University of Warwick: Green?

The other day, I went shopping in a hired car (we had hired it to go to a 1-day X-ray workshop in Didcot), and I realised how much I missed having a car, just for the convenience of going to the shops and back;  I wouldn't really need it for much more than that. I appreciate that my situation of living on campus is not normal, as I essentially live at my workplace and within walking distance of shops and so on. Still, even if I did live a few miles from where I worked, an electric car commute would be entirely possible.



I started thinking: I could probably get by with a electric car with a fairly short range, a low top speed (it's illegal to go the top speed of pretty much every petrol car on the market today anyway), and a fairly small profile: maybe about the size of a Smart car. I'm hoping to go into detail about the requirements of this "ideal electric car" in another post. I then thought to myself: why not see what the University is doing with regard to electric cars? I knew they were doing research on sound-emitted vehicles and have a fleet of electric transit vans, but I was curious about the research going on, and perhaps more selfishly if they would let me take one for a spin to the shops and back sometime?

After a bit more research on the Warwick website, I found this. Unfortunately only University students and staff can click through to the part about electric-powered scooters, but essentially it says that there are both electric scooters and electrically-assisted bicycles available for use by the University. I have got into touch with the contact responsible for these, and may get to do a test drive! Obviously a scooter is not the same as a car, and there are different problems, such as lack of storage space (not ideal for shopping) and safety concerns. Still, it's good to see that there is some interest in this kind of thing.
The contact who is responsible for the scooters and bikes is one Nick Hillard, who is the first Environment Officer at the University. I'm hoping to meet up with him and have a chat about all of this stuff, and see what I can do at the University while I am here to help out and understand more about what the University is doing, such as the CHP plant supplying electricity and hot water to the campus. The building I work in also has solar panels on the windows and roof, which is good to see: not sure how much electricity this actually generates though!

Anyway, we'll see how this meeting goes and hopefully I can get involved with some green-type stuff at Warwick: I'm pretty excited about it to be honest!