Energy savings in transport 283Example of a ZED (Zero Emission (fossil-fuel)
Development)
BedZED is a mixed development urban village constructed on a brown-
field wasteland in the London Borough of Sutton, providing eighty-two
dwellings in a mixture of apartments, maisonettes and town houses to-
gether with some work/office space and community facilities.^16 The
combination of super-insulation, a wind-driven ventilation system in-
corporating heat recovery and passive solar gain stored within each unit
in thermally massive floors and walls reduces the energy needs so that a
135-kW wood-fuelled combined heat and power (CHP) plant is sufficient
to meet the village’s energy requirements. A 109-kW peak photovoltaic
installation provides enough solar electricity to power forty electric cars,
some pool, some taxi, some privately owned. The community has the
capacity to lead a carbon neutral lifestyle – with all energy for buildings
and local transport being supplied from renewable sources.Energy savings in transport
Transport is responsible for nearly one-quarter of greenhouse gas emis-
sions worldwide. It is also the sector where emissions are growing
most rapidly. Road transport accounts for the largestproportion of this,
over eighty per cent in industrialised countries; air transport is next at
thirteen per cent. Since 1970, the number of motor vehicles in the United
States has grown at an average rate of 2.5% per year, in the rest of the
world the growth has been almost twice as rapid at nearly five per cent
per year (Figure 11.9). The latter trend will continue or increase as there
remain very large differences in the degree of car ownership between
different countries – for instance about 1.5 persons per car in the USA
and a little over 100 persons per car in India and China. The advantages
conferred by the motor car, the convenience, freedom and flexibility that
it brings, mean that growth in its use is bound to continue. Increased pros-
perity also brings with it increased movement of freight. In the transport
sector the achievement of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions will
be particularly challenging.
There are three types of action that can be taken to curb the energy use
of motor transport.^18 The first is to increase the efficiency of fuel use. We
cannot expect the average car to compete with the vehicle which, in 1992,
set a record by covering over 12 000 km on one gallon of petrol – a journey
which serves to illustrate how inefficiently we use energy for transport!
However, it is estimated that the average fuel consumption of the current
fleet of motor cars could be halved through the use of existing technology