Technologue

The inevitable future, as foretold by Nostratechnologūs.

By Frank Markus

This issue is devoted to exploring the increasingly electrified and automated “inEVitable” future of mobility, looking 15 years or so down the road. Because that's kind of what this page always sets out to do, I'll spend this month's word budget on a highlight reel of sorts, describing a future world in which the best concepts explained in previous columns have successfully reached production to keep the world's inhabitants and goods moving sustainably. Note that separate online stories (scan the QR code with your phone for more) dedicated to each of these headings will delve deeper into the present status and prognosis of these technologies, without rehashing any of the nitty-gritty science.

Carbon-Free Combustion Forever!

Combustion still powers certain vehicles, but running on bio- or e-fuels, they emit no new carbon. Most that are fueled by alcohols burn biobutanol, which nearly matches gasoline's energy content and octane rating (problems with low vapor pressure were resolved post-Biden). Most vehicles run on chemically equivalent gasolines assembled from smaller molecules. Nacero Blue and Green gas is built from methane sourced from landfill gases and natural gas that would have been flared, and the rest comes from scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere and combining it with cleanly electrolyzed hydrogen (see Prometheus fuels and Haru Oni/Porsche).