Transport In New Zealand
New Zealand is not unique in the western world. Society is based around plentiful and cheap energy. Transport fuels are the largest component of our use of energy.
All this leads to a dependence on gasoline. To overcome this people dream of alternatives such as hydrogen, but the basic physics of hydrogen as a fuel do not add up. Hydrogen has more energy per unit mass than other fuels. The problem with hydrogen is that it is much less dense than other fuels. For a given volume of liquid hydrogen, it has only 27.6% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline. The Space Shuttle uses hydrogen as a fuel, because its mass is low, and the fuel is carried in an external fuel tank that is jettisoned during lift-off. Automobiles can not have external fuel tanks that are discarded. Compressed gaseous hydrogen is even less dense than liquid hydrogen. At 5,000 psi of pressure gaseous hydrogen only has a density of 0.25 pounds per gallon or one twenty fourth the density of gasoline. Gasoline and diesel are far superior fuels to hydrogen in this regard.
Another alternative people dream of is electric vehicles, but
when told that to charge up an electric vehicle would use as much electricity as
a monthly house bill, the dream is soon forgotten in the harsh light of reality.
Is there anything that can be done? Yes, there are two
main areas that New Zealand can move in:
- Diluting gasoline with ethanol.
Ethanol can be added in small amounts to gasoline, it is can be fermented from lactose which is a waste product in the
dairy industry. In fact the plant and equipment are already in
place. The only problem is that car manufactures in New Zealand will not guarantee
that their cars will run on this product. It is widely used in other
countries and has been used for many years in parts of the US.
- Encouraging the New Zealand
vehicle fleet to use more fuel efficient vehicles.
There are many designs of motor vehicle that make more efficient use
of their fuel. For example inn a hybrid, a fossil-fueled
internal combustion engine can turn the wheels or a generator that is used to charge batteries, and the
batteries run an electric motor to drive the wheels. The
Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight
use this system. There is the possibility for future development in this
area. For example a company in England is working on a system to harness
the waste heat in the exhaust of a car.
These are areas that New Zealand can move in now. However all the above require leadership from the government to be rapidly implemented.
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