Finland: the dark horse in the sustainable mobility race?

After working for Holland’s TNO research centre and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, research and development engineer Tuukka Hartikka is well placed to judge whether the Dutch are sustainable mobility frontrunners. Tuukka says the Finns are actually further down the road to a sustainable future than their European counterpart. But being a native of the Nordic country, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

He says both countries are heading in the same direction and are trying to implement biofuel technology to improve air quality and tackle climate change, but he says it is easier for the Finns to put sustainable solutions into practice.

“In Finland there are fewer people and fewer cars, so the roads are less crowded than in Holland and it’s easier to initiate trials,” Tuukka explains.

Still paying
Tuukka joined VTT in 2005 to work on projects in the fields of emissions, energy usage and biofuels. He left VTT in 2008 to join TNO as a test engineer in its Powertrain Test Center to work primarily on biofuels. However, he is now returning to Finland and rejoining his old employer.

He says his work at TNO was more related to customer research and the economic downturn has severely affected funding levels, while VTT is involved more in governmental research, and the country’s government is still prepared to write the cheques.

Making the right choices
Tuukka’s biggest VTT project was a three-year investigation into how fuel consumption can be reduced in trucks and buses. The Espoo project was a heavyweight one with thirteen different sub projects related to vehicle safety, electrical consumption and IT systems.

One of the findings of Espoo was a fifteen per cent reduction in fuel consumption could be achieved through having the right fixed receiver (FR) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) systems.

“By choosing the right tyres you can save about five per cent, by choosing the right lubricants you can save two per cent and by improving aerodynamics you can save even more, and this is merely using existing systems and making the right choices,” Tuukka adds.

Priority
Tuukka believes that, no matter which country you are in, the priority should be improving the emissions of trucks and buses because they are the largest emitters.

“By comparison, cars are already quite efficient. Buses and heavy vehicles is where we should be concentrating our efforts on, and it is the area where there is more potential for improvement,” Tuukka says.

Electricity is the fuel of the future
What technology does a research and development engineer believe represents the future? Electricity, says Tuukka, although he stresses that there’s a lot of research to be done first.

“The current systems are too heavy to be efficient and this weight problem needs to be addressed. But once that is sorted out, there could be no stopping them from taking over the world,” he predicts.