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Do trucks ha) bad breath?

24th June 1993, Page 38
24th June 1993
Page 38
Page 39
Page 38, 24th June 1993 — Do trucks ha) bad breath?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The air we breath is made up of approximately 80% of the inert gas nitrogen and 20% of the life-giving gas oxygen. Tins is approximate because about 1% of the total is a combination of rare gases such as helium and argon and, if we ignore water vapour, there is an even smaller proportion of gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and carbon dioxide that are collectively known as the "greenhouse gases".

Together they represent less than one part in 2,500 or 0.04% of the atmosphere but they perform an invaluable role by allowing short-wave radiation from the sun to penetrate the atmosphere while trapping reflected long-wave radiation. This simple phenomenon acts like a thermal blanket and keeps the earth some 30T warmer than it would otherwise be. Without this insulating layer most of the planet's surface would be covered in ice.

It has been suggested recently that a build-up of greenhouse gases will lead to a gradual warming of the earth—the "global warming" effect—leading ultimately to the melting of the polar ice-caps and the flooding of lowlying land.

Carbon dioxide (COO is a naturally occurring gas which is unique in that it is stable and is used by all forms of plant life to help them "digest" nitrates. But just as plants

use it up, people and animals produce it by taking carbon from food in the form of carbohydrates and combining it with oxygen to produce energy

Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth have tried to portray the truck as a major producer of CO2 but they will have a hard time making that accusation stick.

Anti-truck lobby

Now that the Euro-1 emission limit is all but with us, and Euro-2 is just around the next corner, and just as mad transport people thought it was safe to take to the road again, the anti-truck lobby has switched its attack away from hydrocarbons (FIC), carbon monoxide (CO) and oxides of nitrogen (N0x) to carbon dioxide (CO2).

Carbon dioxide accounts for only 0.035% of the atmosphere but now that CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) are coming under control it is seen as the most important greenhouse gas so the pressure is on to reduce it.

The greenhouse effect and global warming have had a lot of publicity over the past few years and the UK government, along with many others, has agreed to stabilise CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2005. The road transport industry has no choice but to meet that challenge Carbon dioxide is produced whenever fossil fuels such as coal, oil or gas are burned. This is equally true of coal burned in a power station, gas in a household central heating boiler or petrol in a car. The UK burns the equivalent of 220 million tonnes of oil every year. Of this 20m tonnes is clean primary electricity; produced by hydro or nuclear stations; the other 200m tonnes are fossil fuels which produce some 608m tonnes of CO2 when burned.

Biggest users

Our chart (left) shows the UK's major CO2 producers. Power stations, accounting for 34%. are the biggest users of energy which they burn to produce electricity Transport in total consumes about 20% all energy and thus produces 20% of all CO2. In 1991 transport used 42.86m tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) energy and produced some 128.6 million tonnes of CO2.

Of this total transport energy demand, rail took 0.63mtoe, water 1.32mtoe, aviation 62mtoe and road 34,71rntoe. This is still a big number and represents some 104m tonnes or

17% of all CO2 produced, But it not all produced by trucks: cars, taxis, buses. light and medium commercials have to be considered as well as high-profile HGVs.

Department of Energy figures show this total road transport energy figure of 34.71mtoe comprises 24.02m tonnes of petrol and 10.69m tonnes of diesel. As almost all HGVs are diesel-powered we can ignore the larger number and investigate the 10.69mtoe further.

With a knowledge of the various vehicle parcs, typical fuel consumptions and annual mileages it is possible to break down the total road transport figure into vehicle groups as shown in our second chart (see facing page).

Correct order The figures are based on best-guess fuel consumptions and published DOT and SMMT vehicle parm and, although not 100% perfect, they are of the correct order and accurately show, for example, the relative importance of diesel cars and light and medium vans.

The UK's 460,000 HGVs only use an estimated 5.58m tonnes of fuel which represents 16% of road transport energy. That equates to 2.5% of the total UK energy demand and 16.74 tonnes or 2.8% of UKproduced CO2. While still a significant figures, it is only half the amount suggested by Friends of the Earth.

To put the figures into perspective, the UK HGV fleet uses less fuel than UK-based aircraft; less than as% of the fuel swallowed by our 23m airs and light CVs, and less than 20% of the energy used in our homes. Transport and economic growth seem to be irrevocably linked. with a rise or fall of activity in one affecting the other. Certainly this is true of car ownership, which has quadrupled in 30 years, from less than 5m in 1960 to nearly atin in 1990. Over the same period the HGV population has remained effectively constant at around half a million.

Despite considerable economic growth in that 30-year period the amount of freight lifted has remained surprisingly constant at around 1,600m tonnes. The real growth has been in the amount of freight moved. On a tonne/kilometre basis, road freight has more than doubled in a 30-year period from 53 to 130 billion kilonietres.

With the HGV pare remaining constant and the amount of freight moved more than doubling individual vehicles have had to run further each year and Department of Transport figures confirm that average vehicle mileage doubled over the period.

Between 1982 and 1991 petrol consumption rose by 25% while diesel use went up 86%. from 5.73 to 10.69m tonnes.

Big increase

This was not all due to extra HGV movements, however, as there was a big increase in diesel cars and light and medium commercials in the period.

SMMT Motorparc figures show the parc of diesel cars increased from just 57,063 in 1983 to 976,603 in 1992 with diesel-powered light and medium commercials increasing from 262,971 in 1983 to 1,013,106 in 1992. By way of contrast the HGVs and bus population actually fell These extra diesel-powered vehicles accounted for 3.7m tonnes of the extra diesel used in the 1982.91 period.

All these figures show that although there has been a growth in amount of energy used by the HGV pare it is nothing like as great as the anti-truck lobby would have us believe.

Friends of the Earth have suggested that rigorous enforcement of the HGV speed limits would save 4m tonnes of CO2, or 1.33 million tonnes of fuel a year. That is nearly 25% of all the fuel used and therefore highly optimistic The introduction of lower speed limits and speed limiters, without the provision of extra road space, is more likely

to have the effect of bunching traffic creating moving traffic jams which actually increase overall fuel consult

Trucks are not a major CO2 contri and taking into account their unden strategic role in the economy, they a extremely energy efficient. As we ha aircraft, cars, our own homes and or stations all produce more CO2 than c trucks. On a wider scale the UK on13 produces 3% of the world total. Wh; burning fossil fuel account for only. overall atmospheric total, By far the proportion is produced by natural e such as man simply living and brew the planet.

1: by Gibb Grace


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