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Faux Environmentalism in Formula One

		
		      Off the track
			
				
				
  

    
Tired of the PR campaigns and people in the sport patting themselves on the back over how environmental they are, Dan Brunell examines how Formula One is taking the entirely wrong approach to environmental stewardship.


Earlier this year in Washington state, the state government debated long and hard on a bill to reduce greenhouse emissions a part of which would have reduced the annual per-capita vehicle miles traveled in the state. After a heated fight, this part of bill went through and was signed into law. It should be noted that even though this was marked as climate change legislation, the regulation only went after miles traveled instead of emissions of vehicles. So a car that travels 100 miles a year that spews pollutions will be looked favorable in legislation versus an electric car that travels 101 miles per year with little or no pollution. It is a completely impractical solution.


So the reason why I would bring this up on an F1 website? Because I think the efforts of the teams, the FOM, the FIA, and the rest of the sport are just as misguided, unfocused, and useless in their environmental efforts. Over the last few years, the question of F1 and environment has come up several times. Before it’s all said and done, it might be the most contentious social issue to face the sport since the question of apartheid and the South African Grand Prix in the mid 1980's. It is something that will have to be addressed under the current environment.


For the last few year, Formula One was the only motorsport in the world that discussed the environmental impact of its' activities.  GP2, NASCAR, MotoGP, IRL, DTM, and other race series just ignored concerns. However, that is changing. Autosport.com is reporting that the Indy Racing League is looking towards changing their engine requirements in order to be more environmentally friendly.


There have been a lot of talk, but what exactly has Formula One has done?


The Honda debacle: All talk, no results


One of the teams that have taken the lead in talking about environmental stewardship in the sport is Honda. Actually, the only thing they do is talk... and paint stuff on their on their cars.


For the last two season Honda has been pushing its' "earthdreams" campaign. According to Honda, this was a "call to action for fans, sponsors, customers and members of the public to help address global environmental issues."  As you might remember, you could log into the Honda website and make a pledge to change your lifestyle to improve the environment and make a donation to an environmental charity. A pledge... wow... way to go Honda. I think the virginity pledge that everyone in my college dorm signed as a joke was more effective than the earthdreams pledge.


Last year in the press release announcing the earthdreams project, John Kingston, Environment Manager, Honda (UK) said. ““We’re not saying F1 is ‘green,’ but the fans can really make a difference. If just one per cent of the people who watch Formula 1 were to change one light bulb for an energy saving one, this would save 38,000 tonnes of CO2 – the same amount of carbon emissions produced by the Honda Racing F1 team over three seasons."


So let me get this right, Honda will be willing to waste millions on dollars on an ad campaign telling everyone else how they can be responsible without trying to be responsible themselves? I'm sorry but this isn't environmentalism, its' a weak attempt to pass their environmental responsibility off while trying to make themselves look good.


Look, as much as they can hide the facts: if you race cars, you will burn fuel and create greenhouse gases. No foreseeable technology, earthly car paint scheme, or public relations campaign can ever make that singular fact go away. 


This is the trap Honda has set themselves up for. By bring up telling us how to live our lives, we conversely ask exactly what they are doing to reduce their greenhouse gases. By everything I have read and seen, it's absolutely nothing. However, they are not the only guilty ones.


Impractical solutions


Like Honda, I feel like Formula One as a whole is falling into a trap. The biggest pitfall for this is the whole idea of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in Formula One. It is being billed by FIA and the sport as the end-all, be-all of Formula One' environmental efforts.


It has to be asked however. Does anyone know if KERS will actually save any amounts of fuel or reduce the amount of green house gases produced by the engines? What manufacture has stated that KERS will be on road cars anytime soon or has said that the development of KERS will go directly their passenger car divisions in the next several years? Will the power developed in the KERS process actually make up for all the weight of its machinery? Most important, does anyone know if it would actually make the racing better? I have not heard a positive answer to any of this.


Yet, it sounds and feels good because we are “recovering” energy, but really what advantages are there except for PR and a minor amount of RD for a company that more than likely won’t apply it to their wider production cars. Some of the cost estimates I have heard to bring KERS into a production car are unfathomable. Yet we are moving forward with it.


Focus on the simple stuff


If Formula One wants to be truly green, there are things that it can do off the track that would have a lot more of an impact than tinkering with the cars or multi-million dollar feel-good ad campaigns. 


The solutions can be simple, practical, and easy for the sport. What about requiring a certain level of mass transit to races by their organizers in order to reduce traffic and cars on the road? How about using some of those miles of run off areas as green spaces instead of gravel traps? How about sponsoring an independent “zero emissions” car racing series? What about teams bring “greener” support cars? How about rewarding a point to the most fuel efficient car on the grid that goes race distance?  The list is endless and could be done tomorrow if only the will.


Solutions like these can make the sport more responsible for its' pollution without hindering the racing itself. However the most practical and simple solution is never the sexiest or the most PR friendly move. 


  

	
     By Dan Brunell last updated on 01/06/08
		

		
  	 




 









      1. By arnet on 01/06/08
  
  
  
    
Return engine development


    

      
Return engine development and ban refueling. So simple that Max could never have thought it up on his own. The money spent on KERS could be spent on creating more fuel efficient engines which could trickle down to road cars. Also, biofuels from renewable sources like hemp seems obvious and revolutionary. The money the FIA spends every year on planting trees to offset carbon emissions could go into growing hemp. It produces several crops a year, and is good for the soil. They could use the refineries currently used to convert corn (food, for Pete's sake) into fuel. Brazil has a huge cane/fuel industry that could also be tapped into. 

    


      

  







      2. By dbrunell on 01/06/08
  
  
  
    
I agree with you arnet on


    

      
I agree with you arnet on everything except for the biofuels.


As we seen with the recent food crisis around the world, we are creating a problem by diverting more and more of our staple crops (especially corn) toward biofuels production. What compounded this problem is that governments are mandating more and more of these biofuels into their gas and diesel mixes. So you have a situation where energy companies have a higher offer for a corn/sugar/wheat grass crops than food processors. I think biofuels are great but I am weary.

    


      

  







      3. By arnet on 01/06/08
  
  
  
    
You can't eat hemp. Here in


    

      
You can't eat hemp. Here in Canada biofuels are being made from wood pulp left over at saw-mills. Also, there is a new push on the oil from algae front. It is carbon neutral in that it absorbs carbon during photosynthesis. I'm just saying it's not all from food sources. A push in any direction from the FIA could create a niche market. Legalizing marijuana for medical purposes gave some lucky guy a license to grow pot in a mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, for the government!

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/making-renewabl.html

    


      

  







      4. By arnet on 01/06/08
  
  
  
    
Shell is providing Audi with


    

      
Shell is providing Audi with biofuel from wood chips for Le Mans.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/05/31/audi-r10-tdi-using-biofuel-for-the-fi...

    


      

  







      5. By dbrunell on 01/06/08
  
  
  
    
Audi wow... I am starting


    

      
Audi wow... I am starting realize how smart they are not to wanting in Formula One, who would want to put up with that sport.


Believe me, by living in Eugene I know all about hemp and by working with the forestry industry, I know what wood chips can do. I don't mind biofuels as long as they don't come from food resources, which makes the US corn ethanol program and others seem even more of a farm lobby boondoggle and insane. 

    


      

  







      6. By sroy on 02/06/08
  
  
  
    
Dan's basic assumption that


    

      
Dan's basic assumption that the environmental propoganda is all talk and no action is correct.


I am against biofuels because even if the crop is not a food crop they may end up being grown on land that is currently used for food.  Also the idea that these fuels are carbon neutral is frankly nonsense.  Yes they absorb carbon as they grow but what about all the CO2 produced preparing the ground, planting them, harvesting them, transporting them, refining them and transporting the final product?


The really pointless thing about KERS is that if the cars only used one litre of fuel for a full season including testing it would not make the slightest dent in F1's carbon footprint.  I hate that phrase.  Air travel of the personnel and cargo involved produces much more CO2 and wind tunnels.  Don't get me started on wind tunnels.  They produce vast volumes of CO2 to give us cars that can't overtake.  Where is the sense in that?  Then think about all the people who work in F1 as their regular job and think how much fuel they consume.  


The trickle down effect of KERS is fundamentally flawed as is most of Max's thinking.  The way to make a car fuel efficient is to read the road and anticipate when you need to slow down and to slow by easing off the accelerator not by arriving and jumping on the brakes.  How can a car company justify fitting a device that relies on its customers driving badly? What is the point to that?


It would be far better to use exhaust heat recovery or have an exhaust gas powered compressor.  Like a half turbocharger but feedin a power storage device rather than using it to compress more air and fuel into the combustion chamber.


The real answer is a 200 year old Scottish invention.  The Stirling engine.  This has been deliberately sidelined by self interested parties but it is the future.  If you have a similar level of mechanical aptitude as I have there is an animated graphic about a third of the way down the page which explains everything.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine   

    


      

  







      7. By arnet on 02/06/08
  
  
  
    
I seem to remember you


    

      
I seem to remember you pointing out that alternative engine before, Stephen. I agree wholeheartedly with you about replacing food growing land, but I don't think it's necessary. The algae is grown in water, the wood is waste from pulp mills, and hemp can grow in earth not suitable for crops, whether rocky or contaminated. It is do-able, if the will were there.

    


      

  







      8. By Randolph Toom on 28/06/08
  
  
  
    
Regenerating wasted energy into additional torque


    

      
Currently Formula 1 is trying to make its way to a more socially acceptable level. Its leaders are aware that the future for the sport as it is can be quite dim. When oil production is over the peak, when fuel prices are skyrocketing and when climate suffers from human CO2 emissions an effort for fuel economy is asked from everyone. There is indeed a risk that governments will not authorize racing anymore if it doesn't follow this principle. F1 leaders therefore want to make the sport green(-er) and energy efficient. But they want to go even further than that. They see that F1 R&D budgets are sufficiently high to develop new technologies for better fuel economy and introduce them in racing. The idea behind it is to develop these technologies with the aim of transposing them to road cars afterwards. There are great initiatives currently being deployed by the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA), Energy Efficient Motorsports (EEMS) initiative, the ALMS organisation and the FIA of course.


Now, as long as we use combustion engines, and that seems very likely to last quite some time in transportation, we have to do with the given powerflows. It would be beautifull if we all could drive 100% clean tomorrow but regretfully it will take quite some time to get all the technological and logistic problems solved. If combustion efficiency is raised, a little more than 30% is directly converted into torque. But from the rest, which is heat, a major part goes to the exhaust and another big part is lost through the cooling system. This is where first order efficiency improvement is to be obtained. The exhaust has the highest potential because of its higher temperature and larger exergy. You can find some good information on www.heat2power.net . Waste Heat Regeneration (WHR) from exhaust is planned for 2012 and WHR from the cooling system in 2011 but it would be good to see the exhaust WHR appear first. This is where the low hanging fruit is. For WHR in the cooling system I see most probably the use of liquids in Rankine cycles but I would not want to see the use of organic liquids that have a green house effect when released into the atmosphere. Be aware that Europe will ban these liquids from automotive air conditioners as of 2010. That is not to see them reappear on WHR systems in 2011. Perhaps is steam the solution. 


The second order of efficiency is to be found in the ways how the energy is consumed by the vehicle. Those are mainly braking losses and aerodynamic losses. KERS, in any type, recovers braking energy and if the technology is right (safe and potentially cost effective) we will see it appearing on road vehicles as well. On city busses first I guess because of their frequent stop and go driving profile. Recovery of aerodynamic losses is virtually impossible but reducing the losses to a maximum will help a lot. What the audience wants to see in F1 is high vehicle dynamics (braking, cornering, acceleration) and that requires lots of downforce and thus aerodynamic losses. I can imagine these can be reduced on the straights if the FIA would authorize dynamic aerodynamics. The difficulty is of course handling the safety issue of such a system. You can simply not expect a car to enter a corner at high speed without downforce. 


So basically if we want F1 to remain attractive as it is today we can only work on KERS and WHR. Other racing classes could do more, I think. The ALMS has just lauched the Green Challenge (see www.americanlemans.org) and I expect other series to follow this road. Perhaps some teams will sacrifice downforce for better aerodynamics. It depends on the rules.


If you want to know more about WHR, feel free to visit the benchmark page of www.heat2power.net . It shows what others have already done in the past or are currently experimenting with.

    


      

  







      9. By JBeamer on 30/06/08
  
  
  
    
Interesting comment


    

      
Thanks for you long and constructive comment - I found it interesting. My frustration with F1 - and I need to write an article about this at some point - is the way the FIA is mandating the technology shift. They specify this and that e.g. thou shalt use Kers. What they really need to do is say you need to meeting a specific emission target or you need to recover a certain bhp and leave the technical implementation up to the boffins. This way we'd get myriad solutions and the market would select the best.


Now we have a situation where the fia is mandating random technology.