The Worldwide Fuel Crisis
Petrol - today’s main method of car propulsion, may
become obsolete in 50 to 60 years, when the world supply of fossil fuel
may be depleted.
Martin Szemeti reports on the alternatives.
People have been aware of the fossil fuel crisis since the
1980’s.
Trying to come up with alternate ways to power automobiles has certainly
has made leaps and bounds in advancement since then, but not as much as
some people back then predicted.
Some experts believed that a large proportion of cars would be powered
by electricity by the year 2000. That is certainly not the case, but today’s
electric, and lately, hydrogen cars are much more efficient and high performing
than previously.
An 80’s electric car could only travel 50 kilometres before a recharge
and could barely hit 80 kilometres per hour. Not very encouraging by anyone’s
standards, also considering that they could only usually carry two people
and a very modest amount of luggage.
They were only meant for urban use because of their very limited speed
and range. But today there are a number of different varieties of electric
vehicles from buses, trucks, utilities and vans to family sedans, four
wheel drives, sports coupes and luxury cars.
Some cars are also converted from a normal production petrol vehicle to
an electric. The other means of propulsion for future cars is hydrogen
in a gaseous form similar to LP Gas now used in many cars today. It would
be far less polluting than any petrol or diesel car, and would offer very
impressive performance, even in smaller 4 cylinder engines.
Another advantage of hydrogen is the fact that the general engine design
could stay the same. Electric engines are very different in design to petrol
engines as they do not use cylinders. Companies would certainly adapt better
to hydrogen than to electric as there are very few electric vehicle specialists.
However, hydrogen propulsions’ main disadvantage would be the safety
factor. It’s highly flammable, and if something combusted it would
explode in a huge fireball.
There is also the fact that they are at this early experimental point,
relatively loud and don’t offer a smooth ride and silent operation
compared to electric cars.
Meanwhile, there is a very sensible and practical option – hybrid
cars. Some hybrids have silent electric motors that power the car at speeds
of up to 20 kilometres an hour before it switches to its petrol engine
to accelerate further.
This is extremely economical, as the greatest consumption of petrol occurs
at speeds from 0-20 kilometres per hour. This is because a great effort
is required to get the car moving from a standstill.
If another small electric engine takes care of this, the petrol will work
much less and it will be up to 200% more economical. The electric motor
can also give a boost to the petrol engine, by increasing its acceleration
for short periods of time.
The combined power and torque of the two engines is quite impressive and
the electric engine greatly decreases fuel consumption. Some changes are
made to the transmission – the first gear’s role is taken over
by the electric motor, and there is also a boost button to increase engine
power and torque for a limited time.
One thing is definitely clear – petrol cars are here to stay for a
long time to come, and by the time they become obsolete, something else
will take their place.
Welcome to the
Ross Smith E-View!
NEW ISSUE
TERM 3 2003
Ross Smith students are again leading the world in on-line publishing after the school became one of the first to feature student-produced videos on their website as part of the literacy project in 1999.
The Ross Smith E-View was started this year after articles were put onto an international schools website with wired.com, but in 2002 Ross Smith has made a magazine on the net for themselves.