Alternative fuels...how much longer

[arkain101]

Yes this is how most locomotives operate. They have massive electrical generators powered by low operating diesle engines. This way all friction related parts interact at low intensity, low speed operation. Help things last and add efficiency.

 

however they also create alot more power like this since you need tons and tons of power for a train.

 

Although In a car by the time you set everything up correctly you are weighing at about 1/4 that of a standard engine/tranny design. Also it is not difficult at all to set up this operation in a car. For example you could go down to a hardware shop and buy a gas powered generator that can power most devices in your home. That brigs and stratton engine/generator combo could power a car all around town with an electrical engine as the drive wheel, and the vehicle could weigh in at around 1000lbs.

 

I am not an engineer either but I have alot of experience with automotive an mechanical aspects of things and know this is better in many ways.

[CraigD]

I am not a mechanical engineer, but I am pretty sure this is how American diesel locomotives work. They are really efficient when they are huge (in terms of torque and Horespower). My understanding is that it is difficult to make these babies small enough to fit in a consumer vehicle.

Diesel-electric locomotives all work as this way, yes, and are very massive. However, passenger car-sized versions of the system are not unfeasible, and have been flirted with by power engineering companies and auto manufacturers alike. Most have favored something more like a large, modern, non-nuclear ship than a locomotive, however, with a gas turbine-generator in place of a diesel piston engine-generator combination.

… That brigs and stratton engine/generator combo could power a car all around town with an electrical engine as the drive wheel, and the vehicle could weigh in at around 1000lbs.

Some simple mechanical calculation show your power estimate is off by about a factor of 6. 1000 lbs is also pretty light for a 2-passenger car – 2 standard passengers alone weigh 340 lbs.

 

Assuming 100% mechanical efficiency and zero rolling and air resistance , a 4 kw (5.3 HP) Brigs & Stratton engine/generator combo would accelerate a 1000 kg (2200 pound) car from 0 to 25 m/s (56 MPH) in 78 seconds. Even for folk accustom to air-cooled VW vans, this is pretty unacceptable performance :hyper:

 

On the other extreme, the power system behind the Chrysler Patriot experimental race car could, in principle, out accelerate any of the Lemans cars it was intended to compete with. It managed this, however, not only with a very efficient, constant speed propane gas turbine-generator and a very powerful (950 HP) electric motor, but a controversial and ultimately unsuccessful flywheel energy storage system, to store braking energy.

 

The engineering world has largely given up on flywheel energy storage systems, in favor of high-power batteries, “ultra capacitors”, and regenerative fuel cells (fuel cells that can briefly run “backwards” to create hydrogen). Flywheels were, however, spectacular in their power. The Patriot program served effectively to scared engineers away from them, mostly due to their potential to disintegrate in a spectacular, car, surrounding structures, bystanders, etc. shredding fashion that could potentially throw the whole car 100 ft straight up. :hyper:

 

Arkain, wouldn’t you love to get your hands on one of the old Patriot prototypes? :hyper:

[arkain101]

I apreciate your input on the detailed calculations, and to no offense but so many people need to open their minds to the ideal and not the detail.

 

If a car was designed with a briggs and straton generator. You could go ahead and throw away 50% of the cars weight right there, No engine, battery, fuel tank, transimission, drive train, mechanical brakes, exhaust system, and when you have less weight you can lower general material strength of the vehicle. In the major scenario, you could take a motorcycle. Rigg it up with a system like this and get some serious efficiency and performance. Obviously you wouldnt just stick it in the trunk and then work out the calculations. Who says cars need to be so heavy and large? ya know? and not all are of course. yes there are alot of small light electric cars. But the engine-generator combo is better off almost any way you look at it.

 

btw, yah those energy storage spinning wheels are deadly friggen ideas... although there are ways around that problems in that too :lol:

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Yes this is how most locomotives operate. They have massive electrical generators powered by low operating diesle engines

 

Currently the G.E. Evolution series locomotives (which are built less than 5 miles from here) use 4,400 Bhp. Caterpiller V-12 diesels driving six electric motors (3 per truck) which drive the wheels via reduction gears.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Even for folk accustom to air-cooled VW vans, this is pretty unacceptable performance

What the heck are ya talkin about?!?!?! My bone-stock 1977 2.0 VW Westfalia type-2 accelerated like-a-bat-outa-hell! (third to fourth sucked though..why did fourth have to be so high?)

 

I think you meant (non-turbo) VW diesels! (0-60 in several days)

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!!!!

 

Hybrid tech., ethanol, biodiesel I see more and more advertising pushing these technologies every day...touting them as new technologies. Pray tell what is so new about any of them biodiesel dates all the way back to the very first diesel engines, alchahol type fuel nearly as long, and hybrids as far back as the 1920's!!! He%%!!!!! now we have Bush claiming that ethanol fuels are his idea!!!!( as he and his buddies reap record proffits from petroleum!!!) The sad thing is with the general ignorance of the masses in general I'd be willing to bet that the average american actually believes him!!!! Then you've got companies (GM for instance) claiming that they have the only vehicles that are ethanol ready and have been making them for several years now!!!

 

Uh!Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!!!!!! pretty much any vehicle that can run on gasoline can run on alchahol based fuels with little or no modification!!! (you might have to install hotter or cooler spark plugs and or tweak the timing no big deal easily done in less than a half hour)

 

I currently add one gallon of denatured alcahol to each 5 gal of gasoline in my truck in return It runs cooler, pulls harder, more readily accepts being fed the cheapest available grades of gasoline (doesen't knock or ping anymore), and even delivers 9 more miles to the gallon on average (for an average of 27 mpg which ain't bad for a 15 year old full sized extended cab pickup) .

 

The only real downside is that the cheapest available alcahol costs $5- per gallon so the fuel savings are kind of eaten by the extra cost (I think:shrug: )

 

Incedently I'm not the first to run an alc./ gasoline mix some states have offered this mix either off and on or steadily through the years for use in motor vehicles and farm equipment. Why it hasen't become standard in all states is beyond me!:steering:

[CraigD]

Hybrid tech., ethanol, biodiesel I see more and more advertising pushing these technologies every day...touting them as new technologies. Pray tell what is so new about any of them biodiesel dates all the way back to the very first diesel engines, alchahol type fuel nearly as long, and hybrids as far back as the 1920's!!!

True, true.

 

It’s no great secret that 650 HP IndyCars have run quite well on 100% methanol/ethanol blends since their early days, or that, during WWII, Germany converted many vehicles from gasoline to ethanol as their oil refining capacity was crippled by the war.

 

A disadvantage of ethanol vs. petroleum fuels is that, while petroleum is “found energy”, ethanol has to be created via fermentation, a process that requires more energy than fractioning gasoline or methanol from petroleum.

 

Like nearly everything in our somewhat free-market world economy, I expect alternative fuels like ethanol and biodiesel to become popular only when, and not before, they become more profitable for suppliers to produce than petroleum fuels. I suspect that day is fast approaching, but wouldn’t be willing to bet on a specific year. :steering:

[Kayra]

Sadly for Hydrogen, I suspect it is unlikely to EVER be a widely accepted fuel source unless a method is discovered that allows it to be used in it's liquid form. :confused:

 

Hydrogen has several issues that are not so easy to overcome. Fundamental ones.

 

Hydrogen, being such a small molecule, readily escapes all but the most secure enclosure. Being such a small molecule also means that in order to carry any significant amount of the gas, tremendous pressures would have to be used. This means that any existing infrastructure used to carry gas would not be suitable to carry hydrogen. All existing industries that currently use Methane (natural gas) in their processes would never be able to afford to switch to hydrogen. The costs would be extraordinary. Only new construction would have a chance of installing this much more expensive infrastructure. Then of course, there would be the supply and distribution issues, plagued by the same problems. While Hydrogen has a very high energy / Kilo, that Kilo (Can not use pound as the damned stuff floats) has some pretty high costs that are not just due to availability, but to the nature of the gas itself.

 

Hydrogen may not be the answer, but I suspect it is a good starting point.

Now, if you were to harvest CO2 from the atmosphere (using something like an amine solution), and Hydrogen/Oxygen from the atmosphere, throw them together with a nice catalyst, you could make your own Natural gas. The same natural gas that is currently powering a large percentage of commercial processes.

 

You can, using a RWGS reaction, feed the synthetic methane into a reactor and produce methanol. Methanol is a SUPERB way of storing energy. Liquid at room temp... directly usable in automobiles, react with vegetable oil and you have Bio-Diesel.

 

Another reaction can create ethylene which is the base feedstock for polyethylene or polythene. Plastics.

 

The only things we need to develop to make these concepts reality are an inexpensive and scalable method of creating hydrogen and capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, and I would be willing to bet both are going to be within our reach within the decade. (If we push for it)

 

The end result: You can actually use the CO2 in the atmosphere, sunlight, and water, to create a renewable energy infrastructure that could conceivably replace the oil industry, be accepted by industry and commercial companies (do they really care where they get their natural gas from?) while saving the earth from the greenhouse effect.

 

Nice pipe dream?

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Hydrogen has several issues that are not so easy to overcome. Fundamental ones.

 

 

YUP!!! Namely it likes to make big booms!!!!!!!!:singer:

 

Personaly I prefer fuels that are less likely to "blow me up" in an accident!!!!:confused: (OOOOOOOOOeeeeey!...he blowed up reeel good!!!:hyper: )

 

At least with most liquid fuels (at normal atmospheric pressures and temps) it is their vapor that burns. Which tends to produce much smaller explosions in an accident whereas hydrogen unleashed from it's pressure vessel due to a rupture creates a massive fuel supply mixed with air yielding a biiiiiiiiiig boom!

 

Also the extremely violent manner with which it burns would likely hammer a recipricating engine to death in short order. There is also the matter of efficiency in internal combustion engines, requiring less air to burn more of it would be required to produce the same amount of power that alcahol or bio-diesel produce meaning greater cost to the consumer. Currently depending on the source of info biodiesel cost between a mere $0.25 and $0.75 per gallon for the average joe to produce.

 

The average refinery could probably make it even cheaper (for some reason things seem to be cheaper in bulk) and since the average fuel station is allready equiped to handle it costs to provide biodiesel

to consumers would be nominal compared even to petro based diesel.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Human electric hybrids.....Yeah baby!!!!!!

 

I Aaaaammmmm MACHINE!!!!!!!!! Hear me GRUNT! AAAAAAAAAAAAHWOH!

 

26 years of pedal power and still kicken @$$!!!!!!!!!!

[kennth hickford]

Methane Is The Answer, ( Loads Of Cow Farts Captured)!

 

Or, How About The Stirling Hot Air Engine?.....tons Of The Hot Air Stuff In Our House Of Parliament,....especially During Question Time!

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

The Stirling Hot Air Engine<- what the heck is that!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

need more input!!!doesn't compute!!!!!!!!!

[CraigD]

The Stirling Hot Air Engine<- what the heck is that!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

A very efficient kind of piston engine. My uncle had a very pretty little brass and steel toy one that was heated by a little candle, spinning a flywheel.

 

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine. Wikipedia is you friend.

[P-man]

It's just about the coolest thing in the world. However I don't know if it could power a whole car. Maybe in hybrid with a fuel cell or something.

[nkt]

If you want to change the world, you don't want to go and get a career at some big company as an "inventor", even if you could. The person telling you what to invent would get the glory, if any was to be had, as well as the money. You'll just get annoyed.

 

To change the world, have the idea, make a prototype, then sell it, or sell the idea. Repeat until you are rich enough to follow up your more expensive and exotic ideas. You couldn't build a hydrogen car from scratch, let alone the hundreds that would be needed to compete with GM or Ford, so go work on a motor. Sell them the motor design. Heck, design a way to save 4 dollars off the cost of a wing and they will pay you a fortune.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

A very efficient kind of piston engine. My uncle had a very pretty little brass and steel toy one that was heated by a little candle, spinning a flywheel.

 

Sounds kinda like a Mammod steam engine (they're really cool and I reallly want one But they cost bucks and are really only usefull for amusement value.) but they burn little fuel pellets and use steam to run them. Some where I have one of those little christmas trees that is rotated by a fan powered by a candle it's pretty nifty too.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

Just checked it out coooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!