The latest winner of the Nobel prize for economics, Bill Nordhaus, rose to fame with an experiment that demonstrated the power of electricity. Burning wood, he showed, meant that a day’s labour could power a room for ten minutes. Electricity can light a room for ten years. This is the clean power of electricity.
There is a real risk that Britain is squandering the opportunity provided by electricity. Poor policy choices in the past, when consumers were encouraged to purchase diesel engines, have led to predictably poor outcomes. We report today that Nissan’s diesel cars are the worst polluters on the market, emitting eleven times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide. High-functioning electric cars are a far better option but that option is receding thanks