I’m reading a book called ‘The Promise of Space’, by Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke was an honored and prolific writer of science fiction, with the focus on the first word. He wrote about futures he viewed as possible, so no instant acceleration to faster-than-light speeds for him. You might know Clarke as the author of 2001 A Space Odyssey.
When describing in the book the options for lifting men and material to Earth orbit, Clarke made the distinction between rockets that carry their two separated liquid fuels and combine them to create thrust, with first stages that had air breathing engines and therefore didn’t have to carry a source of oxygen. As Clarke pointed out, in lifting things into orbit the vast majority of the energy expended is in the lifting of the fuel itself, not the payload! An initial stage that could get its oxidizer from the air itself and didn’t need to carry it has obvious benefits.
It occurred to me that internal combustion engines do the very same thing! The typical gasoline air/fuel ratio is 14.7:1, which is by weight, not volume. (This ratio is often mistaken to be volume.) So, for every pound of gasoline your engine burns, it also consumes 14.7 pounds of air. Some 93% of what the engines consumes is taken from the surrounding atmosphere and doesn’t have to be transported by the vehicle. If we adjust for the fact that only 21% of air is oxygen, the 93% figure becomes about 75%.
You might be tempted to say “Yeah, everything that burns uses oxygen from the air, that’s just the nature of it. Air really isn’t a part of the fuel, though”. This is how it’s been explained to us and the way we’re used to thinking, but it’s actually the oxygen in the air (21%) and its bonds that contain the energy of combustion! Oxygen is very much a part of the fuel, it’s just convenient that we can get it from our atmosphere. It’s the oxygen that’s the key energy element in combustion. Even the most simple element, hydrogen, can be combined with oxygen to produce enormous amounts of energy. The combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in a rocket produces more thrust than just about any other fuels.
In contrast, an electric car carries all of its considerable ‘fuel’ all of the time, even when the batteries are almost depleted! if your electric car has 1,500lb. of batteries and you’re close to the end of your range, you’re still carrying the same 1,500 pounds that you started with.
A gallon of gasoline weighs about 6 lb. My gas tank is 20 gallons, so on average I’m hauling around half that weight, or sixty pounds. When I go through my 20 gal. tank of gas, my engine will also consume 1,500 lbs. of fuel in the form of air. Yes, the O2 will combine with carbon to form CO2. That I have no problem with, since the 450G tons (metric) of plant life on earth all need this ‘poison’ to exist!
From https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/01/california-electric-cars-grid:
Under a groundbreaking new state regulation, 35% of new 2026 car models sold in California must be zero-emissions, ramping up to 100% in 2035. Powering these vehicles and electrifying other sectors of the economy means the state must triple its power generation capacity and deploy new solar and wind energy at almost five times the pace of the past decade.
The Air Resources Board enacted the mandate last August — and just six days later, California’s power grid was so taxed by heat waves that an unprecedented, 10-day emergency alert warned residents to cut electricity use or face outages. The juxtaposition of the mandate and the grid crisis sparked widespread skepticism: How can the state require Californians to buy electric cars if the grid couldn’t even supply enough power to make it through the summer? (Emphasis mine)
Maybe the California moto should be “Mandate It and It Shall happen”.
From the Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1996:
On a September day in 1990, the Air Resources Board adopted a pioneering mandate that would require 2% of new cars sold in California beginning with 1998 models to be exhaust-free–essentially a requirement for electric cars. That day, it was almost as if the board members had their fingers crossed–they hoped that the auto makers would come through, but they were far from secure in knowing that they could.
But it turned out to be the spark that electric cars needed.
Last week, as General Motors proclaims with great fanfare that “The Electric Car Is Here,” no one is more relieved and expectant than the state officials who made that giant leap of faith in 1990. Without California’s mandate, unanimously adopted in the waning days of the administration of Gov. George Deukmejian, the first mass-produced electric cars in three-quarters of a century might never have made it to the showroom floor. (End of Times article)
This mandate was at least partially influenced by the General Motors EV1, which is referenced in the last paragraph.
But the sparkling blue skies and the clean springtime air the California CARB folks dreamed of was not to be.
From Wikipedia.org:
At the 2000 hearings, GM claimed that consumers were simply not showing sufficient interest in the EV1 to meet the sales requirements called for by CARB mandates. The American automaker, along with Toyota, cited a study they had commissioned, which showed that customers would only choose an electric car over a gasoline car if it cost a full $28,000 less than a comparable gasoline car. Dr. Kenneth E. Train of UC Berkeley, who conducted the study, stated that given a typical retail price of $21,000 for a RAV4SUV, “Toyota would have to give the average consumer a free RAV4-EV plus a check for approximately $7,000. (emphasis mine)
Okay, I just wanted to point out that the fact that the oxygen in air is the key energy element and it’s free for the taking. Just a different way of looking at things. Also, the legislation of technology and resources never, ever seems to work as intended, especially with California. Think of those inane Prop 65 stickers on three-fourths of everything you buy. Think this little warm pile of legislation has worked as intended? Me neither.
