Counting Cost of Green Fuel Future

Oct 08 - Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

The Government would have to invest heavily in nuclear plants or cover an area the size of Wales in wind farms if it planned to replace oil-dependent cars with greener hydrogen-powered vehicles, Midland researchers have claimed.

Economists at the University of Warwick said the move would require the erection of 100,000 new wind turbines or 100 new nuclear power plants.

Professor Andrew Oswald and energy consultant Jim Oswald produced the startling calculation in an article for Accountancy magazine.

Jim Oswald said: 'The enormity of the green challenge is not understood. Many people think that hydrogen is a simple alternative to oil, but in fact it will require a huge investment in either wind farms or nuclear plants.'

Transport consumes about 55 million metric tonnes of oil per year and the rise in car use has seen energy use on the roads almost double since 1970. But with oil contributing to global warming and its location in politically unstable countries has raised fears that future supplies could start to run dry.

The academics believe hydrogen is the only practical environmentally friendly alternative to run cars.

But hydrogen is not a source of energy but a carrier of energy and has to be made, transported and stored using huge amounts of renewables-based electricity, they said.

In their paper they calculated what the power costs would be to run all of Britain's road transport, in a truly green way, with hydrogen.

They found it would require about 100,000 new wind turbines.