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Fuel-Cell Car Racing Series Aims To Spur Green Motoring
Anonymous Cow writes "The world's first international fuel-cell powered motor racing series kicked off in Rotterdam over the weekend. The organisers hope that 'Formula Zero,' like Formula 1, can become a forum for competing technology as much as anything else, helping green consumer cars to become better."
This is a good idea, part of the problem with non gasoline cars is the image, and cars that look like the prius don't help this.
So if people can see electric cars with real performance that would even surpass the petrol counterpart it should make people more likely to change.
People aren't going to take green technology seriously until it wins in rally or 24 hour le mans or somethign similarly awesome to win. Having to make a special competition just for green cars seems like, well, these cars are cool and all, but just not actually competitive with already existant technology. This isn't good for the public image.
I'm sure Captain Falcon will be in on this in no time.
Do fuel cells really produce no carbon emissions?
Granted, the cars themselves should produce nothing but water, but how do we produce the hydrogen? Does that not require energy? I simply don't believe that all of the hydrogen plants are powered by nuclear or hydroelectric energy.
I am not against these ideas at all, but let's not get carried away. I've no doubt that fuel cells are much cleaner than internal combustion, but provide the real facts, please.
Nintendo will sue this people for using their F-Zero name.
...and while it was interesting enough, this will never get any major recognition or earn a place in the public mindset unless they start using it in ralleys, or other high-profile automotive sporting events.
From 1982 to about 1990, the Group C prototypes ran with regulations that basically allowed any engine as long as the fuel consumption didn't exceed ~60 l/100 km. Then the FIA fucked up and changed the rules to mandate F1-style engines, ending the series' popularity.
There were a few races that ended in drama as the leading competitor ran out of fuel, but on the whole it was rather successful, with wildly disparate cars running very close races. You saw 7-litre naturally aspirated V12s, 5-litre turbocharged V8s, 3-litre turbocharged flat-6s and Wankel engines.
It'd be interesting to see a revival of this idea. More interesting than a fuel cell-only class, I'd wager.
Don't get me wrong: most hobbies, including mine, are a waste of energy. Rather, I / someone gets enjoyment in return for the energy expenditure...but in the end, little / no actual work is done.
Even if a NASCAR race can be done with 1 gallon of gas...in the end, 1 gallon is gone, and all the cars are where they started.
THL phish sticks
We all know the BS about ethanol and how it takes more energy (all oil) to just to grow the corn than you get from burning it and that doesn't even include the distillation and shipping costs!
Formula Zero,' like Forumula 1, can become a forum
I have to wonder, was that on purpose?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
These are stunts, nothing more than to attract some advertising dollars. You would be lucky to even hear about it on page 2 of the sports section.
People will take green technology seriously under two events.
1. Non-green sources skyrocket in price
2. Its unobtrusive.
More of the latter than anything else. The way you get people to go green is to make it a non-event. You just quietly swap out the technology.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I've got a fuel cell in my car. I call it the "gas tank".
They've been having turtle races for years. Is this the nationals or something?
http://www.allen-poole.com/
This competition seems like that on one hand however, it opens up a whole new world for hobbyists.
When small users start taking things into their own hands, and then it becomes publicized, this is when companies often join up if they were hesitant earlier. This is especially true of the automotive industry. Think of hot rods, chopped cars, and custom bikes. Even ricers began as small custom tuners and now the industry really takes these niches seriously.
Racing is often a great proving ground for technology. Have you driven a paddle shifter recently? Much, much better than the old "semi-automatics".
The organisers hope that 'Formula Zero,' like Forumula 1, can become a forum for competing technology as much as anything else, helping green consumer cars to become better."
Can't sleep from jetlag and /. editors are my new favorite punching bag :o. (I heart you T, just not kdawson :o).
...would the gallon of gas have to reach before you'd reconsider something other than that? $10 a gallon, $15? And how about rationing (which I remember occurring before), if it ever got that that, say you could only get a few gallons a week due to some expanded mideast war disrupting huge amounts of the global supply? The reason I ask is I see this sort of sentiment a lot, the 500 mile range drawback, but I am wondering how often people actually drive that sort of distance on a regular basis, say at least once a week or so. My point is, for regular around town and commuting, I don't think you (a very general "anyone you") need that sort of range, and for the odd trip, there are always rentals.
I'm ok with them using fuel cells just so long as they also include some manner of flammable liquid in the vehicle so that they keep the wrecks interesting.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I think this is a step in the right direction.
Most of our modern performance and safety technology came out of racing.
Better engine technology, suspension, and braking.
Early cars were basically street going tractors.
By racing electric/fuel cell cars, it will create competition, which will foster innovation.
Better electric motors, batteries, charging systems etc will be developed.
I agree with Jonnythan and Swizec - it can't be a 500 meter go kart track. It has to be a gruelling race to really prove the technology.
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
Today it's fuel cells, tomorrow it becomes hovercars, then next thing we know we're racing down a magnetic track against aliens and clones of ourselves.
The future is now!
Granted, this is a step in the right direction. I'm all for anything green and this will a good initiative. Having said that, when you talk about racing, you'd expect to see cars and not go-karts. That's what gets the adrenalin pumping in men and replaces their shriveled you-know-what's. Men in little go-karts racing around in a bumper track is not going to get people excited about practical fuel cell technology.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
...or is at least using typical troll tactics. I've seen this before every time a discussion about electric cars or alternative fuels comes up; a clean(er) technology comes along and suddenly it's held to a higher standard.
So here's the answer: of course you CAN use polluting or non-polluting energy to produce hydrogen.
From http://www.nrel.gov/learning/eds_hydro_production.html
Hydrogen Production
The simplest and most common element, hydrogen is all around us, but always as a compound with other elements. To make it usable in fuel cells or otherwise provide energy, we must expend energy or modify another energy source to extract it from the fossil fuel, biomass, water, or other compound in which it is found. Nearly all hydrogen production today is by steam reformation of natural gas. This, however, releases fossil carbon dioxide in the process and trades one relatively clean fuel for another, with associated energy loss, so does little to meet national energy needs. For high purity needs, a small amount of hydrogen is produced by electrolysis, but this again is only as good as the energy source used to produce the electricity used. There are, however, many possible ways to produce hydrogen with renewable energy. Some of the most promising are the following:
Thermochemical Hydrogen
Heating biomass (or fossil fuels) with limited or no oxygen present can gasify it to a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as synthesis gas or syngas or liquefy/pyrolyze it to a liquid known as pyrolysis oil or bio-oil. Syngas can then be catalytically converted to increase the amount of hydrogen with a "water-gas-shift reaction." Pyrolysis oil can be converted to hydrogen using steam reformation and the water-gas-shift reaction.
Electrolytic Hydrogen
Electrolysis can electrochemically split water into hydrogen and oxygen in essentially the reverse of the reaction in a fuel cell. To make sense for large-scale use, this process must use an inexpensive source of electricity. Because wind energy is currently the lowest cost renewable energy, it is the leading candidate. It is also an intermittent source that would benefit from being able to produce hydrogen when its electricity is not needed and to add fuel-cell generation when electricity demand exceeds what the wind turbines can provide. The combination also benefits because electrolyzers require direct current and wind turbine power must be converted to direct current before conversion back to alternating current suitable for the electric grid.
Electrochemical Photolytic Hydrogen
How about short-circuiting the process to have renewable energy such as solar power produce hydrogen directly? Photoelectrochemical (PEC) hydrogen production replaces one electrode of an electrolyzer with photovoltaic (PV) semiconductor material to generate the electricity needed for the water-splitting reaction. The efficiency loss of separate steps is done away with, as is the cost of the other components of a solar cell. PEC is elegantly simple, but finding PV materials both strong enough to drive the water split and stable in a liquid system presents great challenges for researchers.
Biological Photolytic Hydrogen
Another way to directly tap solar energy for hydrogen production is to take advantage of ways in which nature does so. Certain microalgae and photosynthetic bacteria do sometimes use photosynthesis to make hydrogen instead of sugar and oxygen. Among challenges here is the fact that the algal enzyme that triggers the hydrogen production is inhibited by oxygen, which of course, the organism also normally produces. Another biological research avenue is to develop microorganisms that will ferment sugars or cellulose to hydrogen instead of alcohol.
-- Boycott Shell
As mentioned above, it still takes considerable energy to produce the hydrogen for the fuel cell. What we aren't asking is what is the goal? Is the goal to replace petroleum as the fuel for mobility? Is it to reduce vehicle emissions? If we ask these questions, then the proposed solutions can be evaluated on their merits and whether they meet their desired goals.
I dunno, a little car loaded with a hydrogen pack fuel cell could really create a spectacular explosion if done properly.
Sort of like a little Hindenburg disaster.
If they want to mimic Formula 1 they should get a race organizer who's into kinky sex.
"I'm not sure the ipod will ever catch on. No wireless, less storage than a nomad - lame."
Taco's statement has become somewhat infamous, but I have to defend him on this one. He was essentially right (and these words are being typed on a Mac). Simplicity and elegance in function are virtues... lack of meaningful features are not. As such, I've never owned an iPod, as I think it's ridiculous not to put a simple FM receiver and a built in Mic for quick voice recording in modern MP3 players.
When compared to their competitors... Creative's players, Sandisk's Sansa players... hell, even the Zune in some cases... the iPod simply isn't a very good value, unless being part of the crowd appeals more to you than price and features.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
what about carbon monoxide? it shouldn't be a byproduct of burning gasoline, but it is because the fuel isn't fully oxidized... meaning a less than optimal burn. transfer this expectation to "zero emission" vehicles and i think we are realistic to to be wary
There is nothing Green or Sustainable about Industrial Society, or even civilisation itself, as all such efforts entail the inevitable draw down and destruction of irreplaceable natural resources.
So before you all go rushing off to buy your fuel cell cars to shlep you to your job enabling the mindless consumption of resources and goods, kindly apprise yourself of how utterly devastating your every choice is upon the planet.
A major failure of capitalist economics is its discounting of the future - it works to maximise immediate profits, but when applied to resource management, it necessarily entails ecocide.
So, sure: get in with the hydrogen economy, and push the species over the cliff. We're already well into overshoot, and fuel cells are just the first of what will prove to be many failed attempts at sustianing the unsustainable.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
MacGyver has already tested this car out, back in '88! http://www.tv.com/macgyver/collision-course/episode/47269/summary.html :)
...oh, you don't have cheap, clean public transport where you live? Move to Europe or Canada.
you had me at #!
Complaining about gas prices and watching cars go around in circles seems somewhat counter productive. The problem is availability. Once a comfortable, economical, 100mpg car hits the market the people will buy it. Boycott NASCAR if you are concerned about fuel prices.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
They do have all the torque if you look at the PEAK figure, however the curve tends to be worse and they often don't rev as high. Therefore you usually get bugger all torque at lower revs, then when you hit the boost you get a huge surge of the twisty stuff, then you've hit the limiter. All within a narrow rev band. Cue lots of changing gear.
On the contrary diesels have massive low rev torque. Look at this graph for the torque of a 2.5 diesel against one for a 2.0 litre petrol engine. One of the joys of driving a diesel is that you don't have to change down when going slow on an upward gradient.
At least we'll learn one thing: How fuel cells react in high-speed collisions and wrecks. This could actually be useful to know.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I race go-karts. Honestly, they would be the last platform I would want to test a huge fuel-cell system on. I would think something that could provide a safety cage, maybe, and a more resilient chassis.
Don't get me wrong, racing karts are lot of fun. There are few things in life as exciting as going 75 MPH 1 inch off the ground into a 90 degree turn. If they wanted to say, "Like Formula 1", maybe they should have gotten some old F1 chassis that can be found for cheap used.
Bearded Dragon
Well, ten bucks a gallon would mean to me only going to town once a month instead of once a week like we do now. I don't commute either, live on a farm, but still need to go in for stuff. But...that is only a tiny fraction of the big picture, our modern world moves goods with liquid fuel, primarily diesel, and that impacts a lot of other expenses. $10 a gallon in the US in a fast time frame would cause an economic crash, a large one, unimaginable economic problems. Right now as it stands it has already put a lot of people hurting.
As to traveling several thousand miles a month and not be commuting, I won't ask your personal reasons, not appropriate and not my business, but the only person I know who had to do that lately was trying to help a very elderly parent a few states away by going over on the weekends, and wound up buying a used cessna instead for the trip, just to speed things up. I asked, he said he gets around 14 MPG but it is in a much more straight line than driving a car, and at double highway speeds.
As to electric versus gasoline or diesel cars, the range problem has been solved for years now, as far as I can see it is a non problem anymore, it's called one more axle. AC Propulsion built the first models of the range extending generator trailer. It's not a true hybrid like Prius, the vehicle itself is just electric, but a modular hybrid system then, which I think makes more sense than regular hybrids that carry double the stuff all the time, the engine, the electric motor, the batteries, the fuel tank. That's twice as much junk as you really need, and why I don't care for any of the hybrids that much. With the modular system, around town, pure electric, for trips, attach the small generator trailer and fill it up and go, just like any other gasoline car. Plus the generator trailer would be cool for a whole house generator when the grid goes down. I know I am looking forward to affordable all electrics, as I could keep a small one charged from my solar panels if I only needed to drive it once a week.
Hydrogen fuel cells are way less effective and emits *more* CO2 in total than the usual road cars. It's no way a zero-emission technology. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
Bioalcohol is much greener and usable today, and IRL series were racing on methanol for 40 years already.
No hover cars? Nevermind then.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Don't get me wrong, the Tesla is an impressive vehicle but it has no soul. What makes a Ferrari, primarily, is the sound it makes as you row through the gears. The sound of a big cam V8 is music to my ears as well. Hell, even high-rpm technowonder I4's that Honda puts out have a wonderfully mechanical sound to them.
I think without that, a sports car simply becomes a fast object. I think I would have a hard time falling in love with an electric sports car.
Didn't Nintendo already do this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_Zero
cp /dev/zero ~/signature.txt
oh sure .. the frivolous use of energy .. let's see who can go the fastest .. or get there first .. is going to promote more intelligent use of energy .. ya right ..
oh i forgot they have not yet figured out that life is not a race .. and there is no prize .. save one .. for getting to the finish line first ..
"you can always add a small solar panel to the roof or hood of the car"
You'd probably get there faster by just walking.
You only get a max of about 1 kilowatt per square metre from sunlight (and that's extreme best case - sun vertical, clear day with no smog, dust and clouds). Add the losses from conversion and you'll have a lot less than 1kW to move your car. Say your solar cells are 40% efficient - that means 400W. Assume your electric motors are 90% efficient and no other losses (gearing etc), that means a max of about 360W at the wheels. That's about the power of 6 desk fans.
You can move a 1000kg car with that power, but it's not going to move very fast given rolling resistance (think how much force you need to move a stationary car on flat ground), and if there's even a slight slope the force adds up (ever tried pushing a car up a slight slope?).
velocity = power / force
Assuming the total force required is the same amount of force as lifting 50kg (approx 500 newtons) - that works out to about 2.6kph, which is slower than walking.
If it's a cloudy day, or it's morning/evening, it's going to move even slower.
The competition cars participating in the Indianapolis 500 have been running on 100% ethanol since 2007
In the future, ethanol could be derived more efficiently from switch grass, as mentioned in President George W. Bush's State of the Union Address in 2006 (refer to ABC News "What Happened to Bush Call for Switch Grass?" by Yellin, et al, at http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2814511&page=1)
USA leads, Europe follows.
On the one hand, there are those who, as you mention, consume every bloody natural resource that exists with nary a thought to the future and extol capitalism as God's favorite economic system.
And on the other hand, there are those who believe we should be living in caves, use palm fronds as loincloths, and eat off of rice mats to make sure we have no "carbon footprint" whatsoever, while deriding capitalism as Satan's favorite economic system.
At both of these poles lies madness.
Cue the "Big Blue" music...
Others are rather violent pieces of abstract art.
I don't think the electric connection would be hard with a simple bolt together plug system, then a snap together clamshell weather cover. I can't see on their site though how that works but I am sure they took that into consideration. I think it is *by far* the slickest way to do a functional hybrid, then no worries (or major more expense) about trying to have 30 grand worth of batteries just to get some range, 50 miles on pure electric is more than enough for most commuting, or for me to get to town and back with juice to spare. That trailer itself is interesting, it doesn't pivot, it attaches at two points and stays rigid with the vehicle. On their test sportscar the whole thing in modular hybrid mode still fits inside a normal parking slot. They wanted it that way to make it easier to drive around cities for people who aren't comfortable with a regular trailer (like backing up).
As to the planes, it is frustrating to me, this farm also has a pretty fair airport, but I can't afford lessons or a plane. I maintain the runway and so on as part of my maintenance duties, and I hay the sides for the cattle. My boss owns most of the planes here, maybe one day he'll take pity on me and sell me a rebuildable junker cheap. He has a 172 that's been tricked out with a high performance package, a bigger engine, and another one, a 150, that has more "stunt" quality wings on it, able to cruise slow and not stall, do some fancy turns, etc. I think he has around 20 planes here total, some functional, some not, two of them are dual engined. The strip is between 2/3rds and 3/4ths mile long, grass, so we can handle most prop planes out there but no jets. Well, I know it can take a dc-9, they busted some drug smugglers at night once some years ago who just swooped in and landed, they got caught on the ground offloading. That's another one of my jobs, go check out "odd" planes that come in and land with no permission. Always makes me a little apprehensive, I usually use the binocs on them first to check. Although firearms are totally legal here and I have some (just necessary on the farm, wild dogs, random methheads stealing stuff, etc), I got no great desire to get between some smugglers and a million bucks of their product, if ya know what I mean...
Never said Communist regimes weren't guilty of unsustainable resource consumption. That not withstanding, the "Mr. Marx" bit in the subject line was intended as a bit of comic license presented facetiously, but perhaps I should remember that people on Slashdot are an iffy bunch where humor is concerned. Some of them are OK with humor, some don't appreciate it, and some simply just couldn't detect it if someone kicked them in the head with a pair of clown shoes.
And I also never said it was the political system that was the problem either. Capitalism isn't a political system, anyway. It's an economic system.
So, really, what conversation are we having here, precisely?
Well, this is the point I was making. Capitalism, as practiced, breeds consumption. Think about it. Object: wealth. Method: use resources to produce product or service for intent of sale at greater price than cost to produce. Profit! Profit gained parlayed into capital investment toward growth or greater production to meed demand for product. Repeat.
Now to lay the entire causation of this on capitalism itself belies the fact that without demand there is no need for supply, and hence, the consumption of resources to create that supply, and consumers are the source of the demand.
However, I put forth the idea that, while excessive consumption will certainly lead to the ends you say and certainly would be madness to continue, subsistence consumption is unlikely to gain traction as a method of living for modern attitudes, and thus would be madness to suggest.
These are the poles of the argument. At each is an unwelcome or undesirable situation. To occupy a position at either would be tantamount to destroying one's credibility while trying to defend the indefensible. Between the two poles, somewhere, lies the sustainable compromise between obligate consumption and obligate conservation.
The ends of the poles? The poles are the ends. The logical extremes. You are taking a position at one. That's madness. That's what I do get.
Benjamin Franklin once opined "everything in moderation." It continues to sadden me how few people can wrap their brain around the true wisdom it represents and take it to heart rather than running full speed towards the extreme positions on such issues.
They don't make soap strong enough to wash off self-hate.