The CIMAC Congress 2010 was successful. CIMAC is the most important platform for the dialogue between the engine industry’s technical[ds_preview] experts and its customers. Originally CIMAC was organized as an industry event to discuss new ideas and developments within the engine and components industry together with institutes and universities. This massive amount of professional up-to-date knowledge is still available among the CIMAC members and is presented during the congresses. This year’s event was opened with a Keynote Address given by Karl M. Wojik, Vice President for Large Engines Business Unit at AVL List in Graz, Austria, and CIMAC President from 2007 to 2010. In the following his opening speech is quoted.
»The times are certainly very tough for all of us with the consequences of the economic crises. Shipbuilding has been dropped down dramatically over the last two years entailing also a substantial decrease in the demand for ship engines.
Should we really be depressed now? No, I think »not«! I think it’s better to concentrate on the challenges of the future and what we can do, to create a better future – to shape our future.
Let’s see the current economic crisis as a productive process for necessary changes in the worldwide economy but also in politics and the society. Innovations are not only needed and essential in technology, but also in social areas. If we react to the crisis by changing, we can grow through them.
Technologywise we have so many chances now to improve our world, to reduce emissions to the benefit of our climate.
• We should protect our world by saving resources;
• We should take care of the future of our children.
And we have a lot of opportunities for doing that – to work for a better future. And the best of it – it would also be beneficial for our business and to secure our jobs in this industry.
Why am I so positive about the future of our industry? There is an easy answer: Our society will further demand on increased transport and on increased energy in the coming decades!
If we believe in the rationality of civilization and of human beings we can expect a world with a reduced number of wars. The huge reservoir of people who will participate in an increasing standard in their quality of life will be asking for more and more goods. And these goods have to be transported with the most efficient and cleanest means possible. So the demand for ships – as well as the demand for ship engines will increase substantially.
That will be true also for locomotive engines. We have to expect an increasing demand on engines for railways too taking into consideration a strong political intention to promote public traffic and transport in the future against pure personal related solutions. Intelligently organized »multimodality« in traffic and transport with international distribution of tasks will lead to a kind of renaissance of rail transport.
Of course what we need will be more intelligent engines which are in addition imbedded in systems which enable much higher output efficiency compared to today’s solutions and therefore save fuel and reduce pollutions.
I personally come from an engineering company dealing worldwide with the development of all kind of IC-engines. If somebody had told me 20 years ago that in the future automotive engines would emit practically no measureable toxic components I would have called him a ›dreamer‹. But what is actually happening today? The newest generation of passenger car-diesels as well as industrial engines for being launched to the market over coming years can definitely be called ›air-cleaner‹ because the number of particulates coming out the tailpipe is lower than what is in the ambient air.
Now let’s come back to our industry. If we reflect upon the second big sector for large IC-engines, the use in stationary power plants we have to expect again a great future. Energy and mobility is the decisive basis for economical development. An increasing world population and a rising life standard will be asking for more energy.
In the future the energy mix will change. Renewable energy sources will play a more dominant role. Modern gas engines will be one of the big winners – by the way not only in stationary use but also for transportation! And there are even further options: Large IC-engines are able to burn a lot of alternative fuels like bio-fuel right down to waste stuff from our daily life such as used cooking oil from restaurants.
Again these new technologies will be combined with systems facilitating an output of the fed base-energy not far off 100 %. Of course, again a holistic approach will be necessary, as well as the consideration of a variety of system combinations – even using different sources of base energy like sun, wind etc.
Now – what is our position in relation to the demands of the future?
Our position basically is excellent! Most of the technologies which can lead to a better future are already available. For sure the path on our way to achieving our final targets will be stony – but it is not necessary to dream or wait for miracles. The technology is available – is useable – and we will also find the way to make it affordable.
Today technologies which e.g. reduce hull resistance of ships up to 15–30 % are already in field tests. With special system integration on the machinery we can expect an increase of overall efficiency up to 40 % against today’s standard. New fuels and the next generation of large engines combined with aftertreatment solutions will lead to nearly emission free power systems. Additional technologies like fuel cells used in some applications will contribute to an even cleaner world.
L&G
We are approaching a challenging but also an exiting time. Sometimes I wish I were a little bit younger so that I could contribute for a longer period to all these developments and improvements which I can foresee for the future. But on the other hand I can watch the young men and young ladies – yes young ladies too, who are fortunately getting more and more interested in technology jobs – who are coming into our business full of new ideas – full of enthusiasm. And I have a good feeling that everything I have covered here including my thoughts and all these positive expectations will become true!
Finally I would like to quote what I heard once from a wise man: He said ›There are two groups of people in the world who behave quite differently when times are difficult – when a strong wind is blowing against us.
• Some build walls to protect themselves for a while.
• The others build windmills to take advantage of that new strong wind.‹
L&G will allow us symbolically to be the windmill builders.«
