Obviously, President Bush’s recent “State of the Union” address has unleashed fierce debate over the area of existing petroleum based infrastructers vs those required to get hydrogen working as a viable option.
Such debate is a good thing, and yet, another debate attached to “reducing our reliance” on petroleum always seems to go unnoticed.
For example, in theory (and I’m only using this to illustrate my point) if legislation was passed that banned the automobile and forced everyone to ride motorcycles with sidecars, and/or mopeds - I think most reasonable people would agree our current world wide consumption of petroleum products would take a huge dive.
From what I understand, even the “biggest baddest” high horsepower bikes deliver far better mpg ratios that automobiles do they not?
Now I recognise my above suggestion isn’t realistic, but my point here is this - if automobiles weren’t anywhere near as heavy - if they weren’t made of steel, but rather, were totally made from composite materials (with the exception of the internal combustion engine of course) then a huge weight saving would take place - ergo greater power to weight ratios would be liberated - ergo less fuel burnt.
The current dependance of the Western World on high grade crude oil exposes a fundamental economic log jam - namely, supply versus demand. It seems to me, given the current existing infrastructures in place, the single easiest point of attack is to reduce our current levels of “demand” on petroleum products as averse to “hoping” that hydrogen cars will come sooner rather than later.
To give you an idea, apparently a dedicated Formula One car get down as low 500 kgs - without driver and fuel of course.
Conversely, a typical passenger car hovers at 1500 kgs - so you can see the sort of fuel savings which could be delivered with lighter cars - assuming of course you’re not ALSO trying to put in an 800hp engine capable of propelling you to 350km/h.
In theory, less “demand” for fuel also delivers a concordant drop in our reliance on the “murky areas of supply” of pertroleum.
I personally would love to see a new range of vehicles produced which were made entirely of composite materials where various components could be upgraded over time as superior ergonomics and cockpit designs evolve. The ability to upgrade your “outer skin” as it were whilst maintaining your automobiles’ chassis and drive train would drastically change our current usage of resources and the energy used to “process” those resources into automobiles. This is a technological tangent which always seems to get overlooked - such is our love affair with the “fashion” aspects of which car we like to own. Within reason, the physical dimensions of passenger cars and SUV’s have evolved into fairly mature products. When we buy a new car, unlike upgrading some of the components in a Personal Computer, why do we have to buy every part of that new car from scratch? Cars are way more mature products than Personal Computers I would wager.
I’m the first to concede that things wear out, but in a vehicle, not everything wears out at the same rate. Imagine if you will, composite cars which allowed you to upgrade, or renew various components in your car with, say, a two or 3 day workshop turnaround? An entirely new dash and new leather seats for example, and a new stereo if your old one was playing up?
In short, with universally lighter cars, how much better off would would we be?
Also, with the exception of large trucks running into you, if all cars are lighter, they are safer apparently too due to their reduced kinetic energy. I’ve seen some pretty amazing “high speed walk aways” in motor racing over the last 20 years. Those carbon fibre monocoque tubs are awesome.