Science Centres: Energy
Advice to the Aussies on tunnel pollution
EnergyScape: progressing towards a secure energy future
Get ready for the hydrogen economy
Hydrogen is an attractive option as a source of clean, secure energy, especially for transport. If or when hydrogen vehicles really take off overseas, New Zealand has to have the infrastructure to handle them, including hydrogen production and distribution.
NIWA GM Energy, Murray Poulter, with Doug Watson and Roger Keedwell of Fonterra. (Photo: Alan Blacklock, NIWA)
The New Zealand EnergyScape project will create a data framework which relates key parameters (e.g., cost, risk, greenhouse gas emissions) across the entire New Zealand energy network. Users will then have a tool to forecast the impacts of given policy measures, such as comparing the effects of an energy future dominated by carbon sequestration and biofuels, with a future dominated heavily by renewable electricity and electric cars.
EnergyScape is well underway.
Advice to the Aussies on tunnel pollution
(Photo: Alan Blacklock, NIWA)
When the Australian government needed an independent expert opinion on the health risks of air pollution from urban road tunnels, it chose a New Zealand scientific team.
Across the Tasman, huge urban motorway projects are underway involving extensive use of tunnels. Sydney’s Orbital Motorway now has 14 km of tunnels, and up to 20 km of tunnels are mooted for central Brisbane.
