Reducing our dependence on oil

Where there´s a will, there´s a way.

The use of refined oil as propellant for our road vehicles is no longer as viable as it once were, because: Exhaust fumes pollute the athmosphere The carbon dioxide contribute to the greenhose effect Oil resources are becoming depleted. And yet, oil consumption continues to increase. After the state of California took its initiative to reduce air pollution, these ideas have spread both to other states in the USA and to Europe. EU ran its The European Community´s ZEUS Project, for Zero and Low Emission Vehicles in Urban Society, was a EU-financed project, whose aim has been to demonstrate the use of alternative vehicles in urban traffic. 8 cities in EU volunteered to purchase in total 1200 vehicles propelled by electricity and/or natural gas, and use them in public service. ZEUS Project to its termination in June 2000, with the aim of gaining experience and market acceptance of "green fuel". In summation, the cities of the world (and the world as a whole) are facing the following problems, as a result of the increasing need for human transportation: Traffic noise Air pollution Barrier effects (heavily trafficed roads) Traffic congestion Land occupation and spreading of cities Depletion of the World´s oil reserves Deterioration of buildings (because of acidification of city air) Hothouse effect (because of increasing carbon dioxide content in the air) High rate of traffic accidents

This is no small list. Automatic beamcarried traffic systems are the only viable technology which can solve all of these problems. But since they require new infrastructures, and are perceived by auto manufacturers and oil producers as economic threats, city politicians are mostly intent on finding other solutions. And these solutions are gradually gaining acceptance. On this page we will take a closer look at them. It would take matters too far to delve into alternative car engine technologies on this page. We will just take a look at the viabilities of alternative car engine fuels, since they have some relevance when comparing the beam traffic system to other alternatives. Using IT to reduce peoples´ transportation needs Using natural gas as fuel Using bio-gas as fuel Using electric vehicles Using hybrid vehicles Using smaller vehicles Using car pools Counteract growth of the cities Conclusion This British poster claims that a commuting Londoner who uses his car every workday, on the average spends the equivalent of 15 whole days a year in traffic queues. Probably true.

1. Using IT to reduce peoples´ transportation needs

IT (Information Technology) and the Internet can reduce personal transports in 2 ways: People can do routine shopping and have the merchandice delivered People can work at home.

Statistics from USA shows that people actually use the Internet to make purchases, mostly of clothes, books and groceries. This means fewer trips to supermarkets and shopping malls, and less need for parking space. As peoples´ confidence in the system grows, this trend is likely to accelerate somewhat. The trend towards work-at-home some days of the week is beneficial to both employers and employees, and will therefore grow somewhat.

But not everywhere; some countries are more conservative than others. On the whole, this IT-effect will be marginal, but it will slowly increase as time goes by. The economic factors will be most important, i.e. expensive fuel, road tolls and traffic congestion would propel this change towards use of the Internet at a faster pace.

2. Using natural gas as fuel

Natural gas is a byproduct of most oil wells, and is usually just "flared off" into the air, since it does not pay to make use of it. Using natural gas is just a way of extending the time until we are confronted with the inevitable; rising oil prices, as production cannot keep up with rising demand.

Natural gas is also cleaner than petrol, and the engines are a bit quieter. That´s about all that can be said in favor of natural gas.

3. Using bio-gas as fuel

The choices we have for motor vehicle propellants are: Methanol Ethanol Dimethyl ether, DME Vegetable oils Now we are talking about renewable fuel, which is a big step forward. Engine Alcohols By engine alcohols is meant methanol and ethanol, produced from biological raw materials. Both alcohols can be used as pure fuel in both otto engines and diesel engines or blended into petrol or diesel fuel. At present, ethanol is mainly produced from agricultural products but ethanol production could also be based on forest raw materials. The use of alcohols as vehicle fuels is not a new practice. It was in fact done in the earliest years of motoring. Alcohols had been used on and off throughout the entire history of motoring. Usually, alcohols were seen as alternatives to conventional fuel in times of uncertainty, such as war or economic depression. The safeguarding of supplies was most often the factor determining the use of alcohol. This argument has now tended to slip into the background in favour of the environmental potential the use of biobased engine alcohols provides.

The use of alcohols as vehicle fuels have both advantages and disadvantages. Whether the posjtive or negative characteristics predominate depends to some extent on what type of engine (otto or diesel) that is used. Generally, alcohols often provide advantages if they are used in otto engines, whereas in diesel engines there are physical obstacles making the use of alcohol difficult. What makes alcohols suitable as a fuel for otto engines is their high octane count. The octane count is a measure of the ability of the fuel not to self-ignite at high pressures and temperatures. Ignition of the fuel-air mixture should take place under controlled conditions and be caused by a spark. If the fuel self-ignites before the spark, a phenomenon occurs which is popularly known as "knocking". Apart from the noise, knocking can seriously damage the engine. So, a high octane count means that the engine's compression ratio can be raised. In physical terms, this means that a higher compression ratio produces a higher theoretical efficiency. In other words, the engine uses less fuel to deliver a certain amount of work. In the case of diesel engines, the fuel requires other characteristics, that are directly opposite to those required by a fuel for otto engines. A diesel fuel should self-ignite easily. In fact, the better a fuel self-ignites the better it is as a diesel fuel. This is because the fuel is injected into the engine's cylinder when the piston is around its upper turning point. At that point the pressure and tempera­ture in the cylinder are then high. It is then desirable for the fuel to ignite as fast as possible when injected into the cylinder.

The measure of a fuel's ability to self-ignite is known as its cetane count. The higher the cetane count, the more easily the fuel self-ignites. Normally, diesel fuel has a cetane count of at least 47 for modern European diesel engines, whereas ethanol and methanol have cetane counts of around 8 and 5 respectively. In order to improve the cetane count of ethanol, an additive known as an ignition improver is added. This, however, makes the fuel more expensive. Blending of alcohols with petrol and diesel The blending of small amounts of alcohols or ethers is a method which could be used to quickly introduce alcohols on a large scale. The use of ethers involves few or no changes to the basic petrol. Blends containing small quantities of pure alcohols require them to be water free, which makes greater demands in terms of storage and distribution than today. Several oxygenates (alcohols and ethers) are already available on the market as components for blending into petrol. One reason for blending is that oxygenates raise the octane count. The main factor limiting the blending of ethanol and petrol (to around 10-20%) is the reluctance of vehicle manufacturers to guarantee proper operation of the car. When it comes to blends of ethanol and diesel, these substances cannot normally be blended into a stable product; one has to use an emulsifying agent enables.

Production of Engine Alcohols Huge amounts of wine, stemming from over-production in the Mediterranean countries, are actually being used as vehicle fuel. Engine alcohols can in principle be produced by two different techniques; fermentation and gasification. The predominant method is fermentation of biomass followed by distillation, for which many different techniques have been developed. The gasification technique has so far mainly been tested for producing methanol from fossil raw materials, but development work is in progress on developing techniques for the gasification of biofuel. Both fossil and biological raw materials can be used to produce engine alcohols, either methanol or ethanol. For biobased production of engine alcohols, the following raw materials are of most interest: Sugar-containing agricultural products, such as sugar beet and sugar cane. The technique for fermentation of sugar is well known and the process is simple. Pulp and hemicellulose-containing raw materials, such as straw, softwood and hardwood, waste paper and refuse (pulp and hemice!lulosefractions). These raw materials are less expensive but on the other hand the process is more complex, as the material is solid and the pulp is protected by hemicellulose and lignin. Moreover, the hydrolysation of cellulose is a more difficult process than the hydrolysation of starch. Development work is being made with the aim of finding effective production methods involving enzymatic hydrolysis (see figure 3:1 at right) which can also use cellulose-containing materials that are currently regarded as waste, such as harvest residues from forestry, byproducts from the wood, pulp and paper industries, building waste, municipal waste, straw, etc. The planting and harvesting of "fuel forests" is also a viable method. In theory, all cellulose and hemicellulose can be converted into sugar, which can then be gasified into ethanol. This method produces 480 litres and 580 litres of ethanol from one ton of softwood and hard­wood respectively, which represents 55 per cent and 65 per cent respectively of the energy content of the wood. The lignin could be obtained as a solid fuel and the theoretical yield amounts to a further 20-25 percent of the energy content of the wood (illustrated in figure 3.2). When ethanol is produced from cellulose-containing raw materials, the aim, apart from the conventional hexose fermentation, is also to be able to ferment pentosene xylose. As traditional methods of fermentation using baker's yeast (Saccharomyces) do not work in the case of pentoses, intensive development work is in progress all over the world to solve this problem. One method could be to convert the yeast. This could be described as genetical engineering design with the object making possible the direct fermentation of xylose.

Figure 3:1 Figure 3:2

Dimethyl ether, DME Dimethyl ether, DME, is an ether which could be suitable as a diesel engine fuel on account of its low degree of self-ignition (235°C). DME is a gas that burns without producing soot and which, if it is to be used as a fuel, has to be handled under pressure in the same way as LPG. DME is produced via synthesis gas and can thus be produced from any raw material, including biomass by a process of gasification. At present, however, all DME is produced from natural gas, naphtha, heavy oil residues or coal, whereas the technique for basing production on biomass is still at the development stage. The method used for producing DME is based on the dehydration (chemical separation of water from the compound) of methanol produced in an earlier stage in the process. In the event of large-scale production for use as of a fuel, the production method would probably be direct dehydration in a synthesis gas reactor. Compared with methanol production, a DME synthesis process would be slightly more efficient in terms of energy due to the higher flow of synthesis gas through the reactor and the lower pressure. So far, however, only natural gas based facilities have been studied in detail. If biomass is used as a raw material, the synthesis and processing stages are identical to those required for natural gas.

The production costs at a DME installation are dominated by the cost of raw material and capital. A rough comparison between natural gas­DME and bio-DME suggests that raw material and capital costs would both double, that operating and maintenance costs would be some 75 per cent higher, and that the efficiency would be some 10­15 per cent lower if a change­over was made from natural gas to biomass. As DME requires pressure vessels and a new distribution system, the total costs for DME would be much higher than for engine alcohols. But car manufacturers are interested in DME, because of the high performance and low emission profile of the fuel. DME has a high cetane number (55-60 compared with 40-55 for diesel) which means short ignition times and for that reason cleaner combustion. In the USA, DME is used as an additive with methanol in order to reduce the ignition time. Unlike methanol, DME does not corrode metals and no special materials are required for the fuel system. However, certain plastics disintegrate after being exposed to DME for some time. It is therefore important that sealing materials are chosen with some care. One condition upon which DME could become a sustainable alternative fuel are that the fuel is produced from biomass. As yet there are no such production facilities anywhere in the world and the development conditions for DME are uncertain.

Vegetable oils Vegetable oils, mainly rapeseed methyl ester (RME), is another biobased fuel which has made a relatively strong impact in recent years. RME could be produced from different vegetable oils, of which rapeseed oil is the most popular. The production process involves pressing the oil out of the plants and then purify it by refining. The oil is then allowed to react with methanol to form RME. As the viscosity, density and cetane number of RME are broadly the same as that of diesel, RME can be used in diesel engines either in its pure form or blended into the diesel. Vegetable oils can be produced at relatively low cost, and the process can be carried out in small installations, and used as a fuel in diesel engines. These oils can be used in their crude form, but this gives them very poor fuel characteristics. They are therefore used instead as a base for the production of esters such as RME. Experiences from the use of RME are mixed. Among the positive points, naturally, is that RME is a renewable biobased fuel which reduces carbon dioxide emissions into air. But it also has drawbacks. It has higher emissions of nitrogen oxides than regular petrol. There are also problems with cold-starting of vehicles, the product is not stable with long storage, and so on. The biggest problem is probably the production of rapeseed. It requires enormous acreages to meet future needs of the number of motor vehicles that will be in existence. Rapeseed cultivation is also plagued by insects that destroy crops, and have become resistant to the pesticides that are used.

Coalpowder-powered combustion engines Experiments at feeding coalpowder into combustion engines were made in Germany and other places as early as the beginning of the 20:th century. The technique was not as competitive as oil, which had begun to be plentiful. The technology for feeding pulverized wood instead of diesel oil to a car engine is at least 20 years old. Any kind of wood could be used, even oatmeal and the like, provided the grains are small enough after the grinding. The illustration shows a part of one practical solution, by Swedish inventor Jan Abom. It shows the injection pump, which provides the engine with fuel in a "proper form" which the engine can handle. Out of the 3 disks on their common axis, only the middle one is rotating. It is driven by an electrical motor via the transmission at upper right and the vertical axis at right. The three disks are mounted so close to each other that the holes adjoin without any possibility of seepage into the square container.

This container would be entirely filled by oil. The middle disk rotates counterclockwise in the drawing, and has only one hole. This disk is hollow and termed the "forechamber", its function being to prepare the fuel. The whole pump works roughly like this: 1) When the single hole of the middle disk is at position 1, the forechamber is emptied of air through the vakuumsource via the bottom disk. This air goes into the combustion chamber. 2) When the hole gets to position 2, the forechamber is filled with pulverized wood from the top disk.

3) At position 3, the hole is lined up with the pressure source from above and the access to the combustion chamber of the engine below. The wood is thus injected into the engine at high pressure. 4) At this position, the forechamber is filled with air via the hole in the bottom disk. The middle disk makes about 1 000 revolution per second. At this extremely high speed, the wood particles are broken down even further, and the following combustion is very thorough. Burning wood like this instead of gas would be both cheaper and cleaner to the air; wood does not contain any sulphur or lead. Wood is also a renewable source of fuel.

4. Using electric vehicles

Electric vehicles have advantages that vehicles with combustion engines lack. They are more silent, and they don´t affect the air in any way whatsoever. This last argument has to be modified, of course, by considering how their electricity is produced. If coal-burning plants have to be kept running to produce this electricity, then one thing would compensate for the other. In general, there are 4 ways to provide the needed electricity to the engine: By on-board electrical batteries By a combination of power wires and on-board electrical batteries By on-board fuel cells By on-board solar panels.

On-board electrical batteries are the most common solution, and a lot of research has gone into producing batteries that are; Reasonably cheap Long-lived Have a high specific energy Have a high specific effect. Prices for some batteries have come down, and their energy-per-weight ratio has gone up. But the fact remains that the action range of an electric car cannot compete with an ordinary motorcar. Some battery types can be quick-loaded, but that takes at least 30 minutes. Their effect-per-weight-ratio is also difficult to increase; it depletes the battery too quickly. This kind of vehicles will only be used by municipal services and maybe in car pools.

The trolley-buses of old took their electric power from wires in the air, and it would be feasible to use vehicles that used their batteries while running on streets where there were no power wires, and then using these wires whenever they were available, while at the same time recharging their batteries. Again; this kind of vehicles will only be used by municipal services in the cities. Fuel-cell technology is very old, and yet have not managed to get off the ground. It´s simply too complex and unreliable to be used in private vehicles. Solar panels on cars? Sounds farfetched and, admittedly, they have no real future with today´s technology. They simply cannot generate enough power. But such vehicles have been built, and they are used in sunny countries like Australia, but mostly for fun.

Note: Zink-Air Batteries are not recharged; instead, the zinkplates are replaced. This takes about 5 minutes.

Tests have shown these batteries to be potentially dangerous. A test vehicle caught fire in Sweden in December 1996 because of a short circuit.

5. Using hybrid vehicles

These are vehicles that are equipped with more than one type of energy transducer and energy storage system. The energy transducer could be, for instance, an otto cycle engine, an electric engine or a fuel cell. Hybrid running allows a vehicle to use one kind of fuel in dense city traffic (such as electricity) and another out on the country roads (such as petrol/methanol/diesel) in order to spare the air in the city. While using its combustion engine, it would simultaneously recharge its batteries, so they could again be used later on.

The hybrid car has a lot more promising future than the electrical car, for obvious reasons. But, by its nature, it would be more complex "under the hood" and more expensive than either a motorcar or an electric car. Such cars would only find a market if the authorities used laws, taxation benefits or other economic incentives to help them along.

6. Using smaller vehicles

Amsterdam and Copenhagen are examples of cities that encourage bikers. These cities are actually building more reserved lanes for bikers every year. But in most other modern cities, people who would like to take their bikes to work are discouraged to do so, because of lack of protected cycle roads, the awful traffic situations and the bad air quality. This situation will not change for the better, unless this general traffic situation in the cities first improves considerably!		Electrically driven bikes and scooters are now on the market, at least in Western Europe. They are very practical alternatives to ordinary bikes and motorcycles. As stated, they will have their day when cities becomes more attractive to travel in, by bike. Then again, they are gradually finding their market in the suburbs and in the countryside.

7. Using car pools

An idea that will catch on here and there. But generally, people are too individualistic to embrace this idea, unless there are considerable economic gains involved.

Such gains already exist; it´s cheaper to only use a car when you really need it, and otherwise share it with others. But laws and other benefits would have to be added as well, in order for this idea really to catch on.

8. Counteract growth of the cities

In the Western World, the industrial era is on the vane. That, and the rise of Internet, both forces and enables many people to work at home, or to move to smaller towns. Authorities could help this development along with measures such as road tolls in big cities and tax incentives for big employers who are willing to set up shop in small towns.

There are no signs of any such trend anywhere in the World at the present. On the contrary; urbanization is faster than the population growth, both in rich and in poor countries, and in most places big cities grow at the expense of smaller cities.

9. Conclusion

Oil consumption will rise, until demand exceeds supply, and oil prices will suddenly increase considerably. Before then, there will be a marked increase in the percentage of vehicles that use biofuel, wholly or partly. There will also be a small increase in the percentage of hybrid vehicles. Electrical vehicles have no real future until the fuel cell can come in widespread use. Big cities will continue to grow, both when it comes to inhabitants and acreage. Long distances, awful traffic conditions and bad air will discourage bikers. Public transportation will grow as the cities grow. But the long travel distances will add to the other discomforts of living in big cities.

Thus, the alternatives presented on this webpage will only have marginal effects on life quality in the cities. In some cities (mostly in Western Europe and North America), the air will get a bit better, in other cities (mostly in the third World) it will get worse. The quality of transportation can only get worse as cities grow, most notably the long travel distances and travel times. When oil prices rise, there will probably be an economic crisis, since the alternative fuels will not be produced in sufficient quantities to keep fuel prices down. When people cannot afford to have their own cars (or are prevented by the authorities from owning one, as already happens in Japan) they will resort to car pools. Or public transport. These are only "temporary reliefs" and not commensurate with the living standards we have in the Western World today.

Well, then, is there no way for us to keep our living standard and make our cities liveable once again? Yes, that technology exists. But will it be used??