, painting streets and roofs white on a vast scale, adding lime to oceans and finding different ways to suck greenhouse gases out of the air and deposit heat deep into oceans.

The meeting is expected to provide governments with a scientific assessment of geo-engineering technologies, but is widely expected to be in favour of more research and possibly large-scale experimentation despite an international moratorium adopted by the UN last year in Japan.

£120 heating discount for 2 million homes

Two million households will receive discounts to their heating bills this winter as the government forces energy firms to help pensioners pay soaring gas and electricity costs.
Ministers announced that 800,000 of the poorest pensioners will be among the first to receive the new Warm Home Discount, worth at least £120 this year.

Payments are also expected to be made to disadvantaged families, the disabled and the long-term sick.

Energy companies are to be required by law to give rebates totalling £1.1 billion over the next four years, three times as much as they provided under the previous voluntary arrangements.

The regulations introducing the new scheme are already in force, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change. The Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, said: “The Warm Home Discount will give the most vulnerable pensioners practical help to manage rising energy bills through an annual rebate. Energy companies will be required by law to provide this support.”

The move follows warnings that consumers face steep rises in fuel bills. Last week, Scottish Power announced that prices will rise by up to 19%, increasing gas and electricity costs by up to £200 a year. Other companies are expected to follow suit.
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Why is it SO hard to find the cheapest energy deal?

WHICH TARIFF?

So who should you switch to? The very cheapest tend to be variable online tariffs.

The problem is that prices can go up. Your account must be managed entirely via the internet, so you input meter readings online and receive statements by email.

The cheapest way to pay is by direct debit. You will normally be charged more if you receive paper bills or have a prepayment meter.

You are also penalised if you don’t want to use direct debit and choose to pay quarterly by cheque.

With other suppliers set to follow Scottish Power’s lead, the biggest worry for people is that their new supplier will increase prices.

Therefore, it may be best to opt for a fixed rate. You will pay a small premium for fixing, but your bill won’t go up. The best is EDF’s Fix Saver v2 which the supplier says should work out at £1,009 a year for a typical semi-detached home.

This is £69 more expensive than its cheapest variable deal — but your costs will not go up until September 2012.

These fixed-rate deals have limited capacity and are likely to be snapped up very quickly.

If you are in fuel poverty — where one-tenth or more of your income goes on gas and electricity — ask if you are eligible for your supplier’s social tariff, which gives a discount to the most vulnerable customers.

Each supplier has different eligibility criteria for social tariffs. EDF, for example, requires people to be either in fuel poverty or receiving income support or pension credit.

Social tariff customers can normally save £150 per year.

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