Energy is one of the most important components of our day to day activities. Gasoline, diesel, kerosene, propane and other products are extracted from fossil fuels through a number of systematic processes and are used to drive automobiles, aircrafts, ships and trains. Despite their importance, these fuels lead to the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and results in global warming, which has been on a steady rise for quite some time. A few Economic Crises have occurred in the recent past due to depletion of oil reserves. The latest brands of hybrid and electric cars are the most energy efficient while the supersize container ships have are the least energy efficient .There have been deliberate efforts by the international community to find solutions to this problem so as to avoid similar or worse situations in future. Most vehicle manufacturers now make automobiles that are more fuel efficient and more eco-friendly. Laws and recommendations that lead to energy efficiency have also been implemented in a number of countries.
Transportation is an important activity carried out by human beings and has evolved over the course of time. It represents about a quarter of the worldwide energy consumption. The earliest for of transport in the ancient world was to walk simply. With time people learned to make use of animals such as donkeys, camels and horses as a means of transport. In the industrial revolution, scientists came up with the automobiles that involved the use of fossil fuels for vehicle propulsion. Fossil fuel is a collective term for combustible geological deposits buried in the ground. The fuels are formed from spoiled animals and plants and can be converted to natural gas, crude oil through heat and pressure in the earth’s crust over hundreds of millions of years. These fuels contain high carbon percentages and also have coal. The Energy Information Administration made estimation that the primary energy sources contain petroleum 35%; coal 27.4% and 22% is natural gas. . Biodiesel and ethanol were actually the first fuels used to propel automobile engines but today it’s not the same. Nowadays most of the biofuels used in vehicles are added to diesel or gasoline. The use of fossil fuels has raised serious environmental issues due to what is emitted into the atmosphere after combustion.
Additionally, on the impacts of transportation on the environment, much can be drawn. In as much transportation has many positive impacts on earth which increased mobility, globalization, and increased market for the products of various firms around the world, it does not lack shortcomings. Transportation has several effects on earth. The effects can be classified into three main groups. The first group of impacts is direct effects. Direct in this case implies that there is immediate and often real time impact from a transport machine. For instance, noise pollution and the emission of the greenhouse gas (CO2) Carbon dioxide are direct impacts of transportation. The other impact is indirect impact. The indirect impact can also be taken as the tertiary effect that a transport facility has on the environment. The tertiary types of impacts are commonly more severe than the direct ones. Their manifestations are normally confused and hard to establish. For example, particulates of matter usually result from incomplete burning in combustion parts of the engine. The effects of these particles are adverse. They are usually associated with cardiovascular and respiratory problems (Sperling, 2003). The other effect that transportation brings to earth is termed as cumulative. The cumulative type takes on both the indirect and direct effect. The cumulative as the name suggest implies that is progressive and may take long before the effect is established. In other words, they can also be termed as the multiplicative or the additive effects of transport. For instance global warming and climate change result from cumulative transport effects. The two are caused by an amalgamation of both athropogenic and natural factors, of which transports takes huge role. Precisely, the transport sector contributes about 15% of the total CO2 emissions on earth.
Global warming is a process referring to the slow increase in the earth’s atmosphere average temperature. This process slowly leads to a permanent change in the earth’s climate. The changes include rising sea levels, an increase in desert sizes and changes in precipitation. The global warming currently being experienced in most parts of the world is an energy problem that has been caused by an increase in conventional fossil fuel use. It is projected that the United States of America will use approximately 36% more gas, coal and oil in 2030 than in 2004. (EPA, 2010). Policy makers and legislators are yet to come up with laws that will control our use of fossil fuels. Dedicated activists and scientist like Al Gore have been on the forefront of global warming awareness campaigns and are finally beginning to get international attention (Klare, 2007).Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are combusted. Natural gas is the most widely used type of fuel in transport and is often dubbed the cleanest of all. However, when the relevant data is analysed it is shown that natural gas is still the main contributor to the emissions that cause global warming. In years to come, the situation may get worse because there is a gradual increase in demand for natural gas each year (Cook et al., 2005).
The transport industry is divided into different sectors but they all have something in common. In all these forms of transport, there have been deliberate efforts by automakers to incorporate energy efficient technologies in their manufacture and help drive us close to energy independence. For instance, in the year, 2015 more than 490 car models on sale achieved a mileage of above 30 Miles per Gallon. This is a 600% from the 69 car models of 2006 that achieved a similar mileage. This change can be attributed to the relatively new technologies e.g. synergy drive, hybrid technologies, solar powered and electric vehicles that slowly begin to find their way into the market. All these inventions have an ultimate goal of reducing the currently dependence on oil (Galistsky, 2008).The impact of these new technologies is that the carbon dioxide produced by the vehicle is greatly reduced and this is a step in the right direction in our efforts to keep our planet green and free from large amounts of greenhouse gases. Despite the decrease in energy consumption in the recession, total road transport energy consumption in 2015 was still higher than in 1990. Motor vehicles account for about 83% of the total energy consumption.
Air travel is the second most popular form of transport. It is embraced due to its speed and convenience and is the second highest energy consumer at 13%. Aircraft that had poor structural issues ended up consuming a lot of fuel and were gradually done away with. Newer planes tend to be more streamlined and with higher mileage (Inderwildi and King). The use of ships as a mode of transport is not as popular as the other forms. This is because only some countries can be accessed via ships through a coastline. Shipping is also a slow means of transport and is mostly used for transporting big bulky and heavy goods from one continent to another. Ships are propelled by low-grade bunker fuel which contains up to 2000 times the amount of sulphur compared to diesel fuels used in automobiles. The recent boom in global trade of manufactured products has led to the creation of a new breed of heavy supersize container ships. These ships consume so much fuel that the consumption isn’t measures by gallons per hour but tones per hour. Pollution from these giant sea crafts has for quite some time been linked to the sicknesses that riddle coastal residents who reside near the busy shipping waterways (Seba, 2014).
Over the past few decades, the world has experienced more than a few oil crises. An oil crisis is a situation where too much extraction has led to the depletion of oil wells or rather peak oil is attained. The world economic crisis of 1973 was coupled with a huge increase in the prices of crude oil together with production cuts and embargoes by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).The second oil crisis occurred in 1979 and there was a slight currency deflation (Yergin, 2012).
In the subsequent years, there have been some oil crises which have put a strain on automobile users due to the increased fuel prices. Peak oil is a time whereby the maximum rate of oil extraction is reached and cannot be continued further. This concept relies on the observer rate of production of each well and the combined production of a group of oil wells. Optimistic estimations predict that a peak production and global decline will occur in the year 2020.Hopefully, by that time, major investments will have already been done on alternative sources of energy that do not require major lifestyle changes in the countries that consume oil heavily (Sperling and Kurani, 2003).
In 2009, IEA (International Energy Agency) countries made an agreement to implement and adhere to their recommendations that were seen as a giant leap in the quest to increase energy efficiency in the transport sector. The leaders reaffirmed the pivotal role that fuel efficiency plays in meeting the social, economic and environmental objectives. The recommendations were as follows; facilitation of the use of fuel efficient tyres, promoting fuel efficient standards in motor vehicles and setting up of eco-driving programmes. So far only a few countries have managed to implement one or two recommendation. Examples include Japan and the United States of America who have fully embraced the use of fuel efficient vehicles in the respective countries (Yang and Yu, 2015). The situation is exactly the opposite in countries like New Zealand and Australia, who are yet to implement this particular recommendation. Fuel efficient engines are estimated to reduce fuel consumption by a staggering 20 to 30%. One proposal that is currently being implemented is the setting up of eco-driving programmes. Australia, Canada, European Union, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and The United States of America are all continuing to implement this programme. Eco driving programmes are estimated to reduce energy usage by 5% to 15% in the long term. The fuel efficient tyres recommendation is yet to be fully implemented by any nation but efforts to do the same are being made in Canada, The U.S.A, Japan and Korea (Kazunori, 2010). In the U.S.A, there have been some deliberate strides to implement this. For example, the tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) was introduced and it is now mandatory for all passenger cars, buses) and trucks to maintain the appropriate tyre pressures and failure to do this has its consequences. Secondly, there is the low rolling resistance tyres and labelling which is also done in the U.S.A. This programme proposed a label for replacement tyres, which contains information about the tyres impact on carbon dioxide emission reduction and fuel economy. Other pieces of information such as tread wear durability and wet-weather traction is also contained in the labels (Kazunori, 2010).
Without these recommendations being implemented, there are projections that demand for energy and carbon dioxide with just keep increasing over time. It is also predicted that road transport will continue to lead in energy use; accounting for a demand of approximately 78% in the year 2050.The remainder will be split between shipping and air travel and will continue to grow significantly. Another dimension would be to seek petroleum sources that could act as alternatives to the conventional oil. Examples are tar sands and oil shale. Oil shale refers to the fine grained sedimentary rock where oil can be extracted. It is a mixture of chemical compounds that are organic from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. When the oil shale is heated at extreme temperature causes a chemical process that separates the liquid oil from the vapor, which can be refined and used as conventional petroleum.
Summarily, transportation and energy is broad topic that needs a closer look at each stake of it to understand the whole concept. The paper has elaborated on transportation and energy in particular. What is clear is that transportation has evolved over time and still continues to evolve. The evolution of the transportation sector is driven be the need to make the world a better place. As the transportation sector becomes better, the mobility of people and goods becomes better and efficient. The world business booms and people continue to know each other better. However, as people enjoy all of these benefits, there is the dark side of transportation that has been elaborated. Transportation has adverse effects on the lives of people on earth. The adverse effects are direct, indirect or cumulative depending on how they affect human activities on earth. The advantage is that human beings have a solution to the adverse effects of transportation—going green. The main challenge is for nations and the entire world to adopt these solutions so that the impacts of transportation are minimized and possibly eradicated with time. It is very possible to eradicate. Countries should call for a meeting geared towards the adoption of greener energy solutions. It is through such meetings that a common course will be chatted and ways of implementing at are devised. In a nutshell, transportation and energy and tied together.
References
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