Oil Supply Woes Are Enough to Drive Vehicles Off Roads

SOMEWHERE, deep in the bowels of the Beehive, busy bureaucrats are dusting off an enormous, 25-year-old file entitled Carless Days. As soaring petrol prices and fears of a terrorist-caused shortfall in the oil market pushes the energy panic button, this is just a precaution, but it does raise some interesting questions about how much we have learned from past energy disasters and how many times we want to keep making the same mistakes. Back in the late 70s and early 80s, New Zealand found itself about where it is now, a potential victim of the fickle world oil market. A concerted effort was started to insulate the country from external fluctuations in fuel supply and price. Carless days were introduced, where people were banned from driving their vehicles on predetermined dates to reduce fuel use.

There was also a swing to alternative fuels such as CNG and LPG, with a network of service stations throughout the country supplying a large fleet of converted vehicles. The National Government of the day approved one of the most controversial projects in the country’s history — the giant synthetic petrol plant at Motunui, which was supposed to produce 20% of the nation’s petrol requirements. However, the rapidly rising price of oil reversed, dropping below the economic level for making synthetic petrol and the giant of Think Big switched to exporting more profitable methanol. The petrol- converter was dismantled a few years ago, and now a shortage of natural gas has shut the plant completely. How today’s administration must wish Motunui was standing at its full potential. LPG remains a viable option, but neglect by successive governments has seen the CNG network collapse as users were discouraged by the high cost of vehicle conversion, the lower fuel efficiency and reduced price advantage.

Meanwhile, years of low petrol prices have encouraged more and more people into using larger cars at the expense of public transport, which has almost disappeared in some places. The top- selling cars in the country are now high-powered, six-cylinder models that, while they burn less fuel than the same-sized engines of few years ago, still gulp gas at a rate that hurts at today’s prices. The result is that if carless days and lower open-road speed limits are introduced, they will hurt a lot more than they did in 1979. Gone, or heavily reduced, is the public transport system that helped people cope then. Now, just about everyone has a lifestyle in which the car is essential.

At the same time, freight has moved from rail to road because of the greater flexibility, security and speed of delivery. Reduced speed limits will mean a longer time on the road, hurting trucking companies and their freight schedules as much as increased expenditure on fuel. And the sad thing is that the threat has always been there. Everyone has been aware that oil supplies will start to diminish at some time. It is a pity that so many, including the state, have let that day sneak up with so little preparation.