Hybrid Power Trac

[SnowRidge]

If any of it worked, the automobile manufacturers would already have incorporated it.

 

[SnowRidge]

I never saw it, but heard of a boat that took fishing parties out on Long Island Sound - running on water. Nearly every trip, the engine would shut down. The skipper would grab a bucket & funnel and dump a couple of buckets of water into his fuel tank. What he had was a very high fuel pickup, just for the scam, and floated the fuel up to the pickup with water underneath. I never heard what happened to him if he encountered rough weather and sent a slug of seawater to his engine.
He didn't make any money selling water-fuel technology, but must have had a lot of fun.

With a little bit of luck, he had a so-called black iron tank, and it rusted out from bottom.

 

[J_J]

He just used a tank inside of a tank. Some of the moon shiners would use a gas truck with a small gas tank at the fill up port, and when tested, it was gas as far as they were concerned, but the other 5,000 gal was moonshine.

 

[Marks481]

There are some ongoing discussions here on TBN regarding the hydrogen topic. ... More efficient fuel burn.

With all the money that Toyota and Honda are pouring into the hybrid and e-car side of things, I gotta believe that their engineers already checked out this fringe "green technology" and trash-canned it. If they could even improve their fuel mileage by 5%, I am sure that they would be selling this in their fuel efficient cars.

Unless you believe the conspiracy theorists, who think all the automobile manufacturers are in bed with the oil companies and are deliberately supressing the technology that would make every consumers pay $$$ to buy a really fuel efficient car from them and give them 100% market share.

 

[SnowRidge]

With all the money that Toyota and Honda are pouring into the hybrid and e-car side of things, I gotta believe that their engineers already checked out this fringe "green technology" and trash-canned it. If they could even improve their fuel mileage by 5%, I am sure that they would be selling this in their fuel efficient cars.

Unless you believe the conspiracy theorists, who think all the automobile manufacturers are in bed with the oil companies and are deliberately supressing the technology that would make every consumers pay $$$ to buy a really fuel efficient car from them and give them 100% market share.

No debunking allowed Tim. Better watch out for those black helicopters hovering over Spa Creek!

 

[Marks481]

No debunking allowed Tim. Better watch out for those black helicopters hovering over Spa Creek!

hey, how did you know I lived there... er... you got the wrong guy, I live on the other coast....

 

[MossRoad]

YIKES!!!!

My guess is the reason automakers would not use something like this is as follows:

REASON 1: Joe Public is not intelligent.

IF it worked, and I'm not saying it does, it requires the operator of the vehicle to monitor the AMPS being pulled and to add water and caustic chemicals to a reaction tank. Joe public is not capable of that task without burning his eyes out with chemical splash and so, he will be suing the bajeebers out of the automaker.

REASON 2: It contains water and no anti-freeze.

IF it worked, and I'm not saying it does, it will freeze. Joe will have to remove it from his car anytime the temps are about to drop below freezing. That is a hassle to do, and even if you could convince Joe that it is worth it, see reason 1 as to why the car companies would not want Joe handling a small tank filled with caustic chemicals possibly several times a day.

REASON 3: Only a small percent gain in fuel economy.

IF it worked, and I'm not saying it does, it only provides a small increase in fuel economy. Lets say it gains you 10%. On a car that gets 30MPG, that will only be a 3MPG improvement. Not worth it for the hassle. If you had a car that got 10MGP and could boost it to 11MPG and drove many miles a year, it may be worth it.

SUMMARY:

IF it worked, and I'm not saying it does, the reasons are pretty clear why a car manufacturer would never install it. Joe Public is stupid, he would have to handle chemicals, the system would break the first time he let if freeze and the gains are not enough for the average person to hassle with it.

These are just my opinions, of course. No harm in tinkering with the technology.

 

[ponytug]

Dear MR,

Just to be upfront and blunt, I can tell you up front no way this technology works as advertised!!! (double underlined, and in color with triple exclamation points...)

Nevertheless, you raise an interesting point in how one might think about new technologies.

The automakers would do practically anything for an extra 3mpg. With lower diesel prices, Ford has just added shifts in its truck plant ($5k/vehicle profit), because it is selling enough small cars to meet the fuel economy standards. GM isn't. GM just notified congress that they may not make the federally mandated combined average fleet economy (CAFE) numbers, and a number of members of congress are suggesting that CAFE represents a good reason (the reason?) to allow GM to fail and just deal with the resulting mess.

improved mileage, or bankruptcy...

I think it would take a die hard conspiracy theorist to think "they" would take bankruptcy.

One item that wasn't mentioned is that emissions technologies have to work for 100,000 miles, or that they need to be cost effective. (This is where lots of aftermarket technologies do come in. If you really need that extra 100HP out of your truck for heavy hauling, then you might be willing to have the engine only last 100,000 miles, instead of 250,000 miles, deriving real benefit from a higher HP, less uniform torque, engine tune. You might also be willing to invest in a larger exhaust system, increasing noise and power. All because you have some additional needs. e.g. you are an oil prospecting company and your trucks have to haul heavy steel into the back country and it is much cheaper to have one high power truck than two smaller ones.)

For whatever reasons, the big three seem to have decided that customers want to pay $50,000 for a heavy duty diesel pickup. Freightliner has done the same math and decided that customers are willing to pay $100,000 for a diesel truck. Who is right? They are all selling trucks, but not in equal numbers, nor are there customers equally happy.

Currently, there are some technology battles going on in class 8 diesel engines to meet new EPA requirements, and one of the technologies requires injecting hydrogen (in the form of a urea solution). More than one engine company is effectively betting the company on the success of their emissions system. The forecasts are that the company that gets it right (i.e., it works at reducing emissions, it doesn't break down, and doesn't burden the driver) will add 20-40% of the market, while the losing companies will each lose 10-20%, leaving the winner with 70-80% market share. Not an insignificant shift.

Getting technologies right for commercial use can be complicated. I know of an inventor who developed a toy, but he couldn't figure out how to make it at scale. He went to a machinist and offered him half of the royalties if he could design a machine to make the toy. The machinist could, and did. Both are now quite wealthy, as koosh balls are very popular. Sometimes it pays to be generous. (Usually, I think.)

All the best,

Peter

YIKES!!!!
...
REASON 3: Only a small percent gain in fuel economy.[/U]

IF it worked, and I'm not saying it does, it only provides a small increase in fuel economy. Lets say it gains you 10%. On a car that gets 30MPG, that will only be a 3MPG improvement. Not worth it for the hassle. If you had a car that got 10MGP and could boost it to 11MPG and drove many miles a year, it may be worth it.

....

 

[cqaigy2]

Carl,

dihydrogen monoxide, run for the hills.


Peter

Pretty cute.

 

[cqaigy2]

I think looking at those different technologies very interesting too. Most of the stuff you find on the interweb kinda funny.

But some, like say the six cycle engine, look interesting but you wonder about the water that will need to be hauled around. I guess they had to figure that out in the previous centuries with steam engines.

 

[ponytug]

I enjoyed reading the 6 cycle engine material, but as soon as I read that he hadn't dyno tested it, I lost all interest. If you aren't measuring a variable, you can't improve it. So, my takeaway is that he isn't serious about making a better engine, he's just having fun. (no harm in having fun. And you can make a good dyno for less than $100 for the size engine he has.)

There is a ton of material out there, like algae companies that haven't worked out the cost of the ponds and pumps, or the algae company that claimed that they would get twice as much energy out in biodiesel as fell in sunlight on the ponds, or solar companies that assume the equipment works for thirty years, but neglects to include normal degradation in the photovoltaics, or 10 year replacements of inverters, or assume that oil will be $175/bbl or electricity rates rise at 10%/yr, or a carbon tax will be implemented next year...
As Dr. Phil says, "Get real"...

That said there are lots of interesting technologies out there and some of them might even be successful. You wouldn't need to haul around that much water; the military already reclaims water from engines as route to quality water in the field. There was a guy thirty years ago that claimed to have a 'modern' steam engine, recycling the water, with fancy triangular pistons. It seems to have been lost without a trace; I often wonder what tripped it up.

All the best,

Peter

I think looking at those different technologies very interesting too. Most of the stuff you find on the interweb kinda funny.

But some, like say the six cycle engine, look interesting but you wonder about the water that will need to be hauled around. I guess they had to figure that out in the previous centuries with steam engines.

 

[SnowRidge]

The car of the future will be electric. It's only a matter of time. It may carry a small genset to recharge the batteries on the road, but it will be an electric car, nonetheless.

 

[BobRip]

The car of the future will be electric. It's only a matter of time. It may carry a small genset to recharge the batteries on the road, but it will be an electric car, nonetheless.

It just depends on good batteries. Long life and high energy density. This battery will solve many issues. Oh well, it's only been 150 years of development so maybe there is still room left for improvement.

 

[Marks481]

It just depends on good batteries.

Actually, I believe it will depend on good capacitors (make that "ultracapacitors").

The ability to instantly recharge and discharge without waste heat generation, lifetime counted in the millions of charge/discharge cycles instead of hundreds, essentially 100% of all stored energy can be easily discharged.

Right now it is just a materials science/engineering challenge.... the holy grail is a high voltage/high capacity device (right now, you get one of the other, but not both).

EESTOR in Texas claims to have got it, but won't tell anybody about it until they finish their production tooling, because they want to milk any future patents for as long as possible.

Of course, this may also be just another flash-in-pan startup story (although they are not publicly traded).

 

[BobRip]

Actually, I believe it will depend on good capacitors (make that "ultracapacitors").

The ability to instantly recharge and discharge without waste heat generation, lifetime counted in the millions of charge/discharge cycles instead of hundreds, essentially 100% of all stored energy can be easily discharged.

Right now it is just a materials science/engineering challenge.... the holy grail is a high voltage/high capacity device (right now, you get one of the other, but not both).

EESTOR in Texas claims to have got it, but won't tell anybody about it until they finish their production tooling, because they want to milk any future patents for as long as possible.

Of course, this may also be just another flash-in-pan startup story (although they are not publicly traded).

Super capacitors have great promise and I really hope it works out. The bain of most portable products over the past years was always the battery. I think now thought more resources will be put into batteries and super capacitors and maybe other storage devices. A wise man once said "We don't have a shortage of energy, just a lack of good storage." Robert Heinlein's Shipstone technology would really be great.

The best batteries have about 4% of the energy density of gasoline. Present day supercapacitors have much less than that (1/20 comes to mine, but I am not sure). This is a huge handicap. Let's hope EEstore is for real.
Oh, the GM Volt battery has about 1% of the energy density of gasoline. Actually I think the future of cars is to get the weight down. A 5000 lb truck carrying around a 200 lb man is very inefficient. To solve this would be a huge step forward.

 

[woodlandfarms]

An interesting read that is reasonably current

Checking the Facts In the EEStore Lockheed Agreement | New Energy and Fuel

 

[SnowRidge]

When they get the energy density up there, whether it is a capacitor or battery, there will be an interesting problem to solve. How do you prevent the instantaneous release of all that energy if an accident causes a dead short across the storage device?

A fully charged 150 megajoule battery or capacitor, which should give an electric car a driving range equivalent to a full 13 gallon tank in a gasoline powered economy car, contains energy equivalent to the explosive force of 72 lbs of TNT.

 

[MossRoad]

When they get the energy density up there, whether it is a capacitor or battery, there will be an interesting problem to solve. How do you prevent the instantaneous release of all that energy if an accident causes a dead short across the storage device?

A fully charged 150 megajoule battery or capacitor, which should give an electric car a driving range equivalent to a full 13 gallon tank in a gasoline powered economy car, contains energy equivalent to the explosive force of 72 lbs of TNT.

I read a story last year about a guy that drag races electric vehicles. Neat comments about a plasma cloud when there was trouble. There are a few stories out there about fire/rescue crews having to train for dealing with electric cars in wrecks, too.

Personally, I would like a plug-in car the could run 50 miles on battery for my daily commuting, with the capacity to go 300+ miles on gas for vacations, and have the room, size and performance of our Impala LS.... for under $20,000.00.

 

[woodlandfarms]

In los angeles you have a nearly impossible time finding junked electric cars. As you said, fire departments here in LA have to train on them for extraction purposes. Know where to cut and what to cut. So (at least last year) when one gets totalled out the city pounces on it.

 

[BobRip]

When they get the energy density up there, whether it is a capacitor or battery, there will be an interesting problem to solve. How do you prevent the instantaneous release of all that energy if an accident causes a dead short across the storage device?

A fully charged 150 megajoule battery or capacitor, which should give an electric car a driving range equivalent to a full 13 gallon tank in a gasoline powered economy car, contains energy equivalent to the explosive force of 72 lbs of TNT.

Another good point. With a battery both the fuel and the oxygen (so to speak) are stored in the same tank. At least with gasoline they keep the two separate. There are standard battery test that these must pass, but are they enough given how new this is. I noticed that the GM Volt has the battery very well physically protected.

So we don't build small cards because they are dangerous, but we will put a huge battery in a big car. There are always unintended consequences for anything you do. A small diesel car is looking better and better.