hydrogen hot air?
- Thread starter loublou
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Now I see what you mean. A steam turbine is indeed more efficient than a petrol engine. I think it's about 40% compared to 20%. Diesel is a bit better than petrol but the turbine still wins. The power station can also burn more intractable fuels like coal and heavy oil. Try putting those in your car - or maybe you'd prefer a few kilograms of plutonium under the bonnet!
The snag on the efficiency front lies between the three coils of the power station's generator and the two terminals of the car's battery. How much of that useful energy will be lost as heat along the way? I have a sneaky suspicion that burning a clean fuel such as alcohol directly in the car is more efficient than burning it in a power station then sending the electricity down miles of wire, through a plethora of transformers and into a battery. That reminds me. How long do the batteries last?
It would help if waste heat from power stations was put to good use. This must be feasible because Icelanders have been heating their houses with geothermal steam for as long as I can remember. (When I first read about this way back in junior school I imagined houses with pipes running out to little geysers in their back gardens.) If we can get our act together and stop throwing valuable heat away then I believe the balance tips in favour of the power station.
The snag on the efficiency front lies between the three coils of the power station's generator and the two terminals of the car's battery. How much of that useful energy will be lost as heat along the way? I have a sneaky suspicion that burning a clean fuel such as alcohol directly in the car is more efficient than burning it in a power station then sending the electricity down miles of wire, through a plethora of transformers and into a battery. That reminds me. How long do the batteries last?
It would help if waste heat from power stations was put to good use. This must be feasible because Icelanders have been heating their houses with geothermal steam for as long as I can remember. (When I first read about this way back in junior school I imagined houses with pipes running out to little geysers in their back gardens.) If we can get our act together and stop throwing valuable heat away then I believe the balance tips in favour of the power station.
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refer to my previous answer 
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Freddie said:
No not true 'cos the inefficency of transporting electricity way exceeds any benefits.
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im sure ive read somewhere that voltage conversion in dc is possible, at much greater efficiencies than ac transformers. if this is the case, then dc power station (v high voltage) ->charging station -> voltage step down.
waste would be minimal, due to the possibility of using v high voltages instead of 230. downside, charging at home wouldn't be possible due to the different electric networks.
about not wasting heat. iirc, a fridge works by manipulating liquid boiling points and compression etc in a sealed system to create a temperature difference. (ie internal cold, back of fridge hot). the electricity used, converted to heat on the output too. suppose another sealed liquid was introduced, boiling off the back, driving turbines, and cooling on the cold side, like a power station does. modify all this into an industrial sized unit. now, wouldn't this effectively take in warm air/liquid, convert it into cooler air/liquid, and also output energy??
haha did anyone get what i just said there?? its probably a load of balls, but just a thought.
waste would be minimal, due to the possibility of using v high voltages instead of 230. downside, charging at home wouldn't be possible due to the different electric networks.
about not wasting heat. iirc, a fridge works by manipulating liquid boiling points and compression etc in a sealed system to create a temperature difference. (ie internal cold, back of fridge hot). the electricity used, converted to heat on the output too. suppose another sealed liquid was introduced, boiling off the back, driving turbines, and cooling on the cold side, like a power station does. modify all this into an industrial sized unit. now, wouldn't this effectively take in warm air/liquid, convert it into cooler air/liquid, and also output energy??
haha did anyone get what i just said there?? its probably a load of balls, but just a thought.felix said:
You wouldnt be sending the electricity down miles of wires and transformers--- you would have local power stations all over the place--you already have the sites with the fuel tanks in place--all the redundant petrol stations and all you need to do is install petrol and diesel burning generaters.
One big reason an electric car is more economic than a fuel driven car is that the power is only being used when you need to move and you could drive up to a forecourt and change your batteries if you were running flat
Now I get it. Yes, that does make more sense but let's run them on vegetable oil/alcohol/etc. You might even get one to burn rubbish. The waste heat that any engine must produce wouldn't have to be piped quite so far to the houses either. Moreover, those underground storage tanks would be a good place to put a fusion ring - eventually!
I take it that "change" is not a misprint. That's another good idea. The alternative is to have a scrapped battery in every ditch. The fridge problem would be trivial by comparison. I still think we have some way to go with battery technology. The one in my electric screwdriver says "lithium ion" and claims to hold its charge longer than nickel cadmium. One of these days I intend to look it up.
Your battery would be totally different like an " AA " type but the size of those black co2 gas bottles for beer pumps, then you could roll up to whereever and drop a flap down--pull them out and replace them if you couldnt charge them due to your journey-----no waste everything recyclable and clean.
By the way there are already large military engines that can burn multifuel to power them and have been around for a number of years, stick a number of them in your disused petrol station with some generaters and hey presto a local power station and battery depot
By the way there are already large military engines that can burn multifuel to power them and have been around for a number of years, stick a number of them in your disused petrol station with some generaters and hey presto a local power station and battery depot
I remember reading something about Oshkosh producing a diesel-electric military truck (same principle as diesel trains) because it was more efficient than diesel direct-drive. Presumably because you can keep the engine running at optimum rpm and just modulate the fuel input depending on the load.
Li-ion batteries are great. This is the type you have in a laptop, mobile phone, MP3 player, camcorder or anything else that needs to have lots of power or be able to run for a long time. For instance, my MP3 player has 20-hours' play-time, and that has a 40GB hard-disk that requires power to make the motor whir round. My mobile phone only needs charging a couple of times a week, and I use it for about 2 hours talking per week. These teeny little batteries hold plenty!
The problem with using them in cars is cost. You need a lot of cells to store all the energy. But, some ev enthusiasts have used them
There are also lithium-polymer batteries available that are slightly better.
Here is a li-ion powered car.
Li-ion batteries are great. This is the type you have in a laptop, mobile phone, MP3 player, camcorder or anything else that needs to have lots of power or be able to run for a long time. For instance, my MP3 player has 20-hours' play-time, and that has a 40GB hard-disk that requires power to make the motor whir round. My mobile phone only needs charging a couple of times a week, and I use it for about 2 hours talking per week. These teeny little batteries hold plenty!
The problem with using them in cars is cost. You need a lot of cells to store all the energy. But, some ev enthusiasts have used them
There are also lithium-polymer batteries available that are slightly better.
Here is a li-ion powered car.
I've just heard a bit about the guy who is credited to designing rocket fuel.
Turns out he was well into the occult, as were most of the crowd messing about with such things at the time.
But before I turn to my tarot, I'll read through all these really informative replies.
ta folks
PS just checked my tarot anyway and it said something about 9 million harry potters and half blood princes in one day!
Turns out he was well into the occult, as were most of the crowd messing about with such things at the time.
But before I turn to my tarot, I'll read through all these really informative replies.
ta folks
PS just checked my tarot anyway and it said something about 9 million harry potters and half blood princes in one day!
compressed air is being trialed in mexico with great success google search will show it one of the drawbacks for the uk would be no heater ie winter use would be dodgy to say the least why no one is selling it here ? beats me as it would be good summer transport
MDI compressed air powered car is its name heres its site http://www.theaircar.com/ go look makes you wonder why no one is pushing it or is because petrol /diesel makes so much cash for governments
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not the way to go
MDI compressed air powered car is its name heres its site http://www.theaircar.com/ go look makes you wonder why no one is pushing it or is because petrol /diesel makes so much cash for governments
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not the way to go
This is true. Compressed air provides COOLING when it expands in the cylinders. This makes it a much better choice for Mexicans than for us. As usual you still need to put energy into the system somewhere. You have to compress the air at some kind of power station and this generates heat. In fact it generates lots of heat because the air itself must be cooled as it is compressed. Mexicans won't need this waste heat for their houses. Maybe you could run a compressed air pipeline from Canada!
that cooling idea i mentioned earlier is not really viable right now, but could one day be used to convert heat energy into electrical. they say all energy conversions result in heat, and one day far far far away, there'll be no energy except heat. (red heat theory or something).
anyway, read in paper on sunday, that one rugby-pitch sized field of wheat, would supply enough fuel to supply a car for a year. i was quite surprised at this! so all we need is a field of wheat for each car, and we're sorted. problem is finding the land. another symptom of an overpopulated planet.
anyway, read in paper on sunday, that one rugby-pitch sized field of wheat, would supply enough fuel to supply a car for a year. i was quite surprised at this! so all we need is a field of wheat for each car, and we're sorted. problem is finding the land. another symptom of an overpopulated planet.
Quite right freddie. That's why it matters where you put the compressor. Oddly enough, the heat on the high pressure side can be used to run a heat engine and the waste from that will still warm your house (in Canada?). Sadly the heat engine will not yield enough power to run the compressor. That would be a neat trick indeed.
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