Perhaps there's less demand because people are so fat and lazy nowadays; perhaps it's for some other reason I haven't thought of: at any rate, it becomes harder every year to hire a rowing-boat on the Thames.

So the other day I was disappointed rather than surprised to be told at the Benson boatyard that they only had motor-boats for hire. Since a two-stroke engine on the water makes one of my least favourite noises, I decided to switch to Plan B (walk along the towpath like a snail, picnic in backpack). It was just in time that I heard the word “electric.”

I've been wanting to experience an electric boat ever since  reading Dickens's book on the Thames. That's not Our Mutual Friend, in which there is no mention of an electric boat, but Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames (1893), and it's not by the famous novelist but by his son of the same name.

Charles Jr has decided views on what boats he does and doesn't like. What he dislikes are steam launches, not so much because of their smoke and soot as because they are driven at excessive speed, with utter disregard to the comfort or necessities of anglers, oarsmen and punters.

They are, he says, the curse of the river and an unmitigated nuisance. He denounces those whose “idea of a holiday is the truly British notion of getting over as much ground as possible in a given time.” What's more, these steamboat rotters drink too much and take malicious pleasure in the nuisance they cause to punters and rowers by their excessive wash, foul language and raucous behaviour.

The steamboat ” 'Arries”, as they were called at the time, were the ancestors of today's lager louts and their hooliganism in late Victorian and Edwardian times is well documented. How very different they were from the decorous, refined and polite occupants of the silent, smokeless and elegant electric craft.

Dickens records that in 1893 the General Electric Power and Traction Company alone had for hire or sale about 20 launches on the Thames. These ranged in length from 25ft to 70ft, some with awnings and side curtains, some with proper cabins. The smallest were for half-a-dozen people, while the largest (The Viscountess Bury) could take 70. They could all carry a sufficient charge of electricity for a full day's running and there were charging stations at Richmond, Hampton, Chertsey, Staines, Windsor, Maidenhead, Henley, Reading, Shillingford and Oxford. And £1,000 (in 1893 a good house price) would buy you a gorgeous 60ft electric launch capable of doing 11 miles per hour.

According to Dickens Jr, the electric launch was “now becoming a favourite institution on the river, and bids fair shortly to supersede the steamer.” Ten years later, the prospect seemed even brighter, with the Morning Advertiser writing that “our genial lockkeeper will shortly be regulating flotillas of diversified craft through Boulter's Lock, and new spick and span electric launches adorned with flowers and attractive awnings will soon be in larger numbers than ever gliding noiselessly up and down our reaches”.

Alas, it was not to be. As so often happens when two major contenders are locked in combat, the eventual winner turns out to be some unnoticed figure in the background. Neither steam nor electricity was the winner. The petrol engine (not even mentioned by Dickens) superseded them both, and extremely quickly. By as early as 1905, both steam and electric had virtually had it as far as the Thames was concerned.

This was a terrible pity, as I realised the moment we set out in the little electric four-seater from Benson the other day. It's a completely different experience, more like sailing than anything else. The loudest noise is the water lapping on the prow. There was hardly any river traffic that day and we glided peacefully along without at all disturbing the mallard, coot, morehens, ducks, swans and other water-fowl, let alone the feather-footed questing vole.

Another pleasure was the reaction of other boaters, clearly envious of our lack of noise and fumes and of the instant start that gives a lead of a couple of hundred yards on leaving a lock while their cumbersome engines are still coughing into life. This is important because the last thing you want in your lovely quiet electric boat is to be stuck behind a noisy, noxious petrol-powered monster with two 150-horsepower turbo-charged diesel engines.

Another amusement is watching the puzzled expressions of people on the tow-path. You can see them wondering what it is that is making your boat move so effortlessly through the water. There's no visible engine, you're not being towed and if it was a pedalo, your legs would be pumping away, instead of which you're lounging with one hand lightly on the steering-wheel while the other holds a nonchalant glass of chilled white wine. Bliss.

Electric boats, virtually eliminated early in the century, are now, happy to relate, making a comeback. The history of electric boats this century is exemplified by Pike. Built in 1899 as an electric-powered clipper-bowed launch, Pike was converted to petrol engine after the first world war. It fell into disrepair, and the bare hull was sold in 1997 at the Henley Classic Boat Auction.

The new owner had it magnificently restored, with the Thames Electric Launch Company returning it to its original electric propulsion. Its potential top speed of 7mph is more than sufficient since the speed limit on the Thames is 8kmph (5mph). A single charge gives it 18 hours cruising time, which would allow you to Teddington to Oxford, or Windsor to Lechlade.

The environmental advantages of electric are obvious - no noise, no pollution of air or water. In Austria there are lakes, and in Holland canals, that are electric-only. There is an electric (partly solar) ferry on the Rhine near Arnhem that carried 60,000 passengers last year. Electric craft are becoming more popular all over the world. Nor should this be surprising. Electric motors have a longer history than the internal combustion engine. There are reckoned to be some 50,000 milk floats on the roads. There are already more than 200 electric craft on the Thames.

Up to now these have mostly been used for one-day outings, returning to their home mooring at night for charging the batteries. But technological improvements have greatly increased the time and distance that is possible between battery charges. The Thames Electric Launch Company's Wagtail V was built in 1994, is 29ft long and claims the world record with 116 miles in 24 hours on one charge. Running costs are low, an overnight charge costing about 40p, probably a tenth of the cost of a day's petrol. Maintenance is just a matter of topping up with distilled water and checking connections, and there is little depreciation.

The Environment Agency is doing its bit to encourage electric craft on the Thames. Launch registration has a 25 per cent reduction for electric motors, and the Agency has recently installed a chain of a dozen charging points along the Thames.Standardised charging equipment has now been agreed between the Environment Agency (for the Thames), Inland Waterways (for the canals) and the Norfolk Broads Authority. As gaps get filled in, electric boating throughout the country is increasingly feasible. The Environment Agency's latest Thames patrol boat, Colne, is a diesel/electric hybrid, changing from one to the other at the flick of a switch. The difference in noise level is enormous and, on an eight-hour day, the electric silence greatly reduces stress on drivers and inspectors.

I experienced this blessed quiet on a recent trip with the Agency's officer John Conroy. We were talking about lock-keepers. He told me they come from all walks of life. He mentioned, for example, one who had been a bank manager and, he said, the keeper of the lock we're just approaching is from Mars. There was no noisy engine to interrupt the silence as I noted down this information about the Environment Agency's extra-terrestrial employee. “I'm beginning to wish I hadn't said that,” John said after a while. “Mars,” he added, “is the biggest employer round here. Mars Bars.” Oh, I said, I see.

• Electric Boat Association: 01491 681449, fax: 01491 681945, e-mail: bar.penn@dial.pipex.com Thames Electric Launch Company, tel:01491 873126. Benson Water Front, Oxon, tel: 01491 838304.

A short stroll down one stretch of the tidal reach of the Thames last Wednesday was illuminating. On the north foreshore, below the Royal Hospital in  Chelsea, an eclectic group of people were gathered. Here, feet in the rising waters, keenly debating the need for land reform and the problems of the global and local environment, were the Queen's Asian chaplain, the bishop of Southwark, a Buddhist monk, a businessman, a journalist (myself), an artist, a Brazilian human rights worker, a baroness, a general and landowner, an MEP, a refugee, and the head of Amnesty International.

With ducks looking on and the tide rushing in, the gathering of these 12 “archetypal” characters - under the auspices of the String of Pearls festival - was billed as the “people's” riposte to the UN social summit in New York. It was, most participants agreed, bizarre, symbolic and uplifting.

The same day, a few miles downstream at  Westminster, the Dome and its Thames-side were the centre of another furious political row, the doomed attraction having asked for - and been given- another £47m to keep going. The government claimed the project was now about regenerating the local riverside community.

At least one member of the Thames Waterside Regeneration project said the Dome had brought no discernible benefits for local employment or disadvantaged people, although Jenny Bates, of Friends of the Earth in Greenwich, disagreed, having seen marginal local returns of more than £750m.

But the most optimistic view of the Thames that day came a mile downstream from Westminster, at Coin Street, the great and only central London community success story of the past 30 years. There, preparations were being made for this Sunday's Thames festival, the annual burgeoning celebration of the river and the communities who depend on it, love it or just happen to live by it. Christophe, the undisputed king pyro-artiste, following his millennium firework display on the Eiffel Tower, was in deep discussion with festival organiser Adrian Evans about how to light up the river and the city from 30 barges.

Evans, in turn, was explaining that thousands of people, helped by artists and people from more than 78 community projects, would be walking in procession by lantern light in wild, river-related fancy costumes over Blackfriars bridge and down the embankment.

Evans was upbeat. “Most Londoners have a place for the Thames in their heart,” he said. “The river is becoming common ground. It now links London, rather than divides it. There is more respect for it by developers. It's as if we are revaluing the Thames for its 'riverness'. You can walk virtually the length.” The  Tate Modern, the  London Eye, the millennium village at the Dome, the pagoda, the wibbly-wobbly bridge, and a bunch of new riverside developments allow access and have attracted people back.

Much of this new awareness of the river as a resource for the metropolis and a source of pride, Evans and others believe, has been inspired by the great clean-up of the river. Human diversity has been found to improve when the ecology prospers. When the Thames was dead, Londoners turned away from it. Now that it is biologically alive people are flocking back like the birds. You can spot anglers, sailors, eel fishers, school parties and bishops nowadays on the river almost as easily as waders and ducks.

It is a major reversal. Only 40 years ago a report to the  Natural History Museum stated that there were no resident fish populations between Kew and Gravesend. Investment in sewage treatment cleaned up the water. Fish and wildlife began to reappear in the 1960s and the invertebrates in the 1970s. The small mammals still haven't made it, but there are 114 species of fish.

But the river, like the Thames festival and the new cultural awareness of the river, is desperately fragile, say both the Environment Agency and Evans. The history of the Thames is for developments to extend further into the river foreshore, so further destroying its ecology. There are still few habitats along the tidal Thames. Only 1% of the tidal river now has a natural river bank and less than a third of its length has sloping, artificial banks. The rest is wall, limiting access, and increasing the river flow.

Equally, the history of the Thames shows that human creativity has been snuffed out. Witness the depressing new housing developments along the river beyond  Tower Bridge, uniformly elitist, mostly inaccessible, unwelcoming enclaves for people with several cars and huge mortgages.

Yet improving the river, socially and ecologically, is a priority for many. The Thames has more interested par ties, watchdogs and “owners” than almost any other stretch of Britain. But, as river lovers point out, many institutions, councils, companies and others who want to promote access and sensitive development, are relatively powerless.

An anonymous, undated article on the web sums up the situation. It is clearly written by someone who loves the river and knows its politics. The river, it says, is for sale. The Environment Agency, it accurately surmises, is under-staffed and under-funded, and only has power to advise. However much it may seek the agreement of developers to respect the the ecology of the river, it has weak legal status and only marginal influence on decision-makers. Many developers and councils are impervious to local opinion, have no environmental concerns, and “pay lip-service to envi ronmental assessment, if at all”. Land owners such as Thames Water, British Gas and Railtrack, it accurately points out, still bear no statutory responsibility for ecological or social good practice. The Port of London Authority is not a statutory consultee in the planning process and as such does not see all river plans and cannot legally influence them.

Equally, English Heritage has no remit to protect the Thames, and English Nature has very limited powers that relate only to statutory protected species. They have no overall powers regarding the cumulative impact of piecemeal development.

Meanwhile, says Jenny Bates, of Friends of the Earth, the powerful London business community is trying to build three river crossings which would increase the traffic and intensify development in down stream riverside boroughs. “Business argues that the river is a barrier and that London must work in a 360-degree circle,” she says. “They should, surely, be trying to meet local needs.”

So what would improve the situation? The anonymous author wants statutory protection of the Thames as a green corridor and a wildlife super-highway, and a change of planning emphasis away from the presumption to build. Educating planning officers, MPs and decision-makers is vital and there should be better cycle routes and more shore access.

It will do for now. In the meantime, the Thames festival may have to wait a while before it can fully celebrate the return of the river to Londoners.

• The Thames festival at the Oxo tower starts at midday on Sunday. Admission free