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Formula One thinking about peak oil?!!
Posted: 15 Feb 2006, 19:45
by clv101
Well I didn't expect the FIA to be talking about an oil crisis!
Mosely Pushing for Fuel Efficiency
FIA president Max Mosley is hoping to make Formula One a 'fuel-efficiency' series from the start of 2011 - with perhaps the only restriction on engines being the amount of fuel they use.
Mosley announced this week plans to introduce same-spec engines from 2008 to 2010, with manufacturers forced to lodge their designs by next June, and he has now unveiled his vision for F1 after that date.
With environmental issues becoming more important, he is hoping to change the concept of engine restrictions completely.
"What we are thinking about is a fuel efficiency formula," said Mosley.
"There are various reasons for that, apart from it being politically correct. All the manufacturers are working on fuel efficiency, there are some very interesting things going on, and if there is a big oil crisis which is more than likely in the next few years, then it will be far more defensible if we can say, 'actually we are working on the cutting edge of fuel efficiency.'
"It would either be a limited quantity of fuel to do the best you can, which is the simplest in a way, or a more sophisticated one in saying we will have a fuel valve, where the flow rate was a function of rpm so it was efficient through the whole range of the engine."
Mosley also said the FIA will push to introduce a more environmentally-friendly fuel in the future, but admitted the teams will need time to prepare the technology for that and more fuel-efficient engines.
"The fuel for 2008 is anyway going to be 5.75 percent bio-fuel because that is coming in in 2010 for the whole of the EU and we didn't want to be behind," added Mosley. "But there is an argument that if we go to fuel efficiency of going for a fuel like E85, which is 85 percent ethanol and is available in the States in small quantities, or something of that kind.
"But again, once we have got the championship, we know who is competing, we will want to sit down with them and talk about 2011 and agree before the end of this year so everyone can have a sensible, low-key ongoing R&D programme.
"The manufacturers are doing work on injectors, and spray patterns, and it has a dramatic effect on fuel-efficiency and it would be very sensible to start working on that, but you need a long lead time otherwise it just costs a fortune."
Posted: 15 Feb 2006, 23:18
by RevdTess
Very cool. Would love to see F1 at the forefront of fuel efficiency developments.
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 02:10
by Billhook
You mean so that the public can be encouraged to waste fuel and emit gratuitous pollution more efficiently ?
No offence, but personally I'll believe a govt. is serious when F1 is simply closed down.
Both from the GW & the PO perspectives, there are mega-deaths at stake.
Or am I missing something ?
regards,
Bill
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 04:07
by john.rico
F1 compatible with fuel efficiency? Don?t make me laugh. I agree with Billhook. The whole automobile industry is one great wasting session. We shall pay dire price for this so called comfort mean of transport. The worst thing is that the new roads are rising everywhere (I?m from Central Europe). It?s nothing but waste of money which should be invested into renewables or nuclear and of a fertile soil. It?s a shame.
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 07:18
by biffvernon
john.rico wrote:...renewables or nuclear...
Lets just leave it at renewables - I'd hate to see a nuclear powered F1 car.
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 07:45
by RevdTess
I love F1. It's my favourite sport. Close down cricket I say!
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 08:23
by clv101
Tess wrote:I love F1. It's my favourite sport. Close down cricket I say!
How did I not know that? Same here, I even spent a year with a radio station covering F1. In the past I have attempted to justify the energy use by suggesting that although the twenty cars do use a lot of energy they save far more due to the fact that a couple hundred million people are sitting down watching TV (a low energy pastime) rather than driving around themselves, buying things etc... net energy saving.
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 08:49
by Bandidoz
In the grand scheme of things I imagine the amount of fuel used (and CO2 emitted) is a drop in the ocean. F1 is great for innovation, and to have "fuel efficient cars" beamed into everyone's front room can only be a good thing. So it's worthwhile for as long as a song and dance is made of it in some way. One of my enduring memories from the Kinsale conference (Fuelling the Future) was going into a pub to see the F1, with all but the Minardis abandoned due to the tyre fiasco.
I'm not so sure about endurance races though (LeMans and the 3000-mile Cannonball-run like races on late night TV).
The question to ask is, how far would you take it? Would you ban national football leagues to avoid the travel by the players and away fans? Would you ban the Tour-de-France so the cyclists don't have to consume 5000 calories per day?
Perhaps they could do 3% fewer laps per year as a symbolic gesture?
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 08:59
by mikepepler
Surely the point is that if they are limited on the amount of fuel, they will work to develop efficient cars and engines, and some of this technology will spill over into the mainstream? Maybe we'll get hybrid F1 cars? Who knows?
I realise that this line of thinking could lead people to assume that we can all keep driving for ever, which we obviously can't, but at least the important vehicles we do still run might end up being more efficient.
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 09:00
by RevdTess
clv101 wrote:Tess wrote:I love F1. It's my favourite sport. Close down cricket I say!
How did I not know that? Same here, I even spent a year with a radio station covering F1. In the past I have attempted to justify the energy use by suggesting that although the twenty cars do use a lot of energy they save far more due to the fact that a couple hundred million people are sitting down watching TV (a low energy pastime) rather than driving around themselves, buying things etc... net energy saving.
*grin* fantastic!
We've all got our little hypocritical weaknesses. Keeps us humble, eh?
Posted: 16 Feb 2006, 13:41
by biffvernon
clv101 wrote:...although the twenty cars do use a lot of energy...
It's not the twenty cars that's the problem, more the two hundred helicopters parked round the back