Facing Points

The strategy for the air and road transport industry is perplexing. The renewable fuels obligation means that a percentage of biofuels will be added to oil and gas based fuels, but shortage of agricultural land and competition to food producers will restrict their universal application.

Even at the current level of activity, road traffic would consume more than 3 times all the electricity we generate to produce a hydrogen equivalent. With the end of North Sea gas looming and as the de-commissioning of nuclear power gets under way, electricity will be at a premium and only rail can make use of the limited amount of renewable electricity efficiently.


Rail vs. Air and Road

It is time to set the railways in their true future context.

The strategy for the air and road transport industry is perplexing. The renewable fuels obligation means that a percentage of biofuels will be added to oil and gas based fuels, but shortage of agricultural land and competition to food producers will restrict their universal application. There are unattainable dreams of pollution-free hydrogen for motive power after oil and gas supplies run down; inappropriate because the hydrogen is produced from natural gas or by electrolysis from fossil fuel generated electricity. Generation of hydrogen directly from a nuclear reactor is another often-quoted remote possibility. The solutions are dressed up in carbon reduction terms to reduce global warming, but it is essentially a move to enable the industries to survive their inevitable decline.

Sanders Research Associates