Anthony Day's blog

Car exhausts, coal power stations, heavy industry – they all get demonised for the carbon dioxide emissions they make. Many people are surprised to learn that no less than 27% of the UK’s CO2 emissions come from our 21 million homes. Whenever we use energy at home – oil, gas or electricity – we trigger CO2 emissions. Nearly two thirds of that energy is used for home heating and just over a quarter for hot water. That means we use less than a sixth for cooking, lighting, TV and everything else, so unplugging rather than leaving things on standby makes a difference, but turning down the heating can save very much more.

With climate change on everyone’s mind and rumours of an energy crisis, what could be better than a car which doesn’t run on fossil fuels and has no emissions except water? BMW’s new Hydrogen 7 fits the bill. This is the V-12 BMW 7 modified to run on hydrogen. It has a petrol tank as well; it also runs on petrol, which is handy if you are far from the UK’s only hydrogen filling station – one of only six in the world. Of course, if hydrogen catches on there will be filling stations all over the country, won’t there?

Hydrogen cars sound ideal, but there are practical problems. First, the hydrogen tank takes eight minutes to fill and it takes up most of the boot space. Even then, the hydrogen tank provides a range of only 125 miles. To get enough hydrogen into the fuel tank it has to be chilled and liquefied. Gradually it warms up and boils away, so if you don’t use the car over the weekend you’ll find less in the tank. Park up at the airport while you take your three-week holiday and when you get back it’ll be nearly empty.

Everyone is talking about global warming and climate change, but few people seem to realise that Britain faces an energy crisis in just a few years. Why? First, we have changed from self-sufficiency in energy to a net energy importer in a generation. We import 60% of our coal, 10% of our gas and after years of plenty we are starting to import oil again. We use more gas than anything else – for generating electricity, for cooking and heating our homes, for powering industry – and by 2010 80% of gas will come from abroad.