Pulling together a national fuel strategy

There’s a lot we could do. Australia is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of natural gas and the world’s largest per capita user of automotive LPG. We have the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, yet there are only a few hundred vehicles on Australia’s roads using compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG). Other countries are developing biodiesel, but again there are only a handful of trucks in Australia that use biodiesel.

Why is this so in a country with more land per head of population than just about anywhere else on earth? Could growing crops for biofuels make use of land that is not suitable for crops? Would growing crops for biofuels help solve the salinity problem? As far as I know, these matters have not been studied rigorously. True there are lots of data developed overseas, but our situation is different. Aside from the land-to-population ratio, our distances between commercial centres are that much greater than in other developed countries. In short, we are totally dependent on oil and it’s time we had a plan that would prepare us for any eventuality.

The International Energy Agency says it will take three or four decades for the transition to a near-zero emission transport system, meaning that we’ll be depending on the internal combustion engine for some time yet. We know that there are many advances in engine technology that could, over the next eight or so years, improve fuel consumption by around 30 per cent in total.

Hybrid-electric technology will help to improve fuel consumption for urban vehicles. Today’s cars are much more fuel efficient than even a decade ago, yet our average car consumes no less fuel than a decade ago. The reason for this, of course, is that we’ve bought bigger and bigger vehicles. And why wouldn’t we, when the only extra cost for a big car is a bit more petrol? Who would care when a litre of petrol was cheaper than a litre of bottled water?

Did we really believe nothing would change? Did we believe we could go on forever without paying something for the cost of repairing the damage that is causing the climate change? Didn’t we notice that insurance premiums were steadily rising because of the cost of climate-caused events? Perhaps a few cents per litre of petrol might pay for whatever it takes to reduce damage to the environment or to pay for the effects of an already-damaged environment.

It’s time we pulled together for a national fuels strategy.