For road traffic there is still room for technological improvements even in conventional vehicles and power trains, the cost for their implementation are the highest compared to all other energy consuming sectors. In addition, the mandated improvements require exploiting sophisticated combinations of numerous small, incremental contributions since large single measures have been used up already. In order to be able to comply with future regulations, the road fuels must be looked at and treated as a design element in the same way as e.g. a combustion chamber layout or a fuel injection system. A practical example where this has been realized already is the Hydrogen-fueled Fuel Cell vehicle. Although crude oil will not be in short supply for many decades to come, additional drivers for new fuels are the effective reduction of CO2 emissions, the reduction of the dependence on oil supply from politically unstable regions and the need for cleaner fuels to support emission reductions. Therefore, great efforts are made to extend the primary energy sources by including Natural Gas and renewable energies. Over the next 20 to 30 years the dominant source for road energy will still be crude oil being converted, however, into cleaner and more efficient diesel and gasoline fuels. These base fuels will be supplemented by Natural Gas derived GTL fuels blended into them to take advantage of an additional primary energy source and of the extraordinary favourably properties of these fuels Natural Gas, however, will also be used directly as CNG predominantly in fleet application e.g. in buses or delivery vehicles. In the mid term a CO2 reduction of up to 10% might be possible by blends with bio-fuels. Ideal, CO2-reducing fuels with high impacts will replace them gradually which will be processed from all kinds of biomass by synthesis from intermediate SynGas. They tap the largest renewable primary energy base available and offer ideal properties, indeed. This route can provide also renewable Hydrogen to meet the requirements of Fuel Cell vehicles. This strategy will allow thus for a significant reduction of both C02 and exhaust emissions from road traffic simultaneously with an appreciable relaxation of the problem of security of energy supply.
Proposal for a European energy strategy for road traffic
Vorschläge für eine europäische Energiestrategie hinsichtlich des Straßenverkehrs
2003
19 Seiten, 12 Bilder, 19 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Proposal for a European energy strategy for road traffic
Automotive engineering | 2003
|Proposal for New Winter Road Maintenance Strategy: MINSALT
Online Contents | 1993
|Road traffic management strategy (RTMS)
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997
|