By Craig Cormick
With the price of oil set to rise dramatically worldwide, coupled with current environmental concerns, it might be time for Australia to have a serious look at alternative fuels.
Australia currently imports about 250,000 barrels of oil a day, with about 45% coming from the Middle East. Imports account for about a third of our oil usage. However, according the Institute of Petroleum, Australia is basically self-reliant in oil, and in fact we export nearly as much as we import.
According to David Cumming from the institute, our oil imports are mainly in the form of heavier crudes, which are used for bitumens. "In the short term there's no problem. We're not that reliant on imported oil yet. In Australia we can keep all the cars and trucks going on indigenous crude", he said.
However Australia's oil reserves are not great, and our reliance on imports is expected to climb over the coming decade, forcing us to turn to alternative fuels or face larger import bills.
During the oil crises of the 1970s, new technologies were turned to in earnest, but as oil prices dropped again in the 1980s, funding and enthusiasm dwindled.
Rodney Falconer, the director of the Conservation Council of the ACT, believes it is a good time to turn our attention back to alternative energies once more. "It's probably a good thing if the price of oil rises to the extent that we really seriously begin looking at alternative energy sources", he said.
A report by the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, prepared in 1988, and titled "Energy 2000", said, "While Australia is currently a net energy exporter, and will remain so, far into the foreseeable future, dependence on crude oil imports is likely to increase significantly over the next decade unless major new discoveries are made in the near future."
It also said there was a concern about the reliance on imported oil due to "a concentration of known world oil reserves in the Middle East where political instability is a matter of growing concern". The report adds in its summary that Australia will still be about 35% dependent on oil around 2000.
Realistic short-term alternatives for oil imports include conservation, natural gas, synthetic liquid fuels and alcohol fuels.
Conservation
The most effective solution to the energy crisis of the 1970s proved to be increased energy conservation. As oil prices rose during the 1970s, oil use decreased, but this slowed as oil prices dropped again due to the oil glut of the 1980s.
While Australia only uses about half the amount of energy per person it still uses about 50% more than Japan, showing considerable scope for more conservation.
Dr Mark Diesendorf, the program director for global change of the Australian Conservation Foundation, says that Australia has enormous potential for fuel conservation. "Petrol and diesel fuels have been so cheap in Australia there's been practically no attempt at fuel conservation."
The main opportunities for increasing fuel conservation were in developing public transport systems, particularly in the form of trams and light rail within city centres. "In the United States they are realising that a city based on the motor car is a disaster area", he said. "That's one way that Canberra could go in the future and one way we want to stop."
Of the fuel substitutes, some are already in limited use and others could be easily introduced. Both natural gas and liquid gas can be used for transport fuel. Goulburn's taxi fleet was converted to run on compressed natural gas a few years ago.
Synthetic fuels
Synthetic liquid fuels are produced from coal, oil shale and natural gas, of which Australia has ample supplies. Alcohol fuels can be produced from fermenting agricultural wastes. In Brazil, an alcohol-based fuel, produced from sugar cane, provided 12.4 billion litres of fuel in 1988, with nearly 30% of cars running on it. A CSIRO project, Crop-Fuel, is working to produce a diesel substitute from oilseed crops.
The major inhibiting factor with more widespread use of alternative fuels has been their cost. The relative cheapness of oil to date has kept them at uneconomic prices — but that may change quickly.
According to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, Australia was paying about US$15 a barrel for oil in July, before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. David Cumming said, "It's not going to shoot up to US$50 a barrel, but it's looking like settling at about US$25 a barrel". This will make many of the alternative fuels more economically feasible.
However, Dr Diesendorf said we would still be faced with all the problems of a car-based society and the pollution problems and greenhouse emissions associated with that.
And Rodney Falconer said, "They're not a real solution and are just helping us stall the ultimate decision. If we're really to look into the long-term future, we should be looking at the reduction of waste and the bringing on line of a sustainable energy resource."
Sun and wind
Much research has already been done on renewable energies such as solar power, wind power and geothermal energy. While not having any application in transport, they would replace fossil fuels being used in heating and electricity generation.
Renewable energy currently accounts for only about 5% of Australia's energy usage but has the capacity to grow. As solar efficiency s (converting sunlight directly into electricity) become more feasible. Many companies and research institutions have been working on increasing solar power to the point it is now used in remote areas to supplement other energy sources.
Probably the most widespread use of solar technology in Australia is the solar hot water system, providing up to 80% of water heating in different systems.
Natural underground hot water resources that could be tapped are largely restricted to sparsely populated areas such as the Great Artesian Basin.
Another alternative, wind power, has been studied by CSIRO, with Tasmania and some areas of the southern coast of the continent showing the most potential for linking wind generators into a local grid.
The first medium-sized wind generator linked into an electricity grid was built near Fremantle six years ago, and one Australian company has even begun producing domestic-sized hybrid wind, battery and diesel power systems for rural areas.
Dr Diesendorf says that there is a small role for alternative fuels in our short-term future, but the main savings will be made through more efficient use of existing fuels.
He added that an oil price rise would not on its own produce a more energy-efficient society. "We need to put resources into more energy efficiency and give local industries the incentives to be more fuel efficient. We have to start planning for our long-term future."