Global Energy, Environment and Transportation Sector : Issues, Challenges and Future Prospects

Human existence and development have long been mainly dependent on use of energy - for survival growth and development. The prosperity of mankind essentially revolves around their ability to capture, gather, harness and utilize energy for productive purposes in a productive manner. Transportation sector alone consume more than 25% of global energy demand. It is mainly reliant (95%) upon petroleum products with the exception of railways using electrical power. It is estimated that the transport sector is responsible for about 25 percent of emissions of the gases contributing to global warming in industrialized countries, and about one-half this amount in developing countries. A transportation system that needs to be affordable, safe, efficient and environment friendly is a fundamental constituent of sustainable development. Bio-fuels, ethanol, and bio-diesel hold great promise towards a safer and healthy environment by replacing imported oil by indigenously produced fuels. This paper attempts to focus on technological priorities that need to be well defined; especially regarding elimination of lead from gasoline and elimination or cleaning up of high-mileage, heavily polluting vehicles along with appropriate incentive systems to overcome the problem of environmental deterioration.