1984: A look at future power sources
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AN INSIGHT into how road vehicles may develop, and specifically, how they may be powered in 1984 and beyond, was given last week by Mr Terry Beckett,managing director of Ford Motor Co. He was delivering the Lord Wakefield Memorial Lecture to 400 students of the College of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering, at Chelsea.
He listed the potential for virtually every type of propulsion system considering the likely drying-up of crude oil supplies in the next 20 to 50 years. He predicted that our real energy wealth is contained in coal and said that Ford's research was directed towards using liquid hydrocarbon fuels rather than crude oil derivatives.
Fuels under scrutiny included alcohol, particularly methanol -hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and even powdered fuels. But it was likely that liquid fuel would be preferable because of better energy-to-weight ratio and easier storage.
He listed the development of engine technology: The Stirling engine looked promising because of the current emphasis on efficiency, quietness and cleanliness. Most importantly it used less fuel: 44 per cent less diesel or 25 per cent using petrol when compared with 1975 standard American vehicles using conventional engines. Ford was working on the engine with Phillips and United Stirling.
The PROCO stratfied charge engine was another major contender because it was more efficient, used less fuel, and had low emissions. However it will be several years before durability and reliability would be proved.
Gas turbines were already in production for road vehicles but a new combination of materials and manufacturing processes would be necessary to increase operating temperatures to around 1200 degC (2500 degF) which would allow improved fuel economy. It could be years before there was a breakthrough in this direction.
Steam engines had been given low priority in Ford's research because of not particularly promising results.
Electric propulsion still seemed to have major problems although the sodium-sulphur battery was possibly a worthwhile development. In energy terms, however, battery vehicle efficiency was likely to be in the order of about 10 per cent compared with 2530 per cent for petrol engines.
Fuel cells were also being studied but in the present state of development, the entire load space in a longwheelbase Transit van would be needed for sufficient to power the vehicle and leave room for only the driver and one passenger.
Ford had even considered flywheel power but had decided that limited range and a complex drive system ruled this out.
Mr Beckett said that not all and perhaps none of these developments would be commercially available by 1984. He pointed to the problems which increasing world population would bring and said that of the current world vehicle population of 270m, over 230m were in the highly developed countries. This meant that there was one unit for every 13 people but that four-fifths of all vehicles were spread over one sixth of the world's population.