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In the early 21st century, planet Earth has to face two major issues : first the over consumption of fossil energy, and its direct consequence, atmosphere pollution.

Petroleum resources are decreasing today while prices are increasingly rising. A barrel that used to cost 30 US$ last fall has just crossed the threshold of 44 US$.
The international demand has increased 2% this year, following a consistent average of 1,1% every year since a decade.
Speculations about petroleum resources and reserves exhaustion are running fast. With the actual consumption rhythm, the most pessimistic scientists see the beginning of the end coming for 2010, or at the latest for 2030.


In any case, these resources are going to disappear as a major source of energy.


And even if the oil and gas should still cover 60% of the needs in 2020, the increase of the demand (80% accounting from emerging countries) demands to prepare the next step after hydrocarbons.

The question is to know how fast we are going to realize the conversion to other energy sources.

Along with that, humans and their companies are affected by the environmental consequences of gas consumption. Air pollution is now even becoming a handicap for business. For instance, the city of Los Angeles in California recently lost the settlement of a major movie industrial due to the high level of pollution.

With 600 millions of individual vehicles running daily ( within 220 millions for the only Europe ), 42 millions of units produced every year and about 30% of the world’s energy consumption, the transportation sector has become the main responsible of carbon dioxide emissions.

Face to this double statement, and in order to change the direction of this trend, we have to implement new technologies that can be substituted to gas and therefore reduce pollution.

All states and companies have to face two important questions: first, how can we reduce pollution in the transportation area? And then is this doable at an acceptable price? We know of no energy source that can substitute to liquid hydrocarbons fuels. No other fuels are so “abundant”, have such a high energy and power density, that store energy so efficiently and conveniently, release their stored energy so readily ( rapid oxidation/combustion ), already have major existing infrastructures and are so easily transported. Currently, we see only two potential non-carbon based energy carriers that have the requisite volume needed to replace petroleum fuels. These are hydrogen and electricity.

Despite its tremendous potential, the fuel cells technology is still not an alternative to hydrocarbons fuels. And it won’t be as such for at least fifteen years, as will be explained further.

So what will happen until then? Due to the present necessity of reducing consumption and emissions in the transportation area, looks are leaning towards electricity. Indeed, as soon as it is not produced with hydrocarbons, its use offers a cheap, high energy return and does not pollute at the local level. We now come to the high interest of high energy density batteries that are half the price of their competitors, like LMP batteries.

With an unequaled storage capacity, this technology will allow the mass production of hybrid or electric vehicles that will be efficient, autonomous, and most importantly will pollute less and be cheaper to use than thermo vehicles.



Dylan DEVILLERS


Master of International Business Management, IAE Paris, 2004, ™
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