Environmentally Friendly Race Cars, Military Vehicles

jackelfish writes "The non-profit organization IdéeVerte Compétition has created a 'space age' race car that runs on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (propane or butane) and is lubricated with sunflower oil. Sponsored by the European Space Agency, the car recently broke the 'LPG powered vehicle' speed record of 315 km/h. The car also utilizes space technologies such as a titanium fuel tank, heat shielding developed for the Ariane launch vehicles and an EGNOS satellite navigation system to determine the speed, acceleration and position of the car in real-time." And reader gkbarr writes "Is the DoD feeling the crunch of sky-high gasoline prices or are they being overrun by a bunch of Greens? Who cares, the latest Humvee looks to be a more capable and greener machine than its predecessors."

Comments

Environment Friendly Military?!

[formal_entity]

Haha, is there anything more harmful to it's environment than a military vehicle? After all they are created to destroy and kill things.

An observation

[daniil]

Whenever some vehicle is called "environmentally friendly," this title always seems to be referring to its fuel consumption. It's as if fuel exhaust gases were all there is to environment. What seems to be neglected in these cases is that building the vehicle (or any other machine) also takes up resources, pollutes, etc. Is there any research being done in these areas as well, or are they simply not deemed as important as reducing air pollution from exhaust fumes?

Re:An observation

[kfg]

. . .are they simply not deemed as important as reducing air pollution from exhaust fumes?

It's always easier to get a warm, fuzzy feeling by focusing intently on one small parameter, doing something about that, and thinking you've solved the problem than it is to acknowledge the whole picture.

Ignorance, after all, is bliss.

When I pointed out to a friend that part of the cost of replacing older, less "enviromentally friendly" cars with new cars was the pollution inherent in dispossing of the old car prematurely and manufacturing the new one (not to mention the pollution inherent in earning the money to buy the new car, and the pollution inherent in. . .) he was stunned. He'd simply never thought of that issue. All he'd ever heard about were emmisions, so that's all he ever thought about.

It's almost always more 'friendly' in the long run to use existing systems until they naturally expire than it is to replace them with new systems before that time. After all, isn't that why many of us spend so much time maintaining existing code base?

Is there any research being done in these areas as well. . .

Oh sure. There are people, such as myself, who give a considerable amount of thought to the issue, and put a certain amount of work into it as well, but after doing it for a few decades you are inevitably faced with an issue:

Until the skies are all thick and brown, and the oil is all gone, nobody much is going to care. It always boils down to a dietary issue with shades of laziness on top("Yo, have we got enough money for a pizza?" Cool, have it delivered").

When that time comes there will be those of us standing around with solutions that might have been, although at that point largely irrelevant because, while they would have kept the air from becoming thick and brown, won't, in and of themselves, make the air any less thick.

There's an eternal cycle of creating your own problems, than patting yourself on the back for being clever enough to wangle your way out of them, and so far as I've ever been able to determine from observation, the purpose of man as machine seems to be to incessantly worry about the future while doing nothing practical about it, all the while regreting the past.

I don't understand it, but it seems to make people "happy."

KFG

Re:An observation

[Comatose51]

The point of the research really wasn't about being environmentally friendly. The title and snippet are misleading. The DoD's goal is to make a more efficient vehicle so that it can operate with less logistical support. Logistical support is a huge issue with the military. How far an army or navy can move or strike has always been limited by that. Even while the Germans were chasing the British across north Africa, they were limited by the lack of fuel. The problem still exists today. It is estimated that for every person on the ground fighting, there's another 4 people doing logistics to keep him supplied. A military as technologically advance as the US will have a huge logistics train. So a more efficient vehicle is always a very desirable thing. If the vehicle happens to be environmentally friendly, then all the better but that wasn't the point. So to answer your question, I really doubt that the DoD researched environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.

Re:An observation

[WIAKywbfatw]

Sorry, but I disagree. The adverts I've seen for environmentally-friendly vehicles don't just emphasise their fuel consumption, they also stress how recyclable the cars are.

Making anything takes time, resources and energy, and something like a car, however green it is, is going to require a fair amount of all three in its manufacture. The start of a car's life, when it's built, isn't going to be where the best non-fuel-related savings are going to be made: even the most efficient build process wouldn't be much improvement over the efficiency that car manufacturers already display.

The biggest savings are to be made at the other end, at the end of a car's usefulness, when it can be either scraped (as in the case with most cars nowadays) or recycled (as will be the case with newer, greener cars when they are retired).

But, let's face it, only a small percentage of car buyers think about anything before or beyond their use of their vehicle. To most people, a car's initial cost, fuel efficiency, maintenance and resale value are the only things that matter. Given that, it's natural that fuel efficiency becomes the environmental selling point, because it's about the money in your pocket now, which is a concept that most people grasp straight away.

Bottom line: people are looking at those areas that you mention, and they have done something about it but you don't sell a Toyota Prius over a Hummer on the basis of how easy it will be to junk in 10, 15 or 20 years' time.

Re:An observation

[mabhatter654]

But design & manufacture pollutants can be more easlily controlled at a central point and are one-time occurances. That's the true benifits of the focus on electric power for all sorts of stuff. Because it allows you to build one, well regulated, super-polluter...and have the local devices be extremely clean.

Things like lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and chainsaws are "simpler" devices, but pound-for-pound nearly 10x as bad as gas-guzzlers like the Hummer.

The real factor in the military's decision for fuel performance is the cost to get the fuel to the troops. Under the current numbers it takes 17 gallons of fuel to get 1 gallon in the tank of a front-line vehical. The army units getting whipped in Iraq right now are the ones that are part of hauling around those "17 Gallons" not intended to be fighting...if you can cut the number of PEOPLE hauling gas [and supplies for themselves!] around then you have fewer people in harms way. The other advantage is the movement/surprise factor. A more effiecent vehical can move further on a "turn" meaning the enemy must improve survailance over a wider area or risk security holes. You can drop fewer troops further from their targets, hit the targets earlier, and avoid "tipping your hand" by moving fewer support troops!

Re:An observation

[Peyna]

I know of at least one example of an assembly plant trying to lower it's resource consumption. Actually, after a quick google search, it appears there are at least four GM plants using landfill gas for energy.

Why do they do these things? Because in many cases, there actually is a cost savings in more "green" industrial methods.

Re:An observation

[SnapShot]

You are absolutly right, but I would take it a step farther and say that it applies to every aspect of our industrial society. I wish more people would realize that being green is only a by-product of being more efficient. This isn't a war between the environmentalists and the industrialists, it is a war between efficiency and waste.

At the risk of oversimplifying, what is pollution? It's a layman's term for entropy. The conversion of a good from an ordered state into an unordered state. Every drop of industrial pollution is a reduction in shareholder value: heat, energy, and resources that could have been saved are lost. Every drop of consumer pollution is reflected in higher heating bills, lighting bills, and gasoline bills. The only reason it is cheaper to pollute than it is not to pollute is that we are rarely asked to pay for the real costs of what we consume.

Looks A bit strange...

[ReeprFlame]

...but it still doesn't mean that if you can get more benefits from it [eg: more efficient power and better speeds] then you shouldn't consider the idea...

Re:Ok, fine.

[Maljin Jolt]

Lithium polymer battery contains no acid. However, I would guess what "greener" actually means in military slang: using a darker color paint...

Re:I don't get it!

[rben]

Hydrogen isn't exactly a perfect fuel either. Hydrogen has to be generated, usually by splitting water, which requires electricity. That electricity is often generated by burning fossil fuels like oil or coal. (Yes, it can also be generated by other greener means, but most power production in the U.S. still involves fossil fuels. BTW, wind power is probably the best option since it actually takes energy out of the atmosphere directly.) Storage of Hydrogen safely is also problematic.

Right now, the best bet for the environment is probably the hybrid vehicle. I'm especially interested in the new Honda Accord which is coming out since I've been driving Accords all my life. These vehicles use the energy generated by burning gasoline much more sensibly. Regenerative braking and instant off/on for the engine help dramatically lower the fuel consumption without turning your car into a wimp. (Anyone driving in Boston or Chicago will appreciate the need for a little get up and go when dealing with crazy drivers.)

No matter how green the car is, you still have to get people to buy it. People are attracted to the Humvee because of it's military association. I hope the same magnetism influences them to buy hybrids based on the new design discussed in the article.

While we keep trying to ignore it, the problems with our climate are going to continue to increase. We've increased the carbon in our atmosphere by over one third in the last few decades. You can't change the global makeup of your atmosphere without expecting some pretty dramatic changes in how that atmosphere behaves. We should all be doing our part to lower the impact our daily lives have on our already stressed environment.

Re:This is better: no normal drive train

[Ba3r]

not to mention the benefits of all wheel drive, independant traction control, and sheer torque from having four wheel based motors. The only real drawback is the maximum speed.. which is limited to the max rpms of the motor. However, nobody except racers needs to have a car that goes 150 mph.. in fact for all intents and purposes a car that can burn up a quarter mile, but maxes out at 100 is probably the perfect solution for general society.

I am just waiting for the day that i get my four wheel-motored pickup with 400+ hp.. and 35mpg.