In his attempt at being yet more “realistic” about electric cars (Green technology and electric cars, TMID, 5 January) Mr Tyrrell makes things diabolically complicated by conjuring pseudo-mathematical calculations which, apart from confusing readers, merely confirm the utterly simple and well-known fact that electric batteries are heavy – while fossil fuel (as in petrol or diesel) is a marvellously compact and convenient source of energy for transport vehicles.

Let us put the problem into a simple perspective, in case people were confused by Mr Tyrrell’s mathematical hocus-pocus:

1) The crux of the matter is simply a matter of ‘range’. Nobody disputes that a fossil-fuel car can travel further on a full tank of petrol than an electric car on a fully-charged battery. This problem is being addressed and solutions are already at hand.

2) The intrinsic energy efficiency of the electric car is at least equal to or greater than that of the fossil-fuel car, depending on the source of energy. Mr Tyrrell’s weird mathematics bear absolutely no relation to this.

3) Oil is a dirty fuel. This did not matter in the old days when cars (well, any machine that moved) were few. Car use has now increased to such an extent so that immense problems have arisen – both in health terms due to pollution in streets and on a planetary scale as a result of pumping too much CO2 into our atmosphere from burning so much oil.

4) Pollution at street level from traffic is a significant threat. This is especially so in Malta’s densely urbanised environment. The importance of street level pollution has been demonstrated scientifically. (See para. 866 - 876 in the Think Tank report Towards a Low Carbon Society - the Nation’s Health, Energy Security and Fossil Fuels available at www.tppi.org.mt/cms/index.php/reports.

5) Low- or zero-emitting electric cars do not “simply shift the pollution problem to someone else’s back yard” because power generators tend not to be built in peoples’ back yards whereas people live close to the source of pollution in traffic-congested urban streets.

Items 3, 4 and 5 alone are sufficient justification for seeking an alternative to the car as we know it today. One immediately available alternative is indeed to use smaller fuel-efficient cars. But these still pollute. In any event, oil is a finite resource which will sooner or later be exhausted. A solution needs to be found. The electric car is one of them.

It is the bottom line which counts – and not phony mathematics. In the case of electric cars, zero emissions at street-level puts it way ahead of the petrol car in terms of health. The potential for further increasing efficiency is great, even on currently available batteries. The Chevrolet Volt, a prototype which now probably sets the standard for future hybrid cars, has no limitation of range and excellent performance with an estimated fuel consumption of 102 miles per gallon. The USA Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defence Council concluded that adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would lower global warming emissions, improve air quality, and reduce petroleum consumption by 3 million to 4 million barrels per day by 2050. What more does Mr Tyrrell want?

Finally, his false and misleading statement that the establishment of wind and solar power needs “a lot of fossil fuels in their manufacture” and that they “cost more to produce than they will ever generate” does not inspire confidence in anything he has to say. In the case of a wind turbine – the ‘pay-back time’ for the energy and greenhouse gases used in its production is just two or three months of its 25 or so years’ life-span of producing clean electricity.

Unfortunately it happens too often that introduction of new technology is held back by people who propagate such prejudiced, Luddite misinformed opinions.

■ George G Debono

Sliema