This article, first published in the February 2009
issue of Bike Magazine, is reprinted by kind
permission of its author, Rupert Paul.
It’s lap 18 of the Estoril MotoGP, 2016, and the
Norton rotary, bankrolled by Malaysian renewable
hydrogen fuel giant Petronas, is doing its usual
trick of streaking into the lead for six laps, before
cutting power to ensure it lasts the race.
Luca Rossi, little bro of the old master, is powersliding round in second
on his 900cc V4 two stroke, built by the newly-merged Kawasaki-
Suzuki corporation. There’s not a blue haze in sight, and no expansion
chambers either. Behind him Taylor MacKenzie, son of Neil, could
equal his dad’s best GP placing – on a supercharged Zongshen
bioethanol triple.
Or could he? Triple world champ Marco Simoncelli is closing fast on
his 2WD methanol-powered Yamaha M2. And he’s bringing wild card
Tom Sykes with him, on the Queen’s University Belfast twin-crank,
compound pressure-charged LPG-burning single. But in the end,
Hiroshi Ayoama wins. It’s a blistering day, and his solar panel-faired,
regenerative-braking Honda has been quietly stockpiling energy
throughout the race. On the last two laps the low-revving 2-litre V5
sprouts another 50bhp, demolishing the competition in imperious
style.
This is what racing could be like – a feast of competing technologies
not seen since the 1920s. All it would take is one rule: to limit every
machine to a fixed amount of startline energy.
That’s the vision of world-leading combustion experts Jamie Turner and
Richard Pearson at Lotus Engineering in Norfolk. Although they work
in the car world, their ideas make equal sense for bikes. They’ve spent
their careers researching powertrain technology, and are now trying
to reform the global system of making and regulating cars to head off
the twin horrors of global warming and energy insecurity. Their latest
move is a paper* to reconfigure motorsport, ‘to drive technology for
the betterment of mankind’. Their message? Racing needs relevance.
It has to start reflecting the challenges we face in the real world.
Rationing energy is not entirely a new idea. After all, today’s MotoGP
bikes do their stuff on a 21-litre petrol limit – a principle Jamie and
Richard believe Bernie Ecclestone should adopt. But they also point
out that petrol is only one fuel. There are now cars and bikes out there
that run on diesel, ethanol, methanol, fuel cells, batteries and even
hydrogen. All different forms of energy storage, and litres is no way to
measure them. For that, you need Megajoules.
Turner and Pearson calculate that an F1 car needs about 4784MJ to
complete a race. That means a MotoGP bike, doing 17mpg on fossil-
based petrol, uses 669MJ. And if you specify the allowance that way,
suddenly every powertrain technology can compete on a level playing
field. Top-class racing is transformed into a straight fight for efficiency
– which is exactly what the world needs. Forget Carmelo Ezpeleta’s
decision to scrap the 250s. If he really understood the game he was in
he’d have a 650MJ top class, backed by 400MJ and 200MJ classes.
If the world championship were being set up today rather than in 1949,
that’s what it would look like.
And it needn’t stop there. Energy rationing drives ‘tank-to-wheel’
efficiency for all fuels. Why not also use racing to drive efficiency in the
way different fuels are sourced, manufactured and transported – the
so-called ‘well-to-tank’ stage?
For example, new player Coskata make bioethanol from woody waste
such as straw, leaves and forestry debris. Compared with hauling oil
out of the ground, their process has been independently audited to
emit 84% less fossil carbon. So if a race team used Coskata ethanol
rather than gasoline, they ought to be allowed more of it. How
much more? Turner and Pearson’s paper floats a methodology that
would give a Coskata ethanol bike 8.4% more startline energy than
its gasoline-powered equivalent. For corn ethanol it’s 2.9% more,
renewable methanol 10.5%, and renewable hydrogen or electricity
10%. To recognise this, there’d be an energy suppliers’ championship
analagous to today’s manufacturer and team championships.
MotoGP’s 21-litre limit is a good start, but the bikes are still glorified
Manx Nortons. This is a plan that could move the series into the 21st
century.
Source: Rupert Paul, Bike Magazine
Following on in the next issue of proActive, Jamie Turner, chief engineer
of powertrain research for Lotus Engineering will provide more detail
of how energy-based fuel formulae could be applied to future motor
sport.
*Turner and Pearson: The Application of Energy-Based Fuel Formulae
to Increase the Efficiency Relevance and Reduce the CO2 Emissions
of Motor Sport. SAE number 2008-01-2953, presented at the SAE
Motorsports Conference”
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