Electric Engines, the Future of Travel

 Zachary Martis

Electric Engines, the Future of Travel

            Over the past few centuries, going back to the Industrial Revolution in the United States, humans have been pumping toxic chemicals into the air to have power and electricity. Large factories spew out these chemicals through smokestacks, then large trucks or boats would need to fuel their engines and carry the goods across the country or world. Every part of the United States imports, and exports mainly revolve around some way that is polluting the Earth and with the most recent estimate of the United States exporting over $2 billion dollars’ worth of goods annually, there has been a huge push to get away from traditional toxic engines to a greener solution. 

            In recent years, one of the main topics of controversy in the world has been climate change and whether if there’s anything we can do to fix it, or if we are already in too deep. In the news there was a huge problem that was brought up with the ozone layer starting to have holes leading to extra UV rays leaking in from the sun, then causing melting of the ice caps. This was the start of the eye-opening reality that humans need to take a good look in the mirror and realize, we are the problem.

There have been regulations put in place for factories on the amount of exhaust that is allowed to come out and go into the atmosphere. But as stated earlier, trucks and boats that ship the manufactured goods are still pumping terrible amounts of exhaust into the air. The past couple years though, many big-name car manufacturers have started to develop electric and hybrid-based engines to combat this epidemic that is slowly not killing us but killing our home. Fiat Chrysler is a parent company to Dodge and Jeep and these two companies in the past have the supercharged V8 engines that are put in the Dodge Hellcat and the Jeep Trackhawk, and recently the company has come out saying they are discontinuing these engines due to the exhaust that comes from them. They will be attempting to start put electric engines into these very fast cars in hoping they get the same speed output their customers desire, while doing their part in helping clean up the world.

One thing that many people may not pay attention to, or simply don’t even know, but the naval industry has been taking large steps in the world to make green energy possibly for large shipping businesses. For a long time, boat engines have been run on heavy fuel oil (HFO’s) that is made directly from crude oil that have large deposits of carbon, hydrogen, and sulfur leading to very bad emissions. Boats then moved to marine diesel oil (MDO) which was slightly cheaper and had less emissions because it was not diluted directly from crude oil. MARPOL and the ECIA have been working towards reducing marine pollution and emissions, which has pushed companies to start working with diesel hybrid engines. 

Now I know you hear diesel hybrid engines and think, there’s still diesel involved so the emissions cannot be that much better. But on the contrary, diesel hybrid engines are run on battery-based power that is that fueled by the diesel which leads to less emissions because the diesel is helping the batteries get the electricity needed to run the boats. A zero emission and clean engine for marine vessels is an extremely tough task to get to currently based on our limitations of energy in the middle of the ocean. Solar power is a good form of clean electricity, but the size of the solar farm would have to be massive to power as many boats are needed in the world and solar panels have the chance of breaking easily due to the fragility of the materials. Wind energy is very refined and a very strong source of green energy that can produce a lot more energy even than solar, but again, there would have to be large wind farms in the ocean and while this is possible with semi-submersible bases that allow the wind turbine to not be affected very much by waves and storms, this still is a very hard infrastructure to build and make the most efficient. Now wave energy may sound like the most viable and even reasonable answer since obviously boats are in the ocean, but wave energy is very far behind in the world when it comes to green energy and still has many years and tests to go to be able to utilize it fully.

Cars have started making great steps with using all battery vehicles, but some batteries may simply be too heavy for boats, but I would still argue that the naval world has taken greater steps simply by the number of boats that are in the world, and that they have been doing this work for longer. These steps are obviously a major help in the world and no doubt have aided the fight against climate change but with the years and years that all this has built up on the earth you simply have to ask yourself; will it be enough?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Molecules, Models, and Magic: The Exciting World of Computational Chemistry

Vrinda Modi I often spend time in a little cubicle in McLean in the freezing corporate cold wrapped in a blanket in the Hoboken summers sipping on free coffee from the office above. It almost always tastes like chalk, but the routine is so embedded in me. Hence, this is the perfect opportunity to talk a little more about my research in computational chemistry here at Stevens and the advances I expect in the next few years. This field excites me because it bridges my interest in chemistry with modern computing techniques, a powerful tool for advancing our understanding of chemical reactions and molecular interactions. This means we are a dry lab – running simulations on computers. No chemicals, no PPE, just models and algorithms. But why does computational chemistry exist in the first place, especially when chemistry is so rooted in physical matter? The answer is efficiency. Modeling molecules on a computer saves us from ordering chemicals, waiting for deliveries (a delay in chemistry t...
Read more

Scaling the Potential of Vertical Farming Going into 2025 and Beyond

Image
  Matthew P Kearney Scaling the Potential of Vertical Farming Going into 2025 and Beyond      Vertical farming may seem like something out of a futuristic movie, but they are very real in today’s agricultural industry. Vertical farming may promote a stronger relationship between urbanization and sustainable crop production. Based on recent innovations across agriculture and technology, vertical farming has the potential to revolutionize our current farming system. Through the development of vertical farming-based production lines, cities and otherwise unfarmable areas can be provided with fresh, local, and pesticide-free produce. Vertical farming and other adaptations of agriculture are not new ideas, but instead a historic and human process.      These technologies are ready to meaningfully address global food security through the technological and computational advancements in agriculture. Vertical farming has a promising future, which becomes a case...
Read more

Knot Your Average Problem: How do Tongue Ties Impact Oral Myofunctional Health?

Image
  Hadia Hussain      Knot Your Average Problem: How do Tongue Ties Impact Oral Myofunctional Health? Sitting in the nursery of the dental office where I worked, I reviewed Baby V’s medical history and reports from the Emergency Department at Jersey City Medical Center. I found it odd that, despite multiple visits and clear signs of malnutrition, no physician had been able to diagnose the cause. Baby V, at a low weight of 12 pounds was struggling with difficulty nursing and bottle feeding, excessive gassiness, colic, clicking sounds when feeding, milk dribbling out of the mouth, and mouth breathing—but doctors had dismissed these signs, labeling him as "healthy."  It didn’t make sense as his low weight raised serious concerns.  According to Pediatric specialists Jenny Olson, DNP, and Sarha DeVrieze, ARNP, at the UnityPoint Clinic, a 9-month-old baby boy should weigh anywhere in between the range of 17 to 25 pounds. Baby V's situation was clearly a ...
Read more