All a lot of hot air
The weather is a bit cooler this week so my training for the Tour de France 2009 has been a bit inadequate, although the number of logs I’ve been throwing in the wood stove has been keeping me fit.
There is a danger that the tumbling price of fuel means it will soon be cheaper to put the central heating on instead of using the stove, which will be a shame because nothing beats the pleasure of having a house where the bedrooms are arctic icy and the lounge is so tropical that the banana plants bear fruit.
If you don’t have a wood burning stove you should get one – they are the best invention since, well, firewood. The stoves are almost maintenance free, beautiful to look at, throw out enormous amounts of heat and use an infinitely renewable energy source.
People with woodburning stoves look forward to winter.
Unfortunately cars can’t yet be operated by lighting a bonfire in the boot, and the long promised ‘cars that run on air’ while still apparently in the pipeline, aren’t actually available quite yet.
So I was pleased to hear that a small part of the 26 billion euros that France are going to spend to boost the economy is to go to those of us who trade in an old car for a shiny new ‘clean’ car next year. Anyone trading in a car more than 10 years for a new environmentally friendly replacement will get a 1000 euro bonus.
Yippee. Except most people driving a 10 year old car don’t have the money to rush out and buy a new car, bonus or otherwise. A situation that seems unlikely to change dramatically in the next six months.
A few years ago a similar grant was introduced for people purchasing wood stoves in France – a fine and noble effort to encourage the use of renewable fuel. If you buy one you get a tax rebate for 50% of the cost. The problem was, suppliers doubled their prices as soon as the grant was introduced, immediately eliminating all benefit.
Hopefully car sellers won’t be in a position to do the same thing, and someone somewhere will actually benefit from this generous attempt to save the French car industry and help save the planet at the same time.
Sorry about the late reply on this one.
Of course, any incentive for the consumer is often swallowed up by the retailer (like the VAT cut in Britain) but there is the vexed question of whether replacing an old car with a new one (even if it does use less fuel) is actually of any benefit to the environment.
The new car will tend, because it is new, to be driven more than the banger it replaces. The additional energy and carbon in the new car will not be recovered by breaking or scrapping the banger. Of course some people will be planning to replace a ten year old car with a new one (we will be, next year, when my other half gets her lump sum on retirement) but I imagine we are in a very small minority.
I wonder whether this 1000 euro bounty will extend to Brits bringing a RHD car to Calais to trade for the bright shiny new environmentally version?
Oops
Missed the word friendly out of the last sentence!