Traffic growth fuels emissions debate

Date: 17/01/02

Laurence Frost reports on the progress being made to provide drivers with alternatives to petrol

AS THE EU struggles to galvanise world-wide support for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, its citizens' growing dependence on cars remains the main obstacle to the Union keeping its side of the bargain.

Most sectors have actually cut carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions over the past ten years, thanks partly to the intervening recession. Power plants release 7 less of the troublesome gas than they did in 1990; manufacturing industry has cut emissions by a more impressive 12.

But Europeans have defied the slowdown with increased mobility. Transport emissions - 80 of them from roads - have increased by a fifth over the same period, and now account for a third of all CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.

In an attempt to tame the sector's runaway emissions, the European Commission in 1998 negotiated a voluntary agreement on fuel efficiency with EU carmakers. The manufacturers agreed to cut average CO2 emissions from new cars to 140 grams per kilometre over ten years. Japanese and Korean carmakers signed up the following year.

Four years on, the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) now declares that its members have already met the interim target of 170 grams per kilometre a year ahead of schedule. But the next stage could prove more difficult. Sales of larger cars such

as sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and people movers are now booming, threatening a reversal of the decline in carbon emissions.

'The market trend towards bigger and heavier vehicles won't favour our agreement,' says Giovanni Margaria of ACEA. 'But we're confident that technical evolution and the possibility of using lighter materials will enable us to meet our commitments.'

The environmentalists are sceptical. 'Think SUV,' says Stephanos Anastasiadis of the NGO Transport and Environment. Even if the manufacturers do meet their target, it will only take a small chunk out of the predicted growth - it's not going to solve the problem'.

In another bid to slash emissions, the Commission tabled a draft directive late last year to force member states to increase the use of cleaner alternative fuels produced from agricultural crops.

Under the plan, 'biofuels' such as ethanol would have to account for 5.75 of all fuels sold by 2010. A parallel tax proposal would allow governments to give up to 50 reductions in excise duties to encourage uptake of the new fuels.

But the environmental gains are limited, for two reasons.

Firstly, as the green groups have been swift to point out, the resulting lower car emissions have to be offset against the significant quantities of energy - and therefore greenhouse gas emissions - involved in their intensive production from crops.

The second constraint is on the scope for future increases to the amount of biofuels that can be blended into petrol and diesel. 'You can go up to 5 or 10 with cars as they are now,' says Jorgen Henningsen, an advisor to François Lamoureux, the Commission's director-general for transport and energy. 'Beyond that, technical modifications [to cars] are needed.'

Another alternative fuel, liquid petroleum gas (LPG) - typically propane or butane - is already in widespread use in vehicles, often encouraged by tax incentives. The fuel is cleaner but offers no significant reductions in carbon emissions, and does nothing to reduce dependence on oil, from which it is derived.

Biofuels and engine efficiency drives will go some way to flatten the transport emissions growth curve over the next few years. Policymakers now recognise that more drastic action will be needed both to stem the longer-term emissions tide and to reduce Europe's dependence on the world's crude oil reserves, already a core EU objective before the events of 11 September sowed further uncertainty in relations with the Middle East.

The manufacturers know this too, and are now engaged in an expensive technological quest for alternatives to petrol and diesel combustion to power their future cars.

By far the most visible fruit of their laboursis the 'hybrid', a car that combines an ordinary diesel or petrol engine with an electric motor.

The first onto the market, Honda's Insight, has since been overtaken by the Toyota Prius, which generates power when braking and decelerating to recharge the car's on-board battery.

The two hybrid pioneers are soon to be joined by Ford, which plans to launch a hybrid version of its Escape SUV in the US in 2003.

But hybrids have so far proved popular only in Japan, and in any case offer limited scope for efficiency gains - the Prius, at its best in stop-start urban driving, manages CO2 emissions of around 120 g/km, or around 30 below the average new car.

While some manufacturers are also investing in short-to-medium term strategies such as hybrids, most of the majors are also now in hot pursuit of the 'holy grail' of alternative fuels - hydrogen.

The widespread introduction of hydrogen cars is the ultimate goal of the Commission's action plan on alternative fuels, announced last November.

With expensive prototype demonstration vehicles by several makers already on the road, the feasibility of using hydrogen-fed fuel cells to generate enough electricity to power a normal-sized car is no longer in doubt. But the technology's high costs look set to pose a barrier to commercial viability for years, if not decades, to come.

'We do think the future's hydrogen,' says Liam Benham of Ford. 'We guess that within ten years we're going to have a marketable fuel cell product.'

Ford has spent €470 million buying its way into a joint partnership with DaimlerChrysler and Ballard Power Systems, the Canadian fuel cell developer. In the rival camp - the Californian Fuel Cell Partnership - are Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz.

If the technological challenges facing the development of a commercially viable hydrogen cell look formidable, the problem of extracting the hydrogen from an appropriate source could be greater.

'Nobody quite knows how to do that yet in the quantity required,' says Benham. Counter to other manufacturers - who want to extract the gas from petrol or cleaner hydrocarbons using an expensive on-board device - Ford is putting its faith in the development of infrastructure to supply hydrogen straight to motorists.

'The basis for confidence is that hydrogen is in water,' says Benham. 'It's a matter of getting it into a form that can be used to power vehicles.'

It is widely accepted that such a scenario is far off, with the date 2020 bandied about, but there are other alternatives planned.

The Commission action plan highlights development of natural gases such as methane as a car fuel in the medium term. Natural gas is already used commercially in some EU markets, notably Italy - where Fiat sold more than 20,000 gas-powered cars in 2000.

But as with hydrogen, gas has serious infrastructure problems to overcome. A lack of widespread availability in German filling stations was a reason behind the failure of BMW's foray into the fuel form in the 1990s, when the firm was forced to withdraw its gas models after selling only 700 over five years. BMW's typical development costs run up to €50 million for each new engine variant.

'We lost a lot of money,' says BMW technical advisor Hans-Joachim Kalb, who believes the fuel did not fit the brand image. 'We're selling in the luxury segment, but the main reason for people to buy a gas car in the first place is the saving on fuel costs.'

Now, with Volvo and Opel planning new gas-powered models, BMW is watching carefully and pondering a return to the market. 'It will be interesting to see whether the new cars lead to an increase in the number of fuel stations,' says Kalb.

If the bubble of expectation surrounding hydrogen technologies should burst, industry watchers say gas could turn out to be a longer-term solution than policymakers envisage.

Methane is widely available and geographically less concentrated than crude oil. As the chemical formula CH4 suggests, it offers a high ratio of hydrogen to carbon - making it a relatively low-emissions fuel. As ACEA's Margaria puts it, 'in the end it may make more sense to burn methane than to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons'.

A report on the progress being made to provide drivers with alternatives to petrol.