Translated material
Fascination with ether
City Hall officials became interested in alternative and underground
The mayor of the capital, Yuri Luzhkov, is not giving up on the idea of creating an ecological oasis in the country of victorious hydrocarbons. At least on the territory of the federal subject entrusted to him. The mayor, who last week promised to reward Muscovites who switch to cars with electric motors, yesterday gathered specialists at the mayor's office in order to prove that his plans are not pure Manilovism. Experts and officials vied with each other to prove the inevitability of the transition to alternative fuels, and at the same time the need to develop the underground space of the capital, where life should move from the streets filled with cars.Mr. Luzhkov did not hesitate to admit that he draws his ideas, among other things, from the dreamers of the beginning of the last century. “It is important to make the idea of using electric vehicles not experimental, but working,” he told members of the city government yesterday. “Experimental developments on the use of electricity as an alternative fuel were carried out back in the 20s of the last century, when the first electric tractor was tested.” According to the mayor, it is electric cars that need to be put into operation in order to improve the environmental situation in the city, where traffic emissions are the main source of negative impact on the environment. In the total volume of emissions, according to the head of the city’s Department of Transport and Communications, Leonid Lipsits, cars account for 80% of the pollution. And according to the results of scientific research by the Central Research Automobile and Automotive Institute (NAMI), 60-65% of harmful emissions come from freight vehicles weighing more than 3 tons and buses. The mayor of Moscow, apparently, was very inspired by the experiments of the authorities of the British capital, who are preparing a number of preferences for owners of environmentally friendly mini-cars.
The invited experts generally agreed with Mr. Luzhkov that “we need to change the living standards of Muscovites” and introduce fashion for small cars. “Jeeps on the streets of Moscow should be perceived by citizens as tarpaulin boots instead of pointe shoes on the ballet stage,” said NAMI General Director Alexey Ipatov. He called on Muscovites to focus on Europe, where 17% of the vehicle fleet consists of economical small cars, and better yet, on Japan, where the share of environmentally friendly cars reaches 30%. At the same time, experts tried to point out to the mayor the short “life cycle” of electric vehicles and that their “use is justified only in special zones.” Therefore, alternative fuel sources should not be discounted. “By 2020, the UN expects the share of transport running on alternative fuels to increase to 22%,” said Mr. Ipatov, “10% of which will still be natural gas fuel.”
Since Mr. Luzhkov, in his own words, considers the use of hydrogen fuels as a “tribute to fashion,” and he is skeptical about experiments with gases, “which liquefy at a fairly high pressure and, in fact, are a bomb,” the mayor was offered new domestic development. It turns out that the transport department is already exploring the possibility of using fuel systems adapted for dimethyl ether to refuel diesel engines. The head of the department, Leonid Lipsits, who believes that electric cars are still a distant prospect for Moscow, called this ether the most environmentally friendly and fairly cheap type of alternative fuel.
True, it immediately became clear that dimethyl ether does not even have an official status as a fuel, since, as Igor Lazarev, general director of the State Unitary Enterprise Mosavtokholod, admitted, in world practice it has not been used to refuel vehicles in urban environments. In addition, this fuel reacts with plastic and rubber and has the ability to spontaneously combust. But, Mr. Lazarev assured, chemists promise to overcome these shortcomings. But tests of ether on three pilot batches of ZIL cars showed that its use in diesel engines reduces the emission of particulate matter by 100%, and nitrogen oxides by 2.5-3 times. Having outlined such a rosy environmental prospect to the mayor, Igor Lazarev immediately asked members of the Moscow government to think about creating an infrastructure that would make the production of environmentally friendly fuel profitable. “There won’t be a queue for alternative fuel as long as there is traditional fuel,” Mr. Lazarev explained.
As a result, the discussion ended with the adoption of a resolution in which, among theses about the need to fight for the environment (including during competitions for the distribution of city orders - now applicant companies will also be required to have documents confirming that their transport complies with Euro standards -3") also contains a promise to allocate 120 million rubles to the State Unitary Enterprise Mosavtokholod. to complete experimental work on converting dimethyl ether into fuel for diesel trucks.
At the same time, the inevitable growth of the vehicle fleet, which, as the mayor hopes, will become more environmentally friendly over time, required officials to immediately discuss the concept of underground construction in the center of Moscow. Moreover, if earlier the city hall talked mainly about underground parking , now they are going to remove social and cultural facilities deeper into the capital. According to the first deputy head of the department of urban planning policy, development and reconstruction of Moscow, Konstantin Korolevsky, now only 8% of the total volume of urban construction is concentrated underground, while world practice shows that the optimal share of underground buildings in megacities is at least 20-25% .
And up to 30% of underground structures can be in the service sector. As Mr. Korolevsky explained to Vremya Novostey, “there are no places in Moscow where it is impossible to build underground, and the market value of the space will allow you to reimburse any costs associated with the difficulties of construction.”
Now about 600 thousand square meters of underground space are rented out annually, and officials expect to increase the volume of construction by 1.5 times due to cinemas, swimming pools, restaurants and shops “lowered under the sidewalk”. According to Mr. Korolevsky, those accustomed to the metro and the few underground shopping centers that already exist will not have difficulty adapting to a constant stay below street level. True, the chairman of the commission for long-term development and urban planning of the Moscow City Duma, Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov, believes that the priority of underground construction should still remain transport interchanges and parking lots, and there is no point in driving people underground. In addition, “such construction should be limited in residential areas,” the deputy believes. “People are starting to get nervous and make up legends that they are digging under them in order to evict them to Butovo,” he explained. “At the very least, residents of the center need to be guaranteed that in the event of force majeure they will not be evicted from their area of residence.”
In general, Yuri Luzhkov was pleased with the concept of the development of underground urbanism. According to him, he is impressed by the prospect of preserving the historical appearance of the city center. “There should be no overpass solutions for transport interchanges in the center,” he said. “The interchanges in Tokyo made the center technologically advanced, but killed the historical and architectural beauty of the city.” In his opinion, underground construction, such as the completion of an internal parking lot under the Rossiya Hotel, for which, according to Mr. Luzhkov, the building had to be dismantled, will only add “level, quality and stars” to above-ground structures.