Energy studies

Press, 2 August 1979, Page 17

Energy studies

Within a few years you may be driving a car powered mainly by methanol or by electricity, showering in water heated by the sun or by waste hot water, using electricity derived from the wind and warming yourself in a well-insulated home from solar heat stored in the wall or by heat produced from the destruction of rubbish in a fluid-bed furnace. And you will be better off, because such changes will result in the saving of millions of dollars in overseas exchange. These prospects, and many others, are becoming practical possibilities as the result of research, done since the energy crisis began in 1974, by scientists and engineers at the University of Canterbury into alternative sources of energy, the substitution of indigenous for imported fuels, and the conservation of energy in all its forms. The projects they have undertaken, on which far-reaching Government decisions will soon be made, are built on foundations of “pure” knowledge and involve the extension and deepening of those foundations. But the work also involves the very practical problems of realising theoretical studies in the form of machines and processes which will work and which are economically feasible. Much of the work has been undertaken with meagre funds. Grants for the University’s experimental electric car, for instance, totalled $16,000. At Flinders University in South Australia, $600,000 has been poured into a similar project. But in spite of meagre resources the researchers have done much more than pose and solve abstract problems. They have experimented, built apparatus, made it work and in many cases, have proved its worth. ERIC BEARDSLEY, the University’s information officer, reports on the interplay between theory and practice in the laboratories at Ham . . .