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station, check which fuel is cheaper in that station
or which fuel suits its needs better, and refuel
in any way it chooses,” Tartakovsky predicts.
“Intelligent control systems will regulate engine
operation according to the fuel consumed, so
that the engine operates optimally on each type
of fuel, with high efficiency and zero pollutant
emissions.” Tartakovsky’s vision of saving the
world is based on improving the efficiency of
existing engines, making effective and calculated
use of all energy conversion methods, including
electric propulsion, and producing new and
renewable fuels from carbon dioxide found
in the atmosphere and from biomasses, in
order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
redundant fuel consumption. This might sound
like a somewhat conservative vision—compared
to certain other forecasts, ambitiously predicting
that all vehicles will convert to electric propulsion
—but Tartakovsky points to studies that show
that even electric vehicles emit carcinogenic
particles as a result of break, tire, and road wear.
This particulate matter could contribute to air
and environmental pollution much more than
enhanced internal combustion engines, due to the
considerable weight added to electrical vehicles
by their batteries. Despite the fact that electric
vehicles are receiving abundant public attention,
Tartakovsky believes that scientific thinking and
academic work are crucial for any attempt to make
meaningful decisions in the energy field.
“We have to preserve our environment so that our
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
will be able to live in a better world,” he says,
“but we cannot be biased. We must be able to tell
the difference between scientific facts and the
declarations made by politicians and publicity-
hungry organizations, and to make science-based
decisions that will benefit the environment.”
A Future of Hope
We began this article with a grim forecast of
the destructive effects of climate change on our
planet and on humanity. This future is, of course,
a possibility, perhaps even more probable than
other alternatives. But in the very same report in
which XPRIZE researchers considered the future
of forests, the environment, and the planet, they
also considered another, far more optimistic
scenario.
This scenario is based, to compress it into a single
word, on technology. The researchers examined
how groundbreaking, disruptive technologies
of the type we reviewed above could be used to
curb global warming, prevent climate change,
and provide every household with efficient and
cheap energy in ways that are not environmentally
harmful. They claim that if such technologies are Prof. Leonid
Tartakovsky
developed, enhanced, and adopted by society
and by the industry, these great goals could be
achieved by 2040. There is a future for humanity
and there is hope—but only if we are wise enough
to comprehend the enormity of the crisis we are
in and to invest in science and technology as a
means of providing the solution for it.
“It’s entirely possible to change the way we do
things, to be kinder to the climate,” says Matthew
Suss. “Things are already starting to change, and
we should continue pushing in that direction.”
The technologies currently under development at
the Technion—and in other universities the world
over—prove that as long as we keep pushing
forward, there is hope for the future. 
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