Things You Didn't Know
MIND MAGAZINE | You have probably heard car advertisements (on television or in magazines) that say some cars are very efficient in their fuel consumption. That’s a myth; all cars guzzle gas no matter how you look at it. A drastic change is needed in the very near future, or ‘Generation Y’ (80s) will have to pay a very hard price to put the environment back on track. Burning fuel like crazy to save 20 minutes in transportation is not the ideal solution. Of course, a car is a great commodity, but a fuel car equals pollution. And that’s why a change is needed.
The effects of changing different parameters in engines in order to reduce the quantity of fuel used are really tiny. On average, a car engine dissipates 75 per cent of its energy in heat. That’s like burning fuel for fun: “Yeah!, let’s contribute to the Greenhouse effect!” The numbers can vary from car to car, newer being more efficient and older ones being the exact opposite (burning impressive amounts of motor oil on top of it). That doesn’t take into account the energy that is simply lost in the transmission or other parts that transmit energy to the wheels.
When you buy a car, you waste a tremendous amount of natural resources too; the ratio is approximately one ton of steel for two tons of waste materials. The reason why fuel engines took over the market (the first racing cars were electric) is that fossil fuels can be stocked and deliver tremendous amounts of energy. With your tank full of gas, on average you have a functional range of 300 to 500 kilometres, opposed to electric cars, the most serious and viable alternative, that have a range varying from 80 to 160 kilometres.
When comparing oil with electricity, we can clearly see why oil has been chosen over electricity. Oil is liquid and energy is within it; electricity must be stocked in order to deliver energy. And the way it is stocked changes everything. Battery technology has not been under great development until the early 1990’s. We can now stock energy better, thanks to hydrogen-batteries, producing only water as waste. But yet, to fill your tank with gas, you need to wait two minutes. Charging batteries takes very long, often hours. That’s why electric cars have not made headway on the car market yet. However, with hydrogen-batteries, things will change.
Electric motors also are more reliable and easy to repair. An electric motor works exactly the same way as your washing machine (electromagnetism). The technology is well-known. The only problem has always been how to stock enough energy?
The development of EV (electric vehicles) in the last years has not been followed by proper development in electric power production. Electricity derived from fossil fuels is still the mainstream in most occidental countries nowadays. In fact, nearly 35 per cent of greenhouse gas released in the atmosphere comes from energy production. You wouldn’t want that to rise! Some countries, such as Denmark, have developed large-scale operations for wind-based power production. Fusion is also a possible source of power. We’re currently running into a wall: we need to change the two foundations of modern economy: transportation and power.
But there are an alternative to cars.
One solution is to reform the public transportation system. Subdivision by territory and independent management is a flaw. Dozens of organizational structures can shape public transportation in a country. This has led to enormous losses: both in money and time. A merger of identical operations must be considered into three separate entities: urban, suburban and rural transportation and each separate zone must have one administration. This way, better planning can be done according to economic and social development. Centralization would allow better horizontal (between transportation layers) and vertical (within layer) connection between zones. Costs could be reduced and special transit systems could be created (special streets only for buses, for example). There are a lot of possibilities in merging public transportation corporations.
In 20 to 25 years, cars will not be useful anymore. They already are a permanent danger to environment. The Kyoto Accord is not a joke; our natural environment is being destabilized by human action. Transportation accounts for 20 per cent of greenhouse gas effect. That’s one hell of a big chunk. Getting rid of this large piece of pollution would change a lot of things for the better. And it is feasible in a matter of years, not decades. Resistance to change from the car and energy industries is still strong however, and a lot of pressure must be put on governments and polluters to change things.
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