Motoring briefs
Prodrift Punchestown to feature top drivers from across Europe
PROFESSIONAL DRIFTING returns to Punchestown Racecourse later this month with the Prodrift Punchestown event taking place on May 30th and 31st.
The two-day event will feature some of the best drifters from across Europe competing in two major championships.
Competing on a custom-built drift track, Saturday will feature Round Two of the Prodrift Irish Championship.
Meanwhile, Sunday features Europe’s best drivers competing in Round Two of the Prodrift Super Series.
Admission on the gate is €20 for adults, €12 for under-12s, €50 for a family, €35 for adults (weekend) and €20 for under-12s (weekend). Tickets are also available from www.ticketmaster.ie
Hydrogen highway tests experimental engines
NORWAY OPENED a 560km “hydrogen highway” this week with more than a dozen hydrogen-powered cars rallying along a scenic route between its capital city Oslo and North Sea oil hub, Stavanger.
Norwegian oil and gas producer Statoil has built several hydrogen filling stations between the two cities to cater for cars with fuel-cells that generate electricity from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, or burn hydrogen in a combustion engine similar to those in petrol cars.
These zero-emission vehicles have short ranges but promising results, and in the longer-term, Statoil may link the road to a hydrogen autobahn in northern Germany. Japan and California already have hydrogen highways.
“The torque in an electric car is fabulous,” professional rally driver Henning Solberg said before taking off in the Viking Rally’s No 1 car, a Ford Focus.
The still-experimental hydrogen engines emit only clean water, though it takes energy to produce hydrogen.
Unlike electric motors, which take hours to recharge, the nearly silent hydrogen cars can be refuelled in a matter of minutes, much like conventional cars.
“We have to look for additional sources of fuel for the future and we believe hydrogen is a good option, especially as it has the characteristics of a zero-emission fuel and . . . you could produce hydrogen from many sources,” said Ulf Hafseld, head of hydrogen business development at StatoilHydro.
Some cars in the race can accelerate from 0-100km/h in four seconds, drivers claim, though the three-day rally is not about speed but reliability and efficiency, organisers said.
StatoilHydro sells hydrogen in Norway at around 40 Norwegian Kroner (€4.57) per kilo, which it says is roughly equal in energy terms to the price of petrol. The company seeks to keep its hydrogen clean by using energy from Norway’s vast hydropower-plants to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas.
Hydrogen can also be produced as an industrial by-product, or even from waste gases such as methane. But all these processes are energy-intensive, which limits the attractiveness of hydrogen-powered cars from an environmental perspective.
Participants in the rally say such driving tests will help improve their vehicles and gradually reduce costs, although state subsidies remain key for any larger-scale projects.
– Reuters