America is the largest oil consuming country in the lacking alternatives? We must therefore explore if world, and Texas is its major supplier. The city of there are alternatives that would emancipate us.
Houston is the oil center of the world-that is what The topic given to me is confined to the following Mayor Kathryn Whitmire said in her welcoming questions: address to this, the 12th World Petroleum Congress. -Which engine concepts does the automotive Naturally, the participants and topics at this Conindustry plan for the automobile of tomorrow? gress are concerned with oil. As a representative of -What properties must the fuels and lubricants for the automobile industry, I am, in fact, an outsider. I these engines have? have nothing to do with exploration or upstream and -What does the automobile manufacturer expect downstream business. However, we need your prodand require from the oil industry? uct to run our product. Automobiles only meet their purpose of providing mobility when they burn-or, I should be grateful for having such a narrow topic, to put it bluntly, when they destroy-fuel. because it makes it easier for me to provide the They do this in great quantities, for the automotive answers. The basic answer is that for the foreseeable industry is one of the oil industry's most important future, the piston engine will maintain its dominant customers. To give you just one example, in the position. Equally, liquid hydrocarbons will remain Federal Republic of Germany, the automobile uses dominant as fuels and lubricants at least until the roughly one quarter of all the oil consumed. next century.
The history of our highly developed economies is I will substantiate this statement. But before doing a joint victory of our two industries. Oil and the that, we should examine the question as to why any automobile are synonymous with economic alternatives must be searched for at all. After all, so efficiency. Oil propels our economy as a fuel-the far things have run very well and both our industries automobile industry is acknowledged as the economic have been very profitable overall. engine. We must think about alternatives for several rea-Our industries are uniquely bound together, sons. First of all, the automobile depletes important because our products are greatly dependent on each resources. Fossil energy sources such as crude oil are other. Together we derive our livelihoods from a basically finite. Because of its use in the automobile, symbiosis of our products. the world could run out of fuel.
To this very day, except in a few isolated cases, Further, crude oil does not only serve as fuel. It is the dependence of the automobile on crude oil is also an important basic material for other areas within absolute. The classic reciprocating piston engine- the economy, as you know from the petrochemical which I
