As the world becomes increasing mobile, the transport sector is consuming more fuel to meet rising demand. Are ‘alternative’ fuels and technologies ready to step in to relieve the load? With public spending under threat, funding for research and development into alternatives is often being cut or rediverted into higher priority sectors. Environmental and cost concerns also come into play.
Stephen Perkins, head of research at the International Transport Forum, discussed ‘energy to go’ with Railway Pro.
Railway Pro: How can the energy sector keep pace with transport demand AND achieve sustainable growth?
Stephen Perkins: A range of solutions would need to be deployed to spread the load of demand by, for example, offering favorable off-peak tariffs for charging vehicles, building more nuclear power stations, not depending solely on renewables and making electric vehicles as energy efficient as possible.
Railway Pro: How mature are alternative fuels and technologies today?
Stephen Perkins: Although R&D on alternatives for transport such as biofuels, hydrogen, conventional ICE [Internal Combustion Engine] technology are developing fast, with several commercial products on the market, the technology is not yet commercially viable. So we mustn’t count on them to solve our energy problems in the short term. We must also look to adopting measures and designing solutions for internal combustion engines to make them more energy efficient and less polluting. Moreover the greatly improved fuel economy of future generations of these engines will make it harder for alternative technologies to compete.
For example although the technology is shifting fast, batteries are still heavy and costly, rendering electric drive more expensive than internal combustion. Very rapid growth in battery-fuelled road transport would require an expansion of nuclear power, which is a problem because of environmental concerns. But there is really no other carbon free alternative energy source available to produce electricity in sufficient quantities.
Public budgets are under great pressure today with cuts in funding to all sorts of public spending priorities. How long can subsidies to developing battery powered vehicles be maintained in the face of cuts to health and education?
Railway Pro: What impact are electric vehicles having on the energy sector, the environment and energy grids?
Stephen Perkins: Electrification of road transport is increasing rapidly. And with this growth set to continue, in the future there is a risk that peak demands from the different users will converge and suppliers will be unable to cope, i.e. immediately after rush hour there is the big daily peak in electricity demand as households heating, cooking and appliance use maxes. This would be the natural time to plug in an electric vehicle to charge up, making the peak worse. However in many cases public transport uses dedicated power supplies separate from the grid.
The problem with renewables like solar, hydro and wind is that they aren’t good for meeting specific kinds of demand; you could describe them as capricious sources or variables, e.g. water freezes up in the winter and solar fluctuates. With wind turbines electricity is produced only when it’s windy, which may correspond with demand for power. Plus wind power is more expensive than coal, oil, gas, nuclear or hydro. It only gets produced because of special ‘feed-in tariffs’ – the price paid to producers of wind power when they put power into the grid, who obtain the same high price even when the grid doesn’t need extra power.
Railway Pro: To make transport sustainable is the future electric and are subsidies a solution for boosting the market?
Stephen Perkins: In many cases subsidies for the production of electric vehicles are tied up with employment, e.g. the production of Nissan electric vehicles in Sunderland [U.K.] wasn’t just a question of creating electric vehicle markets but creating jobs too, an important part of regional development policy. In recession this combination of objectives might see support for electric vehicles maintained despite cuts in government spending. More generally, however, support for development of alternative vehicles will be under pressure.
Railway Pro: Also in the light of today’s economic uncertainty and heightened energy awareness, should certain projects like high-speed rail be reviewed?
Stephen Perkins: The issue here is whether a major transport project like HS2 [High Speed Two in the U.K.] can survive the cuts, and more generally questions the rationale for high-speed rail projects around the world. Rail can save energy compared to road or air over medium distances but energy consumption increases dramatically with speed. You can save a lot of energy and CO2 emissions by travelling a bit slower. The optimum may be reasonably high-speed rail rather than extremely high speed rail from the environmental standpoint, although time is money and the commercial case for HS2 does depend on speed.
Railway Pro: What role can incentives to travel differently play?
Stephen Perkins: Congestion charging is an important and effective tool but cannot be used everywhere; it depends on individual transport systems. In Singapore the transport authorities manage mobility services through their congestion charging and car licensing to create a balance between public transport and cars. The bottom line is fluidity – how to move as quickly as possible from A to B, with urban planning and road building systems integrated with pricing to maintain the balance. In London, the congestion charge is focused on reducing the number of cars entering the capital to free up the roads to improve traffic flow, with revenues generated spent on improving the bus fleets and services. But here there is rather less support from the other planning tools.
Overall the aim of any congestion scheme should be to achieve a balance between public and private transport with the emphasis on optimising mobility on both modes, rather than blunt modal shift.
There is also scope for initiatives such as a car congestion charge that includes a free subscription to public transport to entice drivers to the system. Or introducing a mobility licence – for cars you pay more, for a car plus public transport you pay less.
Railway Pro: How energy demanding is transport in different countries and over time can a global balance be achieved?
Stephen Perkins: In countries like France and Germany the energy consumption from transport has levelled off; for the US it has grown slightly. But then in developing countries like China and India it is shooting up.
In the future, improvements in the fuel economy of cars in developed countries will be much more than offset by growth in usage in developing countries – oil demand and emissions will continue to grow and how much depends on the rate of development of cleaner technologies in the developing markets.
Fuel taxes are part of the solution. In the US these are much lower than in Europe, but historically their fuel efficiency standards were relatively tight. The mismatch between fuel taxes and standards caused tensions that for example resulted in the SUV loophole – lower standards for 4×4 vehicles – and as a consequence this segment exploded. Coherence between standards and taxes is important. Differentiation of circulation and purchase taxes are also a key to stimulating the uptake of more fuel efficient vehicles. Changing the structure of company car tax relief in the U.K., for example, resulted in rapid improvement of company car fuel efficiency in the early part of the decade.
Railway Pro: What does the future hold for more energy efficient vehicles?
Stephen Perkins: The feedthrough of energy efficient vehicles in Europe will depend largely on the next round of negotiations for the vehicle fuel efficiency standard. The rate of improvement imposed by current standards needs to be maintained by agreeing new standards as far ahead as possible, giving manufacturers the lead time necessary to make the investments in new technology.
China has advanced rapidly in the development of electric vehicle products and may well dominate the market in the future. Regardless of who supplies the technology, over time uptake of electric technologies will grow simply because they offer superior quality to existing vehicles; they accelerate better, are quieter, easier to control and the drive systems take up less space to allow potential innovation in the design of cars and the way interior space is used. I believe if electric vehicles take off it will be on the back of quality, rather than just energy and environmental criteria.
by Leslei Brown
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