{"id":285,"date":"2010-05-28T09:46:36","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T23:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=285"},"modified":"2020-06-20T02:04:23","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T16:04:23","slug":"environmentally-friendly-motoring-where-the-rubber-hits-the-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/home\/environmentally-friendly-motoring-where-the-rubber-hits-the-glass\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmentally friendly motoring: where the rubber hits the… glass?"},"content":{"rendered":"

More and more of us are becoming environmentally aware in the choices we make and in the way we drive. Car manufacturers, politicians, city planners and transport experts are all finding ways to make motoring more environmentally friendly and sustainable. The methods they use range from up-to-the-minute and \u201csexy\u201d to some that sound downright peculiar.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The really \u201csexy\u201d idea in environmentally friendly motoring is hybrid cars or electric cars that don\u2019t just use petrol or diesel but use electricity to power them. You just have to see the interest generated by the new <\/span>Toyota Hybrid Camry<\/span> to see how sexy this idea is. <\/span>And this idea, on the surface at least, looks pretty good. If you burn less petrol, you release fewer particles and nasties into the air, which cuts down on pollution. However, as the editor of the <\/span>Dog and Lemon Guide<\/span> is quick to point out, this isn\u2019t such an eco-friendly idea if the source of this electricity is from a coal or gas fired power station \u2013 all a hybrid car does in this case is to shift the point of pollution from one place to another. If your power comes from a sustainable source such as wind, solar or hydro electricity, then hybrid cars look a whole lot better. In fact, in the US, some researchers are looking at a way of creating \u201csolar road\u201d \u2013 roads made from solar panels that generate electricity (to run the hybrid and electric cars?) while still being safe to drive on. <\/span>Well, we\u2019ll see if this idea works!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The next hot topic in greener, more sustainable motoring is biofuels. While these still put out a few greenhouse gases, they don\u2019t rely on fossil fuels to be produced, and when it comes to carbon dioxide, they probably cancel out, as the things used to make them take carbon out of the atmosphere. Ethanol is one readily available alternative fuel in Australia \u2013 it\u2019s a by-product of our sugar industry \u2013 and biodiesel is also catching on. Biodiesel is produced from waste vegetable oils or even from a type of algae that can be grown in a septic tank. <\/span>Many European car manufacturers are cottoning onto the appeal of biodiesels and biofuels, and <\/span>Saab<\/span> (among others) has put out models that are designed to run on these fuels. Besides, diesel engines, which can take biodiesel, just keep getting better and better.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Transport planners have their ideas, too. There\u2019s a big push towards encouraging people to take public transport to work, get involved in car-pooling schemes, and to walk or bike for short journeys (i.e. 2 km trips). There\u2019s something to be said for some of these schemes, but if you\u2019ve got a heap of gear to cart about or its pouring with rain, most of us will probably take the car rather than the bike or the bus. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And even the roads we drive in are becoming more sustainable. Roading experts such as <\/span>AUSTROADS<\/span><\/a> have been looking at ways to make the roads themselves more sustainable by using fewer raw materials and more recycled material. You never quite know what\u2019s in the lower layers of the road you\u2019re driving on. Materials recovered to be used to make the roads we drive on include slag ash and other waste from our mining and metal industry, the bits of road they\u2019ve pulled up to make repairs, scrap tyres, crushed bricks and even old broken glass. Funny to think that you might end up driving on the beer bottle you\u2019ve drunk out of \u2013 about the only link there ought to be between drinking and driving. But that\u2019s another story.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/electronica.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More and more of us are becoming environmentally aware in the choices we make and in the way we drive. Car manufacturers, politicians, city planners and transport experts are all finding ways to make motoring more environmentally friendly and sustainable. The methods they use range from up-to-the-minute and \u201csexy\u201d to some that sound downright peculiar. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12588,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/12588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}