Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Robert Zubrin blasts the "Hydrogen Economy"

Robert Zubrin is an aerospace engineer like me.
SDF — (archived)

I fully agree with large sections of his article. The ultimate solution, finally bringing to fruition and success all the other solutions and goals he suggested, is the one proposed by myself and by other researchers at the University of Bath, in the United Kingdom:

1.5-seat, tilting three wheelers, such as shown on their website. These cars weigh a small fraction of the other cars on the road, and as demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton over 300 years ago uses the sheer physics of the Laws of Motion to reduce the energy to move the vehicle. This is more effective than any hydrogen fuel cell, no matter how "efficient" the engine is:

Reduce the weight of the vehicle by half, reduce fuel consumption by the same amount. Problem solved. We can then move unimpeded to flex-fuelled, bio-fuelled, sustainable, renewable transportation.

One thing stands in the way, the perception that such vehicles are unsafe, especially when sharing the road with vehicles designed steadily larger over the years for that exact reason. It's a hard sell, but..... imagine that size has nothing to do with safety....

We make things safe. It's what engineers are trained to do. In the future the average vehicle will be as safe as a Formula One race car, and be the size of a motorcycle. I predict it with the certainty that if they are not, then motorized transport will instead cease to exist entirely.... within 50 years.... along with the culture that depends upon it.

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