Future Automotive Fuels

Future Automotive Fuels
Author: Joseph Colucci
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1468423347

In October 1975, while the United States was still acutely feeling the aftermath of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, the General Motors Research Laboratories held its nineteenth annual symposium. The proceedings of this timely symposium on "Future Automotive Fuels - Prospects, Performance, and Perspective" are reported in this book. We hope that it will serve not only as a permanent record of the papers and discussions, but also as a stimulus and inspiration for ideas, research, and development in the vital field of automotive fuels. The economy of the United States and the lifestyle of her people are woven together with energy into a unique fabric. Reducing the energy content of this fabric weakens it and can even destroy it. The Oil Embargo stunningly demonstrated how easy it is to attack this fabric, and exposed for all to see its greatest weaknes- reliance on imported petroleum. Since petroleum is the only current source of automotive fuels, and cars and trucks consume about 43 percent of the petroleum used in the United States, the Oil Embargo had its most profound and dramatic on automotive transportation: First there were long lines at service stations, impact and then idle lines in car assembly plants and long lines at unemployment offices. Against this grim setting, we planned the symposium on automotive fuels for the future.

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance
Author: Mihail C. Roco
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 477
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9401703590

M. C. Roco and W.S. Bainbridge In the early decades of the 21st century, concentrated efforts can unify science based on the unity of nature, thereby advancing the combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, converging in human abilities, societal technologies could achieve a tremendous improvement outcomes, the nation's productivity, and the quality of life. This is a broad, cross cutting, emerging and timely opportunity of interest to individuals, society and humanity in the long term. The phrase "convergent technologies" refers to the synergistic combination of four major "NBIC" (nano-bio-info-cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnology; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communications; (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience. Timely and Broad Opportunity. Convergence of diverse technologies is based on material unity at the nanoscale and on technology integration from that scale.