Developing a Research Question

Machine Project "Microscope wonder" November 9, 2010 via Flickr
non-commercial reuse with attribution

In this blog post I will examine various research questions that could be utilized for Project 2.

Is there a way to develop non-urea injection diesel engines that will pass American emissions testing?

I would be very interested in researching this question because it ties in strongly to the recent discovery that Volkswagen cheated it's nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions testing. By installing a sophisticated software algorithm, the cars thus equipped were able to detect when they were undergoing an emissions test and radically alter their engine programming to be able to pass the test. This cheating was probably in large part due to the almost insurmountable technical hurdles involved in creating a diesel engine that does not use AdBlue urea injection to clean it's exhaust that can pass US emissions criteria. That difficulty as well as Mazda's difficulty in overcoming a similar hurdle motivates my interest in this particular question.

What is the exact science behind Audi's work on the Fischer-Tropsch process?

It has recently been widely reported that Audi has developed a refinement of the Fischer Tropsch process that will allow the capture of atmospheric CO2 to be combined with brackish water and with a significant amount of solar power, they can create gas. This is a remarkable achievement because the process is actually carbon negative meaning that driving high performance non-economical cars could actually help the environment if run on this gas. The current cost of the process is approximately twice the cost of gas in Europe in order for Audi's process to make a profit. As this is not that unreasonably expensive and I have an affinity for fast cars, this iis of significant interest to me.

What are the environmental costs of developing batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles?

This is also of interest to me as I do not like electric cars. I think they are a poor alternative to petrochemical fuels and while the vehicles do not emit damaging exhaust gasses themselves, they are still serious polluters due to the sources of most of the electrical energy in the United States. The other major source of pollution and environmental concern stems from battery production. Producing the high-tech lithium ion or nickel metal hydride batteries is a very energy intensive and environmentally destructive process. I would like to educate my dislike more so this would also be an interesting topic for me.