The PMs Perpetual Motion Machine

by Roger Levett

New Ground 60
Winter 2000

Tony Blair talked about technological fixes in his green speech, but neglected social and behavioural change needed for a sustainable society, says Roger Levett, director of a sustainable development co-operative.

In his ‘green speech’ Tony Blair mentioned the government’s extra support for public transport, but then said there were limits to what this could achieve, and that more ambitious measures would be needed. At last, I thought, here comes a serious discussion of transport.

What actually came was an enthusiastic plug for new car technologies, especially the ‘factor two’ improvement in fuel efficiency available from hybrid engines, culminating in an impassioned call for technology to achieve the totally environmentally benign car.

This was sad for four reasons.

First, the belief that it is even in principle possible to have vehicles with anything like the performance of cars, without them requiring lots of energy (with big environmental consequences) from somewhere, betrays the same ignorance of basic thermodynamics as the people who write to No 10 saying they have invented perpetual motion machines. A prime minister who is so keen for environmental policy to be guided by ‘sound science’ really ought to learn some.

Second, the nearest thing to the ‘hypercar’ that the scientific facts of life actually make possible is already with us. I own one. It weighs about 12kg (a ‘factor 100’ improvement on current normal cars) and uses about one milli- litre of petroleum materials per 100 km - that’s a factor 10,000 improvement. It’s a bicycle, if you haven’t guessed. It’s faster point-to-point in most urban areas than a car, particularly at times lots of people want to travel. It’s also faster point to point than a car for most journeys over 50 miles when combined with a train (remember trains?) But it didn’t rate a mention. It seems only elaborate, expensive technologies count that corporations can jockey for fortunes over, not simple, unmysterious ones that are already here and make life simpler.

Third, the government’s own sustainable development indicators (Quality of Life Counts) show that over the last 30 years there have indeed been considerable technological improvements in the fuel efficiency of vehicles, but greenhouse emissions in the sector have still increased. This is because the improvements were swamped by more people choosing bigger, more powerful vehicles, loading them with more elaborate and energy-intensive equipment and driving them further and more often.

There is absolutely no reason to believe this will change in future, or to have any confidence that technical fixes will achieve any overall improvement in impacts, let alone ‘factor ten’ overall improvements in eco-efficiency. The government’s own statisticians say these would be needed to reconcile the halving of greenhouse emissions predicted to be necessary with the fivefold expansion of the global economy predicted by 2050.
Fourth, most motorists could achieve factor two instantly and without any new technology by taking someone else with them in the car. But this is a slightly different factor two. It’s an improvement not in the fuel intensity of vehicle kilometres but the fuel intensity of person kilometres. You can get another factor two by halving the length of trip needed to get to the workplace, or the shops, or the doctor or hospital. This is a broader measure still: it’s the fuel cost of a person reaching a destination. You can get a further factor two to four by shifting to a bus (at the same load factor.) And another factor two if you can combine two errands in one trip.

If we shared cars more and used buses more for fewer, shorter trips, each achieving more errands closer to home, we might easily achieve a factor 10 improvement in the ratio that really matters: the fossil fuel intensity of access to the things people want in their lives. Hybrid engines could double this to factor 20. And that’s without considering shifts to walking, cycling, or not going at all because you can meet whatever need it was at home. And all these changes would tend also to make life more healthy, safe, sociable and equitable, and less stressful, noisy, polluted, cluttered and alienated.

So it was a shame the prime minister talked only about the technological ‘factor two’ and said nothing about the behavioural ‘factor 10’ improvements that could also yield many broader benefits. The problem is that - as the speech text shows - New Labour sees ‘consumption’, ‘wellbeing’ and ‘meeting people’s aspirations’ as virtually interchangeable terms for the same thing. The government is now energetically (if belatedly) promoting improvements in the eco-efficiency of producing goods and services. But this is only one step (and often the most speculative one) toward improving what really matters, the eco-efficiency of welfare. It’s not enough to decouple production from environmental damage. We also need to decouple welfare from consumption - to tumble to the fact that if we can drive less because the things we want are closer to hand, or easier to walk, bike or bus to, we’re better off.

Roger Levett
rl@cagconsult.co.uk