EU calls on F1 to switch to four-cylinder, bio-fuel engines

A customer of mine owns an oil exploration company.
One of his "hobbies" is making his home as energy efficient as possible; 3 pane windows, insulation , radiant barriers,
etc.
He tells me that within the next 8 years oil demand will exceed supply.
They cannot predict exactly when that will be.
He says when that time happens, the world will change.

 

Detroit 08: A bio fuel Ferrari and a Diesel Audi R8. The world has changed.

 

Yes, but your entire country is 1/10 the size of my state. The DFW Metroplex alone is 1/3 the size of your country. That makes for a very different fuel usage scenario.

 

We mentioned the enormous cost of energy involved in staging the F1 events in many countries, transporting the equipment, getting the crowds to the races, etc.

I just read that the ordinary auto industry expends about 10% of the total lifetime fuel use of a day-to-day car just in the various manufacturing processes. That is for the most efficient mass production they can achieve.

Wonder what the percentage is for an F1 team? They might only have 3 or 4 total running vehicles, but probably many times that number of most of the components. Components that are many times machined out of huge billets of expensive alloy to a small percentage of its original weight, one by one on CNC machines for many hours use of wattage.

I would not at all be surprised that the teams expend more energy just making the cars than is used in race & practice. Not to mention the points already made of the energy cost of the events themselves. Nothing is said about any of this because the perception is that people might get mad if you attacked the sport itself rather than the form of engine.

Point 2, which Tillman made in the V8 vs V12 thread..."it is the power output, not the number of cylinders, stupid". He pointed out that the early Ferrari V12 engines, used successfully for such races as the Targa and Mille, were only 1.5 litres naturally aspirated.

Do you really think that a 1200 hp 4 cylinder turbo is going to get better economy than an 850 hp flat 12? What the EU whiners are really saying is a code word for "lets cut down the power to about Formula Junior (or maybe shifter kart) standards.

This is political hogwash of the highest hypocrisy. Why not use the F1 forum to actually educate the public on factual energy usage - highlighting real efficiency; maybe even stage pre-races for specifically built economy racers?

People are not so stupid as to think that the real F1 racers are economy cars, no matter how many or few cylinders they have.

 

Clearly you've never been to PA as we have horse and buggy comuters and shoppers all over the place.

 

Greetings from the twenty first century.

 

Caving in to the globalist, carbon tax scam. Enjoy.

 

Demand will never exceed supply, never!

It's a traded commodity. All that will happen is the price will go up or down depending on the supply/demand relationship. If/when gasoline is $10/gallon, a lot of people will be driving hybrids and cycling to work.

What will happen is that at some point oil will become not cost effective. We're seeing the beginnings of that now, but it has a long looong way to go.

 

Why are you wasting time posting your ex governor needs you!

 

The price of oil is only going to go one way (possibly with an occasional blip) and that's up. You might argue that in a free market demand and supply are always more or less in balance, but in the case of oil demand DOES exceed supply. That's because it's not a free market - OPEC limits the amount available. If they produced 20% more it would still sell because there is an unfulfilled demand.

When oil runs out, sometime later this century, if everything that currently functions using oil can be done using some other means or we can manage without those things that are impossible to do without it, we might survive the end of oil, but it's going to be a very different world and I think a potentially difficult one to live in. Thankfully I won't be here to see it, sadly my kids or their kids probably will.

 

Whether this is true or not, life seems to go on through the many perceived crises points of the past.

What this has to do GOVERNMENTALLY with legislating the NUMBER OF CYLINDERS in a Formula One car completely escapes me.

 

I think it's all about how we should be using a finite and dwindling resource, do we treat it as precious or go on wasting it running big boys' toys?

 

The point of the all the above boils down to this: EU wants to make a SYMBOLIC gesture as a pretense to be correct on the issue.

Do we treat it as precious, or go on wasting it running big boy's toys? It you were SERIOUS about the SUBSTANCE of that kind of call, you would probably call for the total elimination of motor sports all together. It has been clearly demonstrated that difference in the 4 cyl versus current 8 cyl is so miniscule that it would hardly be measurable, compared to the total outlay of the whole racing endeavor.

The EU does not have the guts to ask for that, obviously - at least not right up front. However, I guess if they made the sport boring enough then it would eventually wither away on it's own without them having to take much of the blame.

Boring gray world, though.

 

The supply of oil will never, ever, ever, ever run out.

10 years, 100 years, 1,000 years and 10,000 years from now oil will still be available. As the supply dwindles, the price will go up, and as the price goes up, other technologies will become more cost effective.

As for OPEC limiting availability - well OPEC does not control all of the worlds oil - nor even "most" of it. There will be a crossover point on the oil-price graph at which time other technologies will become more feasible. There will be no "drastically different new world" and there will be no difficulty living in that world. There will be a soft and steady transition to things other than oil and we won't notice anymore than we noticed the transition away from steam power or the transition away from horse-carriages or the transition away from gas-powered candles on the street.

 

IMO Max is already doing the right this on this issue - pushing KERS and energy conservation. Putting limits on the # of cylinders and the fuel used is silly. What we're REALLY getting at is the mimimum USE of fuel. Who cares if it's a bio-fuel single-cylinder engine getting 0.01mpg vs. a diesel V10 getting 200mph. I'll take the latter every day for green-ness, but it doesn't sound as good. What we care about is the maximum efficiency from the minimum energy potential. Ironically Ferrari and other car makers are "getting it" based on the USA's strict upcoming CAFE requirements - that weight is the problem, not power. Max is also 'getting it' with his KERS initiative.

 

If you are talking absolutely literally that's no doubt correct, but when 'black gold' becomes as scarce and expensive as real gold virtually no one will be able to buy it so, in practical terms, it will have 'run out'.

No, but they produce enough of it and are important enough to the US for your president to be in the Middle East pleading with the Saudis to increase their production!

That's taking a very positive view of what's possible and likely and you're perfectly entitled to do that, others may be less sanguine.

 

+1 and I've been an F1 fan for 25 years.

 

F1 is becoming a farce, what is supposed to be the premier race series for technology is rapidly becoming yet another spec series, Yawn

I'll sticks to ALMS

 

What percent of the TV audience of any given F1 race that is watching instead of being out on a Sunday drive is needed to offset the carbon footprint of the sport? Given the huge size of the viewership the case can be made that F1 SAVES fuel. If it weren't for the PR concerns of the major carmakers that now run the sport this would be a non-issue.

 

does F1 really care what the EU thinks???
Europe is just not the market that it once was in the 20th century. Like every sucessfull industy, China and emerging markets is where its at in the 21st century.

 

European TV is still big for all the sponsors in F1, so yes it does matter what the EU thinks.

Having said that, I just hope they ignore this green wave.

 

Bernie and Max apparently care so much about what the EU thinks that they created a night race in Asia so that it could air live at a decent hour in Europe. The FIA make a lot of money with governments paying large fees for the rights to have a race but, of late the grand stand seats are far from filled at those races. Europe is still where the vast majority of fans and cash for the sport are.

 

Amen.

This is a chance to make it cutting edge again. If they don't take it, then there is no difference between CART and F1, or any other spec series as you say.

We already have historic F1, we don't need to stick to petrol engines for F1. What if somebody invents an electric engine that has 1000hp and enormous torque? ... think of the possibilities ... just because petrol engines have been the most powerful for a car for quite a few years does not mean that we have to stick with them. I say use whatever it takes to make F1 the fastest and most interesting series ... thus time to relax the rules and let the engineers be clever again. As we know winning races is a great way to incourage competitive people to think ... let them think Max and Bernie!

Heck maybe in 100 years they will have propulsion systems like on Stars Wars
Pete

 

And I do have to say that I am most disappointed with this night racing cr@p. Here we are, with maybe 50% of the world trying to live a little greener ... and F1 comes along and wants to burn fnck knows how many lights for fnck nows how many unnecessary hours, just so a Bernie can possibly make a few extra $'s.

Irresponsible Bernie, irresponsible.

Yes cars are not the only problem, far from it, but we don't need to actually go out of our way to make the situation worse! Why don't we just start printing the protest banners for the anti-car, anti-racing greenies ... heck maybe that is another business Bernie has already bought into .
Pete

 

I think you are confusing price with demand.
However I hope you are right in that demand will never exceed supply. We shall see.