NOT SO FAST
IGNITION
TDC
COMPLICATING THE RUSH TO ELECTRIC TRANSPORTATION
KEVIN CAMERON
Reader comments on Cycle World web stories show that a fair segment of readers now expect simple, rational electric vehicles to quickly take over the nation’s highways.
This is an attractive proposition. Abe Askenazi, an engineer 15 years with Buell, moving to Zero in 2010, put it well, asking us to compare electric drive, with its one moving part—the motor’s armature—with the detailed complexity of any form of internal combustion drive. A typical motorcycle engine consists of hundreds of parts, the failure of any of which can spoil the rider’s day (a head bolt, a valve cotter). The fact that such myriad parts generally do not fail is testimony to the tremendous investment of thought, engineering, and manufacturing required to make such things work reliably.
Believers in “disruptive capitalism” add their weight to this view. Yes, the makers of IC-powered vehicles have tremendous investment in the tooling required to do it their way, but that investment will shortly become a liability when the simplicity of electric drive undercuts their lowest price and drives them from the market. In this view, the depressing photos of the empty and ruinous Packard plant (Google it!) show us how the plants of Ford, GM, and Chrysler will look in a fast-coming future.
Diesel rail locomotives cost about twice as much per horsepower as did the steam locos that dominated railroading in 1935, but diesels offered nearly five times the fuel efficiency. The end came in a rush when the emergency of WWII was over in 1945. Diesels also offered greater ease and lower cost of maintenance, as engines and driving trucks could be exchanged as complete units. Sudden complete change.
Large-piston aircraft engines reached high sophistication by 1957 but then dropped dead; the gas turbine, its development driven by decree of national gov-
ernments, advanced faster than anyone anticipated. By i960, Boeing’s 707 coim mercial airliner was bringing smooth, fast transportation to millions. Even the turboprop—expected to serve for years as a transition between piston and jet—was largely bypassed, leaving us with just a few orphan Lockheed Electra IIs and Vickers Viscounts. Sudden complete change.
Same with vacuum tubes—try to imagine the size, weight, and power requirement of a vacuum-tube smartphone.
It all makes perfect sense. When the better way appeared, the old way disappeared.
Why isn’t the IC-to-electric transition happening faster? One possible analogy for the present moment is the “ignition delay period” in IC engines, the several crank degrees that pass between the ignition spark, and the first indication of rising combustion pressure on an instrumented engine. In this period, the flame kernel is so tiny that even though its volume is doubling very frequently, there is not yet enough of it to nudge a Kistler cylinder pressure microphone. So maybe electric drive is in its “delay period” and will soon begin the expected soaring rise to dominance.
Other realities intrude. Electric cars emit zero pollution, but generating the electricity that drives them emits plenty. Its basis in 2015 was as follows: 33 percent coal, 33 percent natural gas, 20 percent nuclear, 6 percent hydro, 4.67 percent wind (rising from 4.4 percent in 2014), with smaller amounts coming from geothermal, solar (divided about 50/50 between grid and private), biomass (modern speak for “incinerator”), and other minor contributors.
Many optimistically assume that wind and solar will quickly rise to generate the majority of US power, but considerations of free market capitalism (still a strong force in this world, despite the existence of Mr. Gore’s movie) and downright politics get
BY THE NUMBERS
Rail is the most energy-efficient form of transport in BTU/ton-mile. Compared with rail, it takes:
1.53 TIMES MORE ENERGY PERTON-MILETO TRANSPORT BY WATER THAN BY RAIL
8.31 TIMES MORE ENERGY PERTON-MILETO TRANSPORT BY TRUCK
65 TIMES MORE ENERGY PERTON-MILETO TRANSPORT BY AIR (Figures are from US Energy Information Agency.)
in the way. The really big change in electricity generation has been the steep rise in natural gas use, brought about by two forces: l) the fall in natural gas price credited to horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing, and 2) pressure from EPA to retire coal-electric plants as old as 89 years. Yet only yesterday, as I drove my small econobox on jolly seasonal errands, over the radio came an angry tirade against natural gas. Natural gas, because its main constituent, methane, has only one carbon atom for every four hydrogen atoms, used to be praised as at least a “pale green” fuel because of its reduced contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. No, not good enough! Now natural gas is “a disaster” because of the gas leakage that takes place during and after drilling (methane is itself a “greenhouse gas”). Purity or nothing! Now take the viewpoint of the coal-powerplant operator. The
cheapest, surest way forward is to rail in a bunch of 30 percent efficient gas-fired turbo-alternators, plug ’em in, and switch on. The EPA’s happy and so are the stockholders. A less sure, more expensive, and possibly greener way would be to trust that present government subsidies for solar and wind will continue despite a new administration taking power in Washington, DC. More controversy. Some say solar and wind are now cheap enough to be profitable even without subsidy. I reckon we’ll find out soon enough! Others say just as positively that without subsidy US solar and wind would all but disappear from our land. I’ve had a whiff of this myself; in the 1980s I had a subsidized solar hot-water system installed, but when a new president arrived, the subsidy vanished, my system became an orphan, and when it needed parts it was scrap. Given such unpredictable forces in play,
SO MAYBE ELECTRIC DRIVE IS IN ITS “DELAY PERIOD” AND WILL SOON BEGIN THE EXPECTED SOARING RISE TO DOMINANCE. OTHER REALITIES INTRUDE.
responsible business people will look for assured energy at the lowest price. They may not place much trust in government subsidy because that weathervanes in the winds of DC politics.
In NYC for the Christmas party of Team Obsolete collector/vintage impresario Robert Iannucci,
I watched heavy traffic as I ate a Sunday hotel breakfast. Among the hundreds of cars and trucks that passed I saw two motorcycles, one SmartCar, a Fiat micro, and one bicycle. Earlier, on a bench in Iannucci’s shop, I had seen the head from a late MV-four GP bike. It had welded steel exhaust port inserts whose air gap provided insulation that reduced exhaust heat flow into the aluminum head. The cooler the head runs, the more compression it can tolerate without detonation, so the more power it can make. Detail improvements have so far kept the IC engine in service.
