Bye bye internal combustion engine?

[Guest guest59177]

http://news.discovery.com/autos/new-car-engine-sends-shockwaves-through-auto-industry-110405.html

 

Again, this is the kind of innovations a carbon tax could theoretically promote...... if the industry had a serious will to play along and consumers put an appropriate pressure...

[ukchris]

It would be great if it gets off the ground, but while certain people are still making billions upon billions from oil I wont be holding my breath.

[northshorepom]

It's still an internal combustion engine, so no reason for any oil company to panic. Not that they would anyway - the idea that oilcos are out to kill anything that threatens the need for oil is one of the silliest of urban myths. They (the energy cos) spend way more than any government or anyone else on energy research of all sorts - from products that drive energy efficiency to alternative and more efficient uses of limited resources to the pursuit of alternative fuels

 

Oil is not going to last for ever as the primary energy source for the world, the energy companies are well aware of this. But in 100 years time they would like to still be there dominating whatever the alternative turns out to be; the last seismic shift in world energy supply was the move from coal to oil between the late 19th century and the 1940s......that shift saw the demise of the controllers of world energy at the time and the prosperity that went with it - the landowners of the Old World, eg the British aristocracy. The energy cos have no intention of befalling the same fate when the shift from oil takes place