Fast Car Physics

Chapter 6. Green Racing

Chapter 6 Green Racing To this point, we have considered many of the factors that make race cars work and drivers win. It is time to shift our focus to the future and look at potential new technology. We call this future “green racing,” and at its heart is the study of energy. The most fundamental need in the universe is energy. Without energy in the proper form, nothing happens. The sun doesn’t shine, chemical processes do not occur, and life does not exist. Most processes that use energy to perform a task end up wasting some of it. They leave behind unreacted fuel, end-product chemicals, and excess thermal energy. It is the nature of thermodynamic processes. To exist in equilibrium, any system must find a source of useable energy and a way to deal with the waste. This is true for a fish tank, a submarine, a space station, or a planet. Ignore these needs and your system is doomed. Cars in our environment are no exception. Primarily they take in energy stored in the form of petroleum products and give off smaller hydrocarbon chains, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, and waste heat. The waste heat is typically a staggering 70% of the energy consumed. Petroleum, a near-perfect gift from the planet, has been easy to find, high in energy density, and nearly limitless in its uses. After a century and a half 180 fast car physics of exploiting petroleum, it is clear that it is not limitless in quantity. As our planet’s industrial population grows, the growth rate in oil extraction from the ground has begun to decrease. Best estimates indicate that we are approaching the peak in extraction rate. Once we achieve the peak rate, the cost of oil will begin to skyrocket as the industrial economies compete for oil. At the same time, the effects of waste products are beginning to overwhelm the processes that keep them in check. Pollution control systems, when properly employed, can deal with most of the carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, and unburned hydrocarbons. Carbon dioxide is another story. We count on plant life to absorb and sequester the carbon dioxide, converting it back to hydrocarbons. As humans deforest a bigger and bigger fraction of the planet’s surface, the ability to remove CO2 is degraded. The big picture is not rocket science. The excess carbon dioxide enhances the atmosphere’s greenhouse effect. Sunlight streams through our transparent atmosphere, just as it does with the glass of a greenhouse. That light is composed of a wide range of wavelengths. Absorbed by the land and sea, the light energy is then reemitted, primarily in the wavelengths of infrared light. Greenhouse glass and greenhouse gases are opaque to infrared light and trap the energy. Thus, as the greenhouse gas content in the atmosphere rises, it throws the system out of balance and the planet begins to warm. In the face of rising energy demand, fuel prices, pollution, and global warming , will racing survive? I believe the answer is yes. Humans have a fundamental urge to compete. We race on foot, on horseback, on camels, on bicycles, and, if the boss isn’t around, we’ll even race on office chairs. Richard Petty said it best: “There is no doubt about precisely when folks began racing each other in automobiles. It was the day they built the second automobile.” Automotive racing is entertainment, and as long as there are a few discretionary dollars in the budget, it will continue. Given our nature and our problem, it seems almost obvious that it is time for a Green Racing initiative. It is once again time to use racing to improve the breed. Racers have always been resourceful. Some of the finest automotive engineering has been developed for racing. That engineering often finds its way into street cars. Ferrari has developed dozens of technologies from carbon ceramic brakes to manual electrohydraulic clutches that make their street cars green racing 181 cutting edge. McLaren Racing Technologies is an entire division of one of the most successful Formula 1 teams, whose mission is to assemble racing technologies and adapt them to other applications. Some racing series have already begun to tap into this creativity to make racing more ecologically friendly. Formula 1 included regenerative braking as an allowed technology in 2009. The Indy Car series has used alternative fuel for a...