Akkor itt van a Lovins-cikk 2. resze:
Ledbetter and Ross (1990) found that this approach can cut 1987-base fuel
intensity in 2000 by ~35%,to 6,99 actual (5,36 rated) l/100 km. That would
just counterbalance projected U.S. growth in vehicle-km travelled by 2010
(Kelly and Williams 1992). Each saved litre would cost, on average, ECU
0,15 ($0,14)--less than half today's U.S. petrol price.4 At about half that
cost, savings ~72% as large are also achievable in U.S. new light trucks.
Such
cost-effectiveness is probably conservative, as illustrated by
improvements in
one subcompact platform: the 1992 Honda vx's 56%-improved fuel
economy5 (4,62 l/100 km, 51 mi/gal) increased its retail price by ~ECU 717
($650), or ECU 0,20 per saved litre ($0,69/gal)6, less than the
average-cost
supply curve in Figure 1 would predict, and far
below the marginal cost curve, which is the more appropriate comparison.
A similar, more limited analysis (Duleep 1991), considered authoritative
by an
official assessment (OTA 1991), explicitly ignores emerging technologies.
These,
however, are "reasonably certain" over the next 10-15 years, so
conservative
official findings "should not be taken to mean the technological limit of
what is possible with the current state of the art" (NRC 1992): a similar
assessment 10-15 years ago would surely have omitted many important
advances
found in today's cars.
Indeed, in the mid-1980s, over a dozen concept cars combined excellent but
fairly conventional components in conventional ways to demonstrate
doubled or
tripled fuel economy (1,7-3,5 l/100 km, 67-138 mi/gal), often with 4-5
passenger capacity and apparently respectable--in a few cases,
superior--safety, emissions, and performance (Bleviss 1988).7 At least two
versions would reportedly cost about the same to mass-produce as present
cars.
The short-term approach (NRC 1992) is valuable for understanding the
potential
and limitations of incremental improvements to stamped-steel,
direct-mechanical-drive, internal-combustion, petrol-driven
cars, but it says nothing whatever about what other designs can do.
Attractive
though incremental improvements can be, focusing on them diverts
attention from
a basic challenge to the auto industry: fundamentally redesigning cars
and the
car business can save much more fuel still, probably cost less,
and redefine which firms prosper.
Conventional cars, like other technologies, have entered their era of
greatest
refinement just as they may have become obsolete. Imagine that a seventh
of the
gnp in, say, the United States were devoted to manufacturing typewriters. The
Big Three typewriter manufacturers have gradually moved from manual
to electric to typeball models. Now they are making delicate little
refinements
somewhere between a Selectric 16 and a Selectric 17. Their typewriters are
excellent and even profitable. People buy over ten
million of them every year. The only trouble is that the competition is
working
on subnotebook computers.
That, we suggest, is where the global auto industry is today--painstakingly
refining designs that may soon be swept away, perhaps with terrifying
speed, by
the integration of very different technologies already in or entering the
market, notably in advanced materials, software, motors, microelectronics,
power electronics, electric storage devices, and computer-aided design and
manufacturing. This paper attempts to sketch the outlines of that potential
transformation.
Endnotes
0 During 1978-87 on average, interior volume decreased by <1%, but volume per
unit curb weight rose16% from better packaging, power per unit engine
displacement rose 36%, and acceleration increased 6% (Ross 1989). During
1976-85, weight reduction was the most important (~36%)
of the identified causes of improved fuel economy, but during 1985-89, weight
increased slightly and ~58% of fuel-economy gains vanished into ever-faster
acceleration (Westbrook 1990). Fuel economy is roughly
proportional to the square root of acceleration time, both because of
increased
idling losses with higher-displacement engines (Ross 1989) and because of
severe
maximum-to-average power mismatch that makes powerful engines "expensive even
when it is not being used" (APS 1975). A typical ~1 364-kg (~3 000-lb) U.S.
car's ~90-kW (~120-hp) engine, sized for ~11-s acceleration from 0 to 97
km/h, is oversized about sixfold in cruising and 24-fold in city driving,
so it
usually operates at severely depressed efficiency (C. Gray, personal
communication, 1992). Such overpowered but heavily marketed cars have top
speeds that average 206 km/h, twice the maximum U.S. legal limit. In
principle,
just better matching of engine power to average load could double or triple
fuel efficiency (id.).RETURN
1 Unless otherwise noted, we express fuel economy in terms of usepa-rated
composite mi/gal and intensity in the corresponding l/100 km, which equals
235,2/(mi/gal). This composite is rated 55% on the urban and 45% on the
highway
test cycles, both designed in 1975. By the early 1980s, average
well-maintained petrol cars' on-the-road fuel economy was typically ~10%
lower
than rated for city, ~22% for highway, and ~15% for composite driving. By
1990
the composite discrepancy remained ~15,2% for the car fleet but had
widened to
~24,5% for light trucks, with an approximate doubling
expected by 2010 (Maples 1992). The usepa petrol-powered urban fuel-economy
rating is approximately equivalent to the European urban-cycle test (or the
Japanese 10-mode test) times 1,12; the highway rating, to the European 90
km/h
test (or the Japanese 60 km/h test) times 0,87 (Bleviss 1988). We also
generally use calendar year as a surrogate for model year. We adopt here the
normal but odd convention of the distance travelled, rather than the
product of
distance times the passengers or payload carried--like the energy-per-seat-km
metric used in analyzing surface mass transit or air travel.RETURN
2 Expressed as levelized Cost of Saved Energy, equal to Ci/S[1-(1+i)-n],
where
C = capital cost, i = annual real interest rate expressed as a decimal (here,
0,07), S = annual fuel savings, and n = lifetime in years. Thus Cost of Saved
Energy is capital cost divided by the discounted stream of fuel savings over
the car's lifetime. If C includes an appropriate financing charge, CSE
can be
compared directly with the levelized price of delivered motor fuel.RETURN
3 Omitted measures include reducing or eliminating brake drag, using switched
reluctance generators that also replace the heavy starter motor (and
eliminate
high-speed alternator magnetic loss), and replacing v-belts with synchronous
belts.RETURN
4 All dollars in this paper are 1989 US$ (= 1,1024 1989 ECU), gallons are
U.S.
gallons (= 3,785 l), and miles are U.S. statute miles (1,609 km).RETURN
5 The 1992 Honda Civic vx 4-passenger hatchback had 56% higher km/l than its
previous-year base model, the 1991 dx. The 1992 vx was also substantially
bigger (2,18 vs. 2,06 interior m3, 4,07 vs. 3,99 m long), with 17 l more
volume
for passengers and cargo combined, and delivered 10% more peak torque, yet
weighed less (950 kg curb weight with driver airbag, vs. 979 kg with none)
(Koomey et al.
1992). The 1992 vx was also 16% more efficient than NRC's (1992)
"lower-confidence" estimate of what is technically feasible for a subcompact
car in 2006.RETURN
6 This analysis of Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price ("sticker
price") is
normalized for identical cosmetic and safety features (Koomey et al.
1992).RETURN
7 A few of these concept cars had peculiar features not shared by others and
hence not essential to such good efficiency. Their collective performance is
consistent with that of a later prototype, General Motors' heavy but
sleek and
sporty 2-passenger Impact. It was all-electric, but if it converted
petrol to
wheelpower one-third as efficiently as it converted electricity (9,3 kWeh/100
km), it would use only 2,94 l/100 km (80 mi/gal). Correcting to a
half-as-heavy
powertrain would make this ~2,53 l/100 km (93 mpg), but correcting for likely
aerodynamic changes would lower it again to ~2,64 l/100 km (89 mpg) (P.
MacCready and A. Brooks, personal communications, 1991). However, with a
fairly
efficient
two-stroke petrol engine and three-speed manual transmission sized for
sports-car performance (0-97 km/h in ~6,5 s), its efficiency would
degrade to
~3,5 l/100 km (~68 mi/gal). Conversely, a separate
calculation by K.H. Hellman (1992) assumes a much lighter powertrain
converting
methanol to wheelpower with 23% efficiency, and estimates <1,04 l/100 km
(>225
mi/gasoline gal) if performance is normalized to the Impact's 121-km/h
(75-mi/h) cruising speed rather than to its short acceleration time
(0-97 km/h in 8 s): such a car (0-97 km/h in ~32 s, ~682 kg, ~13 kW) would
probably not be marketable, but the calculation remains instructive.RETURN
|
Mail*Link(r) SMTP Berlin eghajlat-konferencia-hirek
30 march 1995
14 ARRESTED AT BERLIN CLIMATE DEMONSTRATION
Early this morning 50 activists from around the world held a
peaceful demonstration outside the Hotel Steigenberger in
downtown Berlin.
The protesters locked and chained themselves to buses used by
delegates heading to the UN international climate
negotiations. They also displayed a banner denouncing the
negotiations.
14 of the climate activists were arrested and detained after
the city police and fire brigade cut them free from the rear
and underside of this buses. The protest was totally
non-violent.
The protesters felt that the climate summit legitimates a
process that is ineffective in reducing global climate
warming. They were specifically denouncing the Global Climate
Coalition, a powerful corporate lobby group, whose members are
staying at the hotel.
A spokesperson for the protesters said, "The GCC is blocking
the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. We want to block
the blockers. The GCC economists put a price on human beings
the their environment. People must be aware of their repugnant
opinions, including the opinion that Third World citizens are
worth less than others."
BLOCKADE OF CLIMATE CONFERENCE-BLOCKERS
BY ROGER GEFFEN, SMALL WORLD MEDIA
Delegates representing business interests at the Berlin
Climate Conference found themselves the target of a protest
action by radical environmental campaigners from around the
world. 50 activists from the Alliance Against Climate
Criminals used chains and bicycle locks to attach themselves
to the coaches and limousines preparing to carry the delegates
from the Steigenberger hotel to the International Conference
Center.
The action was targetted at a shadowy group known as the
Global Climate Coalition, the aim being to prevent its
delegates from the reaching the conference. The campaigners
claim that the GCC is largely responsible for obstructing
progress towards international agreement on ways to control
greenhouse emissions. As one activists explained: "We are
perfectly justified in blocking these people because it is
they that are blocking the conference. They are holding the
future of life on earth to ransom, for the sake of short-term
profits. We think the conference would get on much better
without them."
The GCC is a powerful lobby group funded by trans-national
companies with a huge vested interest in maintaining high
energy consumption. GCC members such as Exxon, Shell, Union
Carbide and DuPont, are guilty of horrific environmental and
human rights abuses (eg Valdez, Bhopal).
Among those caught up in the demonstration were several
delegates who hid their NGO security passes, identifying
themselves merely as "representatives of the American Business
Community." The demonstrators feel confident that the
demonstration hit its intended target! It was over an hour
before police were able to cut free the demonstrators locked
to the coaches.
..
Those arrested came from the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland,
New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, UK, Ukraine and
USA.
The Alliance Against Climate Criminals press-release
4th April 1995
At 10:30am 4 April, 200 activists from 50 different countries
held a party in the street of highlight the growing threat
that traffic presents to the global climate. Wearing party
hats and gas masks they "reclaimed" the junction of
Behringstrasse and Yorkstrasse in Berlin, where the
International Climate Conference is currently taking place.
Banners and a colourful group of musicians provided a festive
atmosphere. The event remained good-natured, with some drivers
happily joining the demonstrators for tea and biscuits. Police
took no action against the demonstrators, who left after 15
minutes.
The event included participants from around the world, showing
their concern about the alarming growth in traffic, and the
lack of political will to control the resulting atmospheric
pollution. Car traffic is currently responsible for 30% of
global CO2 emissions worldwide, and forecasts indicate that
the number of cars will double globally in next 15 years. The
industrialised nations in particular continue actively to
encourage car growth; for instance, the European Union plans
to build 12,000 km of new roads by 2002.
The demonstrations also highlighted the various damaging
effects of urban traffic. Studies in Britain show that 1 in 7
children in urban areas are now on medication for respiratory
problems which are directly related to traffic pollution.
Streets are no longer safe for pedestrians and cyclists.
Traffic is a major disruption to communities - typically 30%
of urban space is allocated to the car. A substantial
reduction in car use would not only help to alleviate global
warming, it would also lead to a better quality of life.
_______________________________________________________________
|
