Here are two items that are on topic if one is taking medication for delerium tremens or suchlike. Otherwise they are ever so slightly off topic, but do relate to economies if you stretch some points tangentially. (BTW did you ever notice that it is really hard to type with boxing gloves on? The Palm Pilot takes advantage of this phenomona and is therefore widely used by most ring enthusiasts. Mental note to self -- short Palm))
Note one. Does anyone seriously think that the CANADIAN SOFTWOOD PRICE ADVANTAGE have anything to do with anything other than the exchange rate between the Canadian and US dollar? Let's face factotum one. The canuck buck is weak and it doesn't take many ameribucks to buy a wheelbarrow load of beaver chips, or any other artifact made with beaver chips. (rough hewn logs, square wheeled cars etc..) If the states of canuckiana were not so reg-tape bound, it would make sense to make things here using the illiterate, unskilled fr. and other peasants and ship the stuff to similarly impoverished 3rd world countries.
note twoHas anyone noticed that cars are heavy and bulky for no good reason? I mean when one crunches shut the rusty, creaky, two ton door of the family flivver does it not dawn on one that the gas bill is high for a reason? One cringes when seeing the bill from the neighbourhood wallet deflater and snack shop, otherwise known as a gas bar, but waitaminute.. is all this really necessary? Let's do away with the gas guzzler forever! The hell with Hewlett Packard Durants and Rolls Canardlies! It ain't rocket science. Weight friction and drag could be reduced by a grade 8 science class. Let's face it, most cars go down the road with one idiot in them, perhaps two. How big do they need to be? Most of the time they are slowing down, accelerating, or stopped in a city. Free travel at speed is rare. So let's get the design right. Buckminster Fuller was right. Air drag is very important. Detroit engineers are ficked or facked at least.
In 1954 an edition of popular mechanics had an article that told of a test in the States were there was a contest between engineers to get the most mileage out of a standard 4 or 6 cylinder automobile. The average mileage for autos then was about 20 miles per gallon. The winner, under special conditions, on a several mile straight track, got 160 miles per gallon!
This is true! How did they do it? It was without any streamlining and special driving. Here are some of their techniques. They unhooked the cooling system, removed all belts for pump and alternator, lightened the flywheel, pumped the tires to 100 pounds pressure, took the seats and all other unecessary weight out, made the bearings total-loss oil drip by removing the seals, advanced the timing till the engine almost backfired, leaned the carburetor to just about no-fire, insulated the engine head, removed the exhaust header for lower backpressure, and put in a much lighter grade of oil. How did they drive? This will surprise most people. They started in third gear and engaged the starter, accelerated to 15 miles per hour, then cut the engine completely and pushed in the clutch. They coasted to almost stopped then engaged the clutch and hit the starter again and repeated the process. This was necessary in part because the engine had no cooling system but it is also the most efficient way to drive. An engine gets it best mileage when lugging or accelerating on level ground, and that is optimal for start up speeds, in high gear, not cruising at 35 as most manuals will tell you! They really did get 160 MPG! Way back then.
What principles did they use?
1. Lower weight.
2. lower rolling friction, in harder tires.
3. higher engine heat for more efficiency (a combustion engines loses work-heat to the cooling system, it should have an exhaust temp the same as burning temp, for best efficiency, but this would melt engine.)
4. better power utilization efficiency curve (acceleration
in direct drive.)
5. combustion at late time, for better power, no work against up stroke more complete burning.
6. less engine friction, drag on power.
7. leaner gas mixture. (runs hotter too)
Starting an engine that many times and running lugging at low speed in high gear sounds crazy, and counter to what you have heard. But what you have heard is wrong. This way worked.
*****************************
Practically how do we use this? In fact, steam power is more efficient than even diesel. A steam engine can get almost 45% efficiency when well built. (Most used to get 25% in the old days, though.) You get from 18% to 27% for gas engines. Gas engines should be more efficient but no one has found a way to capture the waste heat from the exhaust or cooling system. There is a way that is elegant -- but later.
If one reduced the weight, rolling friction, aerodynamic cross section, drag, and engine efficiency of a car, one could easily triple or quintuple one's mileage. So get serious. Go to super hard bicyles wheels, make the thing out of titanium frame with plastic cover, (it's stronger anyway than steel), make the engine out of titanium using steam to generate electricity, and put electric motors with gas bearings directly on the wheels, and make the car bullet shaped. You know you could get 100+ MPG!
1. Save 40% in weight with frame and skin, smaller engine. (1200 lb vehicle) (60% of the fuel)
2. Save 30% in steam efficiency. (70% of the fuel after battery and generation losses)
3. Save 15% in aerodynamic efficiency.
4. save 10% in harder tires and lower bearing friction.
5. Save 35% in utilization of energy on demand. (electric)
6. Save 25% in using energy of engine at constant speed-best power.
7. Save 15% or more in regeneration braking.
Start with one gallon. From 1 to 6, undeniable savings in engineering truths, you get 0.6, 0.42, 0.357, 0.321, 0.208, 0.157. 0.133 So using all 7 efficiencies you get a 16 MPG vehicle in start stop traffic to 16/0.107 = 120 miles per gallon! No BS. It can be done.
And you could do better still. With a fuel cell of KOH or by using waste heat from the steam, you could get number two to 0.30 per perhaps 0.20! Possibly 240 MPG! Could it be possible? Everything says it is possible. The 1954 tests still used very wasteful energy methods and heavy 2100 pound vehicles and got 160 MPG. This is not fiction. It is not the Pogue carburetor. This works. And I will tell you something. As good as all this sounds you could do better! It is possible with present technology to get all the waste heat out of a steam or combustion engine. And forget what you have heard about gas burning fuel cells. They waste all kinds of energy getting the fuel out of fossil fuels. It is no solution unless you can generate electricty to make hydrogen at efficiencies higher than the 70 to 80% the fuel cell is claimed to make. Reformers have to be drastically changed to get better efficiency for fuel cells to compete head to head. If one made the internal combustion engine to its theoretical efficiency it would get 70 to 80% efficiency! That is what Sadi Carnot said, who first thought of them, and he was right. Trouble is no one has thought of a way to do that. The heat of the exhaust has to practically equal the burning temperature, and then you have to use that heat too. When the exhaust heat is stable at high temperatures, the engine reaches that temp too. Hard to keep an engine running at 1800 degrees farenheit.
OK, it's not gold. But think of the gold you could afford to buy with a much more efficient mode of transportation.
EC<:-} |
