Comparative requirements for electric energy for production of hydrogen fuel and/or recharging of battery electric automobile fleets in New Zealand and the United States

Within the current outlook for sustainable electric energy supply with concomitant reduction in emission of greenhouse gases, accelerated attention is focusing on the long-term development of hydrogen fuel cell and all-electric battery vehicles to provide alternative fuels to replace petroleum-derived fuels for automotive national fleets. The potential varies significantly between large industrially developed nations and smaller industrially developing nations. The requirement for additional electric energy supply from low-specific energy renewable resources and high-specific energy nuclear resources depends strongly on individual national economic, environmental, and political factors. Analysis of the additional electric energy supply required for the two potential large-scale technologies for fueling future national transportation sectors is compared for a large Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nation (USA) with a small OECD nation (New Zealand), normalized on a per-capita basis.