Toto Wolf - Formula 1 should be leading the pack in sustainable fuels and biofuels instead of electric

[Edax]

There are easy ways to get to net zero eg just pay someone to offset your emissions by planting trees, sequestering carbon in soil etc etc. Much like the sustainable fuels "solution" - its only a bandaid while we get to longer term solutions eg solar -> grid electricity -> BEV. This is still the front-runner with hydrogen powering fuel-cell EV's in second place.
- Biofuels are NOT a long term solution - the required quantities of land, sunlight and water will never exist.
- Fuel from atmospheric CO2 requires enormous amounts of energy - several times the energy required to power a BEV. Don't forget that any combustion engine is only going to convert less than 40% of the fuel energy into propulsion. (and emit heat and toxic exhaust at the vehicle location - in cities.)

All true of course, but these fuels have one thing going for them and that is energy density.

In the end I think it is not a case of winner takes all.

The ICE as a propulsion system for personal vehicles in (semi)urban areas is dead. This has for me become very clear in the past year. Not only have the systems sufficient capability, but there is also a big environmental push to rid the urban areas of emissions including clutch and brake dust.

That Daimler wants to sink more money in ICE development would be a grave mistake. But there seem to be more OEM’s having a hard time coming to terms with this disruptive change. The fact that the new Ford Mustang is powered by Volkswagen should be a wake up call.

That said, while electric is perfect for shopping runs, home-work travel and the like, less so for heavy duty vehicles, long distance transport and airplanes. This is certainly a niche where I can see alternative solutions fitting in.

As for F1. With all the OEM’s having to scratch resources to catch up with the electrification. I think choosing a formula that emphasizes engine development would only drive manufacturers away. Better to take something cheap and freeze it and focus on the entertainment and competitive aspects.

[RedNEO]

Here is something for you, just to show I am neutral on this

Thanks for the video. Even though that channel only covers EV news it should be a wake up call. EV’s is just not a viable option for the average person, most people like that don’t even have driveways and would not have access to charging points for there cars parked out on the street. The infrastructure is just never going to be there on a wide scale level to make it anything more than a niche for certain types of people. Like Toto says you can’t just assume it’s the future, other technologies are moving ahead of it.

[Tommy Cookers]

.... there is also a big environmental push to rid the urban areas of emissions including clutch and brake dust.

brake dust of course comes more from EVs

environmental push - on what planet ?
consider private air .....
compared to the legally-limited pollution (much from 'green' wood-burning) of public air
eg domestic kitchens give unlimited particulates and (by gas or other open flame cooking) unlimited NOx
it's currently fashionable as 'healthy' to encourage children etc to bake and to grill
(and to pollute public air with barbecues)

and ....
large parts of planet Earth's surface are unsuitable for food growing (and other large parts suitable only for grazing)
but some of these large parts have potential for growing (cellulosic) biofuel feedstocks or other 'energy' crops

[Big Tea]

.... there is also a big environmental push to rid the urban areas of emissions including clutch and brake dust.

large parts of planet Earth's surface are unsuitable for food growing (and other large parts suitable only for grazing)
but some of these large parts have potential for growing (cellulosic) biofuel feedstocks or other 'energy' crops

Also for focusing mirrored sunlight to do the work without emissions.

[rjsa]

That's just incorrect.

Electric vehicles can and do make use of renewable energy e.g. wind, PV etc.

CO2 isn't the efuel energy source - it's part of the energy store. Efuel energy sources are the same electric vehicles. Wind, PV and even coal / gas.

Remember also that efuels need a lot of energy to make. Indeed, you need to put in more energy than you get out.

Actually an ice running on ethanol is running on solar energy used to capture atmospheric co2 and ground water and combine thrm in hidrocarbons and o2.

Plus the energy required to process the ethanol, of course...it's still energy that needs to be used to make efuels rather than do something else like run house lighting.

And as has already been explained by others, we don't have the capacity to make enough fuel to replace all fossil-derived hydrocarbons with photosynthetic hydrocarbons. That's because we'd need to turn over our food land to make fuel. And that's just silly.

You can burn ethanol for that. But for the first batch.

[Just_a_fan]

Actually an ice running on ethanol is running on solar energy used to capture atmospheric co2 and ground water and combine thrm in hidrocarbons and o2.

Plus the energy required to process the ethanol, of course...it's still energy that needs to be used to make efuels rather than do something else like run house lighting.

And as has already been explained by others, we don't have the capacity to make enough fuel to replace all fossil-derived hydrocarbons with photosynthetic hydrocarbons. That's because we'd need to turn over our food land to make fuel. And that's just silly.

You can burn ethanol for that. But for the first batch.

You can't burn ethanol that you've made to make more ethanol and end up with a net gain.

[Edax]

.... there is also a big environmental push to rid the urban areas of emissions including clutch and brake dust.

brake dust of course comes more from EVs

environmental push - on what planet ?
consider private air .....
compared to the legally-limited pollution (much from 'green' wood-burning) of public air
eg domestic kitchens give unlimited particulates and (by gas or other open flame cooking) unlimited NOx
it's currently fashionable as 'healthy' to encourage children etc to bake and to grill
(and to pollute public air with barbecues)

and ....
large parts of planet Earth's surface are unsuitable for food growing (and other large parts suitable only for grazing)
but some of these large parts have potential for growing (cellulosic) biofuel feedstocks or other 'energy' crops

You gotta help me a bit with your first remark. I always assumed that Regen is lighter on the brakes.

As for environmental push. I was just talking about local policy, not my opinion. I can certainly agree to the fact that there are other sources of pollution, which might be easier to address. But right now the focus is on cars, and the car industry is certainly not resisting.

I guess it is nothing new. In the 90’s there were all these stories in Europe about how bad trucks were. A lot of these stories actually came from European truck companies. Since they had Euro series engines in development they were lobbying for stricter regulations to fend of foreign competitors who were entering the market.

The stars are perfectly aligned for electric cars at the moment. The tech is acceptable for the general public. Investors are blindly wheelbarrowing money into everything that relates to EV. The biggest manufacturer has pledged to go all in. And policy makers are supportive to the point that they are willing to ban the alternatives.

The point for me is not even whether it is the best technology. We have a history of choosing inferior standards (AC vs DC, VHS vs Betamax). EV is currently in my view positioned to get to critical volume, other techs aren’t.

[rjsa]

Plus the energy required to process the ethanol, of course...it's still energy that needs to be used to make efuels rather than do something else like run house lighting.

And as has already been explained by others, we don't have the capacity to make enough fuel to replace all fossil-derived hydrocarbons with photosynthetic hydrocarbons. That's because we'd need to turn over our food land to make fuel. And that's just silly.

You can burn ethanol for that. But for the first batch.

You can't burn ethanol that you've made to make more ethanol and end up with a net gain.

. Oh yes you can. There’s plenty room to do it. Because any way of capturing solar energy on that scale will require all that space.

[DChemTech]

Not really; photosynthesis is pretty inefficient overall. But using large swaths of land for photovoltaic is detrimental to biodiversity (then again, so are fuel plantations)

Of course, as long as biofuels require less energy to produce than is stored within them (which most, but not all, do) you can technically use one batch of biofuel to provide the energy to produce the next. However, the gain wont be enormous - maybe one liter of biofuel provides enough energy to make two liters in the next round. And of course you still need the land to produce that next round, which is the limiting factor, in the end. We don't really have plenty of room. We have insufficient room to plant energy crops if we'd use all of it. We have less room even if we want to maintain some biodiversity, which may be wise, too.

[gruntguru]

The ICE as a propulsion system for personal vehicles in (semi)urban areas is dead. This has for me become very clear in the past year. Not only have the systems sufficient capability, but there is also a big environmental push to rid the urban areas of emissions including clutch and brake dust.

You can add heat to that list. The ICE puts about three times the heat into the local environment compared to an EV resulting in about 1 degree of the typical city "heat island" effect. That 1 degree creates a significant energy penalty in air conditioning cities in warmer climates.

[hollus]

OK, this is massively off topic, but I am going to ask for a link to that 1C from ICEs if you have it. The heat island effect is well known, but that would suggest that ICEs contribute most of the heat. And (almost) all energy consumption goes eventually to heat, so it would imply that ICEs account for most of the energy consumption in cities...

I'll split this to a new thread if it drags along.

P.S. your degree is probably Fahrenheit, isn't it? Where I come from the degrees are larger. That would explain it.

[RedNEO]

FIA to scrap complex 'MGU-H' for 2025

FIA president Jean Todt reportedly wanted to scrap MGU-H even sooner than 2025, but amid the corona crisis it has been decided that the current rules will definitely be frozen.

https://amp.sportsmole.co.uk/formula-1/ ... 00433.html

[Big Tea]

OK, this is massively off topic, but I am going to ask for a link to that 1C from ICEs if you have it. The heat island effect is well known, but that would suggest that ICEs contribute most of the heat. And (almost) all energy consumption goes eventually to heat, so it would imply that ICEs account for most of the energy consumption in cities...

I'll split this to a new thread if it drags along.

P.S. your degree is probably Fahrenheit, isn't it? Where I come from the degrees are larger. That would explain it.

You can get an indication of this if you look at a section of road with frost of thin snow on.
The tyre tracks are rubbed away but you also get a clear 'line' down the middle.
Were the snow or frost not there, that heat would be soaked into the road

[Tommy Cookers]

nightvision police helicopter footage seems to show almost all of the heat going into the road being from the tyres

ie EVs (being heavier) would heat the road more than ICEVs do


the heat island effect presumably has some benefit in reducing heating system energies

my ICE takes in eg 1200 cc of air - and exhausts a (much ?) bigger volume
what is the real effect on the city-size bubble of gas that fills the city ?


isn't HI is now conveniently ignored by the expert consensus that tells children how much climate warming is and will be ?

[DChemTech]

No, it isn't
https://skepticalscience.com//urban-hea ... effect.htm