Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER)

It is my pleasure to represent Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER) at the Australian Electric Vehicle Association (AVEA) National Conference in November in Hobart. I will be speaking on two topics: 🚗 The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) is now a reality in Australia. But how does it actually work and how effective will it be in reducing transport emissions? TER has developed a bespoke NVES design tool to provide insight in the workings of the NVES and to assess the emission impacts of different design choices for the standard. The talk will discuss how Australia could optimise current standard settings, and address potential loopholes that could be exploited and would weaken the effectiveness of the new standard. 🚍 The freight sector has specific decarbonisation challenges. Moreover, quantifying the emissions for different technology options needs to account for Australian conditions and a fast changing technological environment. The talk will highlight recent work to fairly assess and compare the emissions performance of different freight options, specific for Australia. It will discuss life-cycle assessment (LCA) for conventional, battery electric and hydrogen trucks. It will also present on the results from recent mode shift work for the inland rail route (Brisbane - Melbourne), and the well-to-wheel/wake/wing emissions performance of major transport alternatives (rail, road, sea, air) in 2019, 2030 and 2050. TER is happy to share our research work, so don't hesitate to reach out with any questions on these topics. Otherwise - hope to see you there!

It is my pleasure to represent Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER) at the upcoming national Research & Development conference (iMOVE Australia) in October in Brisbane. https://lnkd.in/gKuRz-ub I will be speaking about our research into the well-to-wheel/wake/wing greenhouse gas emission performance of different transport modes (road, rail, air, sea) in Australia in 2019, 2030 and 2050 for both freight and personal travel. Then, during the separate Sustainable Freight session, I will dive into Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and in-depth fleet mix modelling for the Australian transport sector comparing for instance battery electric and hydrogen trucks in Australian conditions. Hope to see you there!

Australian transport emissions are still growing. As a result, transport is expected to be our biggest-emitting sector by 2030. So, cutting transport emissions is crucial to Australia’s net-zero strategy and additional policy measures are required. One such option is mode shift, the shift of passenger and freight travel from high emission modes to lower emission modes. However, robust and up to date mode shift data for Australian transport is currently unavailable or limited. So we used the Inland Rail project linking Brisbane and Melbourne as a case study to examine and compare - in detail - the emissions performance of land-based, sea and air transport. The research examined well-to-wheel/wake/wing emissions (from fuel/energy production, distribution and use) for both passenger and freight transport and for three years: 2019, 2030 and 2050. The Conversation did a short summary article on Part 2 of the study for all transport modes. https://lnkd.in/gud3MNPN

It was great to represent TER at the Clean Air Conference in Hobart. #CASANZ 2024 Very nice to meet colleagues and collaborators and make new contacts. Now we have to wait two years for the next one...

Over the last years, TER has published a number of peer-reviewed and open access papers and reports that quantify the emission impacts due to the increasing sale of heavy SUVs and Utes in Australia since about 2015. We call this an increase in car obesity. Our current SUV/Ute sales numbers are high when compared internationally, undermining our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the road transport sector. There are several reasons for this development and one of them relates to Australian taxation rules. An interesting study by The Australia Institute shines a light on this issue. https://lnkd.in/g35xGb5Y

It is clear that electrification of the on-road fleet is not going to be enough to meet net zero emissions in 2050 for the transport sector. So additional policy measures are required. One such option is mode shift, the shift of passenger and freight travel from high emission modes to lower emission modes. However, robust and up to date mode shift data for Australian transport is currently unavailable or limited. We used the Inland Rail project linking Brisbane and Melbourne as a case study to examine and compare - in detail - the emissions performance of land-based, sea and air transport. The research examined well-to-wheel/wake/wing emissions (from fuel/energy production, distribution and use) for both passenger and freight transport and for three years: 2019, 2030 and 2050. The Conversation did a short summary article on Part 1 of the study for land-based transport. https://lnkd.in/gKSxdvT2 

Although this may seem to be the case to many, hybrid vehicles are not a new technology. When working in Europe, I recall testing the first hybrid cars (Prius) in the early 2000. It is now 20 years later... TER's ongoing research shows that in terms of the sale of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), Australia operates at a very different scale to the EU where almost 900,000 PHEVs were sold in 2022. In Australia, the numbers are relatively low (less than say 10,000) and popularity of PHEVs actually seems to have peaked in 2014 and since waned. In fact, the sales of battery electric vehicles in Australia dwarfs the sales of PHEVs. The sales of more conventional hybrids (not plug-ins) is currently slightly higher than battery electric vehicles, but more or less similar. So non-plug in hybrids have become more popular over the last five years or so, but the growth in battery electric vehicle sales is significantly stronger and may surpass hybrid sales in the coming years if this trend continues. Below is an interesting and relevant ABC article on this topic. https://lnkd.in/eavCZh_Q

A fair assessment of transport emissions performance must investigate the whole life cycle of both the vehicle and its energy or fuel process, often referred to as Life Cycle Assessment or LCA. We also need to account for the local situation. Directly applying LCA information from the EU or US to the Australian fleet is prone to erroneous conclusions. TER has led and published a number of comprehensive LCA studies specifically for Australian vehicles (passenger, freight). See the TER website for free downloads. Below is an interesting and relevant article on this topic from ABC reporter Jo Lauder. https://lnkd.in/gYNTS_vW

TER conducted a peer-reviewed, independent and impartial study into the real-world emission impacts of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES). The main results were published today in the Conversation, including a link to the actual study. 1) The new standard could significantly reduce real-world emissions from light-duty vehicles (cars, SUVs, utes and vans), sold in Australia from July 1 2025. 2) The standard was weakened by the changes made following a second round of consultation with industry. 3) The standard’s performance could be undermined by a number of identified risks. 4) The effectiveness of the new standard in actually reducing on-road emissions for new vehicles remains to be seen. 5) Further improvements will make the standard more robust, better guarantee its effectiveness and prevent the internationally well-known pitfalls and loopholes in vehicle emission standards. https://lnkd.in/gtmRMTXE

While Australian vehicles still have to comply with Euro 5 emission standards (air pollution) - arguably the "lemon of vehicle emission standards" - the EU has published Euro 7 standards on 24 April 2024. (https://lnkd.in/eS57A79t) Australia will phase in Euro 6d standards in the period 2025-28, so we still have to wait quite a few years, and we are not yet talking about E7. https://lnkd.in/e53t6iQT