Rubbish Lorries

I am doing some work for Leeds Paper Recycling. In order to capture more contracts to process waste they are actively seeking to understand their carbon footprint and how to significantly minimise the environmental impact of the processing.
They are working hard finely sorting the waste and dealing with each aspect in the best way. They recycle what they can and are looking to produce usable energy from the rest rather than send it to landfill. It's quite an operation.
Measuring their carbon footprint it struck me that despite all their hard work one aspect of the business is a very major contributor to their greenhouse gas emissions which they have limited control over. Not only that but it's a very large source of global emissions that seems to get little focus. Ninety percent of L.P.R.'s operational footprint is from transport, driving their wagons around.
In the World of cars the industry is in crisis, sales of petrol slurping monster utility vehicles have plummeted and all the research and focus is on fuel efficiency and fuel alternatives.
So what of the trucks, the juggernauts and wagons and lorries that rattle past my house 24/7?
Heavy wagons are shifting somewhere in the order of 70% of all freight in the U.K. . With a recession on, high fuel costs and tighter emission laws you might think that manufacturers and operators alike would be driving full tilt towards low-carbon. You'd be wrong. The average fuel efficiency of cars has doubled in the last 40 years, today's lorries guzzle the same amount of fuel as they did in 1969.
Compared to other forms of freight transport trucks are responsible for the most carbon emissions and the largest percentage increase. Since 1990 road transport has increased by 77.8% in contrast to an air freight increase of 4.5%, rail 33% and water 9%. More and more trucks on our congested roads and their fuel economy is not improving.
What to do..... only 6.5% of the energy in a big wagon's fuel is used to shift the cargo inside it. 11% moves the vehicle, 6.5% accelerates the cargo and 4.5% accelerates the vehicle. The rest is wasted; 50% as waste heat, 19% battling against aerodynamic forces, 12% simply idling, 11% tyre roll resistance and 2% transmission drag.
There's much work to do, some petrol-electric hybrid, a Prius truck, would help if available, as would a system to capture some of the waste heat and using it to help power the truck. Aerodynamics has a way to go, square ends on trucks leave trails of drag inducing turbulence in their wake which simple redesign can offer up to 11% fuel saving.
There are the beginnings of improvements. "E-Traction" a company based in Holland has developed an electric motor for trucks and buses that fits inside each wheel, putting the power down right where it is needed and eliminating the need for heavy transmission and gearing that soaks up a significant portion of the engine's power.
Other ideas are coming through too.... modified shock absorbers that stop the vehicle bouncing after going over a pothole or bump and absorbing the motion in a piston filled with viscous fluid and driving this through a small turbine to drive an electrical generator.
My favourite? In the U.S. one shipping giant uses routeing software that seeks to avoid left turns, that is turns across the flow of oncoming traffic (that would be right turns here). This cuts down the time spent idling and the company claims that this, along with other tweaks has saved it 11 million litres of fuel in 2007 alone.
C'mon truckers! Wise up, there's money to be saved, there's carbon to reduce! Or, better than that.... stick it on a train.

Train connections

Continental Europe has had a far stronger commitment to high speed rail over the past few decades than the U.K.. Where once Great Britain led the way, opening the World's first, fast intercity railway between London and Birmingham in 1837, it now boasts a rail system in shambles following years of a make do and mend approach to rail infrastructure by successive governments.
There has never been a better time to invest in rail. The technology already exists to operate fast, efficient, low carbon trains. The U.K. currently has 113 Km of high speed track and no more currently under construction or planned, the lowest of all European countries (well nearly, Switzerland will have 107Km). Built, under construction and planned track across Europe has: Belgium 209Km, France 4787Km, Germany 2333KM, Italy 1271, Portugal 1006Km, Spain 5515 to name but just 6.
Here's the good news; the government has made the demise of domestic air travel an explicit policy target by aiming to replace short haul flights with a new 250mph high speed rail network.
The transport secretary Lord Adonis (yes, Lord Adonis, bronzed I am sure) has put the switching of 46 million domestic air passengers per year to a multi billion pound north - south high speed rail alternative at the top of his agenda.
It makes a great deal of sense, rail uses one third of the land that motorways use and can move far more people/hour than air or car, carbon emissions are a quarter of those for car or aeroplane per passenger and the technology already exists to be able to get on with something that works and will continue to do so well into the future. Cost? High, but not that high... and would save £5 billion/year current rail subsidy (one would hope!).
Connected thinking is what we need here. Why do people travel in their cars rather than on the train? Is one good reason because in a car they have their own private space unimpeded by others while they travel? On the 13th July my blog mentioned "Riversimple" a company producing new hydrogen fuel cell powered cars. What if we were greatly encouraged to travel in these (and similar)? Local journeys would be a joy, long journeys..... ah, long journeys.... we stick our little car onto the high speed train (Eurotunnel style) zoom across to the city or town we want to be in sitting in our car, drive out of the train and whizz about in our little car. That would work.