The Renaissance Project for the Next Millennium: Rethinking the Car of the Future

by Kee Hyong Kim, Chairman of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; Alan Lloyd, Chairman of the Secretary of Energy’s Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel; and Patrick Takahashi, Director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute
This potentially monumental project began quite simply with the statement by one of the coauthors: “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if my driver could fuel my car with water from a garden hose.” This innocent remark triggered a flurry of rethinking on a totally different type of car for the future. From Seoul to Stuttgart, Münich, Tokyo, and Detroit, discussions have amplified to the point where the Renaissance Project for the Next Millennium has been accepted as an alternative to conventional thinking.

Most next-generation vehicles being developed have tended to be nationalistic in intent and transitional from available technology. The program being contemplated will encourage international partnerships to create novel designs from concepts not currently accepted or understood. The water feedstock to be a basic premise almost certainly means that hydrogen will be the fuel of choice. However, there will need to be more efficient dissociation, whether through a magic catalyst with unique source of heat or range of other options. Super capacitors, cool fusion, or even a different type of battery might come to mind.

Even more strategic than good technological solutions is the controlling question of financial support. Traditional governmental and industrial funding can only be supplemental. There needs to be a mechanism fixed to the price of worldwide endorsement of an investment credit that might be applied to the Renaissance Project.

A planning summit is being organized, to be held on the shores of Lake Tahoe, Nevada, U.S.A., in the Fall of 1997. Key sponsors and potential participants will develop the guidelines for the Project. As currently envisaged, there will be two competitions to create the best designs for the Next Millennium Vehicle: international industrial/academic teams and university/high school groups. The awards, to be announced at the China World Hydrogen Energy Conference in the year 2000, will depend on success at attaining global financial support.

The Renaissance Project for the Next Millennium

From the time of their first appearance on earth, humans walked or traveled with rafts or boats on lakes and streams. Much later, the invention of the wheel eased transport on land. Automation began in the 18th Century with the steam engine powering ships and locomotives. The automobile and the motorized airplane are one hundred years old, and their use for mass transportation began about 50 years ago. To date, about 600 million automobiles, with an addition of 50 million per year, serve the transportation needs of an estimated 1.5 billion people (out of almost six billion). Effective national railway systems are operated in only a few regions of the world, such as China, India, and Europe. A total of 11,500 aircraft are used to transport people and goods around the world.

What is the future of transportation on a planet that will be inhabited by eight billion, or perhaps 10 or 12 billion people? Will it be a perpetuation of what has been achieved so far, with the continuous adoption of emerging technologies that promise to make transportation relatively safer, environmentally cleaner, cheaper, and accessible to everyone? Is it a future that accounts for environmental and climate change, as well as increasingly limited space considerations? A future where financial capital needs for transportation compete with other equally or more important needs, like food, water, housing, or education?

Two issues are already clear:

  1. Advancements in an individual technology, no matter how significant, will not be sufficient. Rather, an optimized systems approach is needed, including technical and nontechnical components.

  2. Fundamental developments can have typical lead times of many decades or even centuries, which do not correspond with the traditional, rather short-term human thinking. This obvious mismatch must be resolved. In order to address appropriately the dissimilar near- and long-term challenges of transportation, the Renaissance Project is divided into two subprojects:

Subproject 1: The Automobile and the 21st Century. The future of individual mass transport will be the subject of this task. If automobiles are to continue to serve as the primary means of individual mass transportation, many key issues must be addressed, including:

Subproject 2: Transport in the Next Millennium. This task will seek the answer(s) for a sustainable transportation system. Questions to be addressed:

The Renaissance Project for the Next Millennium is intended to be performed in steps, beginning with two competitions to create the best designs for the next generation of sustainable transportation systems.

The first design competition will be for the next century’s automobile. The second will be for a sustainable transportation system. Awards will be made for designs submitted by professionals and laypersons from throughout the world. The winning ideas will be announced at the China World Hydrogen Energy Conference in the summer of the year 2000.

In order to stimulate interest from throughout the world, all information regarding this competition will be available on the Internet. While awards will be made for professionals and laypersons, the Renaissance Project will not exclude any person or group of persons expressing a desire to participate.

The timetable is as follows:

Fall 1997 Endorsement of project guidelines at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, U.S.A.
December 1997 Establishment of project headquarters, satellite points of contact on all continents and/or major countries/regions
December 1997 Approval of financial requirements
June 1998 Completion of organization and procedural matters
Fall 1998 Announcement of competition and posting on Internet
December 1998 Deadline for applications
June 1999 Deadline for design submittal
December 1999 Evaluation of designs submitted
Summer 2000 Announcement of winners

The results of the Renaissance Project will be made available on the Internet.

©1997. All Rights Reserved. A Publication of the National Hydrogen Association.
This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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