Electric vehicle technology could provide route to sustainable future - WWF report
Wed 02 April 2008
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Electric vehicle technologies in the form of plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles could provide the route towards a sustainable future for transport, helping to reduce CO2 emissions and avert potential conflicts over reduced oil resources according to a report from the global conservation organisation, WWF.
WWF's report - 'Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age' - says that transport now consumes about half of all crude oil supplied and that oil represents 95% of the primary energy used by the transport sector globally. The only way societies can address the combined challenges of energy and climate security, it says, is by tackling the dependence of transport on liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
According to WWF, it may be tempting but it is certainly dangerous for governments and fuel suppliers to address energy security concerns by developing 'alternative fuels' from unconventional oil resources, such as oil sands or coal-to-liquids. These oil substitutes, it says, are even more damaging to the environment than conventional crude oil.
Grid-connected vehicle technologies such as battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids - supplemented with sustainable biofuels - can be highly energy efficient and have the potential to deliver significant and immediate CO2 reductions. It finds that electric vehicles can be four times more efficient than their internal combustion equivalents; up to 75% of the electricity taken from the grid is converted into motion compared with only 18-23% of the energy contained in conventional transport fuels.
WWF's report says that electric technologies can also be three times more efficient than hydrogen-fuelled vehicles and, more importantly, can already be used with existing technology and distribution infrastructure
The advantage of electric transport will grow over time, the report says, as the power sector becomes progressively cleaner through a growth in renewable energy. Based on existing infrastructure, it is possible in many places to power millions of electric vehicles without any significant new investment.
James Leaton, Oil and Gas Policy Adviser at WWF-UK said: "Transport is the only sector still addicted to oil, which raises energy security fears as well as climate change concerns. There are currently about 800 million vehicles in the world and this number could double within 25 years - we need to make sure alternative transport solutions are delivered, rather than perpetuating the problem".
The report recommends the removal of hidden and overt subsidies to liquid fuel use. Vehicles should be subject to similar energy labelling and efficiency improvement requirements as other energy-consuming appliances and that liquid-based measures of fuel economy (e.g. litres per 100km or miles per gallon) and CO2 emissions targets should be replaced with technology-neutral indicators of energy consumed per kilometre.
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