Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Expert: Wind could run New Zealand's cars

|
|
 
  
Published: March. 23, 2009 at 9:10 PM

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 23 (UPI) -- All cars in New Zealand could some day be electric vehicles powered by wind, an expert said.

Bruce Smith, director of modeling and forecasting at the Electricity Commission, planned to tell a biofuels and electric vehicles conference in Wellington that electric cars could triple the country's capacity to use wind power, the New Zealand Herald reported Monday.

Smith estimated that if 2.5 million of New Zealand's roughly 4 million registered vehicles were electric, the fleet could run off 3,000 megawatts of wind generation, which is about three times the amount of wind power that is built or ready for construction currently.

The newspaper noted that electric cars are not widely available in New Zealand, and about 70 percent of New Zealand's electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Smith said electric cars could be plugged into special electricity meters designed to recharge car batteries whenever electricity on the power grid was most plentiful.

Topics: Bruce Smith
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
New book is full of girls in their bedrooms, will be read by people who need to have a seat right...
★☆☆☆☆ Michigan is an uninhabitable swamp. Do not settle
As part of the Queen's jubilee celebrations, Top Gear presenter James May has built a contraption...
New, comprehensive data on all the reasons why people break-up. Bad news for Farkers: drinking too...
There is finally a car that's more dangerous to rear-end than a Ford Pinto
Here is the full list of 2012 hurricane names. Wait... Hurricane Kirk?