Wow........ 6783 mpg on ethanol.

[Joe 1320]

Simply amazing. No, it's not missing a decimal poiint, that's over Six Thousand Miles Per Gallon. Some of this has to make it into production vehicles.


http://news.cnet.com/Ethanol-car-win...ht&tag=nl.e433

[BrdWAtti2d]

I think their math is off a little in the conversion but stunning the less.

[Joe 1320]

I think their math is off a little in the conversion but stunning the less.

Yeah.


Still, the kind of mileage that they are getting is nuts.

[FroSSty]

Read some of the comments...very interesting to say the least. Any thoughts on this? How hard is it to manufacture liquid nitrogen?

RE: Why not air powered cars? by acensor May 24, 2006 9:31 AM PDT Using compressed/liquified air to run cars is a fine idea. It has many advantages over the much touted liquid hydrogen fuel (which is what fuel cell cars run on.) Compressed air is 80% nitrogen so this option is sometime referred to runing cars on liquid nitrogen or "an LN2 economy" as contrasted to the much touted "hydrogen economy."

Unfortunately both a highly misleading in that it is most important to note that hydrogen fuel cells are not a source of energy ...The energy still has to be produced elsewhere. Hydrogen, like compressed air, is a way of DISTRIBUTING energy. This is a major issue, which sadly is either not understood, ignored, or minimized ("Oh, I suppose we can get the energy from solar or something") as "this is so cool that we can worry about THAT issue later" type of response.

Problem is that if the energy to release/store hydrogen comes from oil/fossil fuels (as 85% of it does now) it actually would INCREASE our dependence on oil and INCREASE greenhouse gases.
So, UNTIL the issue of "where will the energy come from" is resolved celebrating and promoting the hydrogen economy OR compressed air (nitrogen economy) as our savior is grossly and dangerously misleading -- a head-in-the-sand posture.

# Driving energy by nuclear power is a possible solution. However,the seriousness seriousness of the waste storage problem has been underestimated -- and I don't just mean the political/NIMBY problems.
Also, in "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg (I recommend it to anyone seriously interested in understanding the consequences of our dependence on oil) he has analyzed the nuclear power option, and among the several show stoppers there is that there just isn't that much uranium in the world. So nuclear power won't save us. He goes further to say "it is a mistake to view oil depletion as [just] a technical problem that can be solved by substituting other energy sources of petroleum." In this space I can't cover his reasons for that apparently counter-intuitive statement but would suggest he makes a compelling case.

# Of course that is no reason to not (a)look for alternative energy sources (b) look for a good way to distribute that energy safely and economically, and (c) make great increases in how efficiently we use energy. This is called "conservation". Duh!

# That, "b", being said, although liquid hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells as a distribution system for energy to have some advantages, there is an easier better way to accomplish the same trick.
It has been tried, works, well researched, and mostly ignored:
LIQUID NITROGEN can be use to run engines. Liquid nitrogen expands by 980 times its volume when changing from a liquid to a gas. Expansion means pressure which translates to power.



It has been tried, works, well researched, and mostly ignored:
LIQUID NITROGEN (or compressed/liquified air) can be use to run engines. Liquid nitrogen expands by 980 times its volume when changing from a liquid to a gas. Expansion means pressure which translates to power.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen_economy

http://membership.acs.org/i/indiana/...magination.htm

http://www.aa.washington.edu/AERP/CR...Page/Index.htm

http://www.keelynet.com/energy/boese.htm

http://www.perendev-power.com/My_Hom...es/Page18.html

Running a liquid nitrogen economy (N2 liquified) -- LN2 for short -- has the following significant advantages over trying to distribute power in the form of liquid hydrogen:

~ Unlike Hydrogen, nitrogen neither burns nor explodes (remember the Hindenberg?) The safety issues in its transportation and storage are far less than for that of hydrogen, and are already well developed as large quantifies of it are already moved around the country.

~ The engines that run on liquid nitrogen are far more conventional, arguably simpler, and easier to get into large scale production than fuel cell engines.

~ Nitrogen is 80% of the air we breath so releasing nitrogen out the tailpipe of a car is even less enviromentally intrusive than releasing hot-water-vapor (which comes our of a hydrogen car).

~ Unlike a hydrogen fuel cell engine a LN2 engine produces NO heat.

~ LN2 engines are likely to be extremely long lived as they have no heat, no heat degrading the lubricant, etc.

~ A minor advantage is that a car running on N2 needs no airconditioner as a by product of its running is cold air.

~ A fleet of millions of LN2 cars running in a large city would actually COOL the air in the summer and improve the climate and livability of cities like LA and Phoenix.

~ Last, but perhaps not least, public fear of nitrogen should be less. It can be sold to Ma and Pa America, quite honestly, as totally non-toxic, totally natural (remember 80% of what you're breating right now is nitrogen), and totally un-flamable an non explosive.

For more info on the LN2 option you can contact
liquidnitrogeneconomy@kineticphotons.fastmail.fm

[Black97]

Do they have holes in floor boards like the Flintstones so they can peddle.

[markd79ta]

Here is the biggest problem we face. Everybody is looking for the silver bullet to replace oil and fossil fuels. The answer is this; we need a combination of things including fossil fuels. Use coal and gas power plants and supplement it with nuclear, solar, wind, etc. Allow the alternatives to catch up. Cars can burn on many things including natural gas, biofuel, hydrogen, etc., or run on electricity. Remove the restrictions and barriers that prevent small companies and individuals from converting existing cars to alternative fuel sources while allowing the owners to actually drive them without having to go through a million point EPA process and rejection. Drill, Drill, Drill!!! ....oh, and refine the stuff!!!! The problem is that we have too much bureaucratic red tape, restrictions, and opinions getting in the way of common sense. If we faced this issue in the early 20th century or 19th century where innovation was encouraged and rewarded, we wouldn't have an issue. Shoot, now I can't even change a spark plug without a bureaucrat sticking his scope up my ***. There are options, we just need to be free to test them. A guy in his garage could come up with the next big thing; too bad the EPA says no.

[darkhorsecustoms]

I think their math is off a little in the conversion but stunning the less.

Math is right. You have to realize, that before it's converted, they're talking about km per liter. If you convert it to miles, you get 1792.656 miles per liter. Then you convert liters to gallons, and you get 6785.941534272 mpg.

[Roger in Kensington]

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying it. I've seen this sort of thing before, such as the "500-mpg of gasoline" car when, reading a bit farther, you discover that they were mainly running on something else (battery, ethanol, methane, etc.) and only used the gasoline engine under certain conditions. When using gasoline, the car would get no better economy than what you would expect. It would go 500 miles, but not on a gallon of gasoline

So, I don't believe the article is telling the whole story. Besides, ethanol has -- what? -- 70% the energy of the same volume of gasoline? Does 6000+ mpg sound plausible to you?

By the way, did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?

Fact is, it will take a certain amount of energy to move a certain mass through a certain distance at a certain speed. You may be able to do it more efficiently with one power source than another, but there's no magic here.

People don't believe me when I tell them my TA routinely gets 30+ mpg on the highway. Nevertheless, I have the records to prove it. At 70, it's loafing along at 1750-1800 rpm. Once it's in motion, it doesn't take a lot to keep it in motion. And if you are on a road with few hills and have the cruise control set in 6th gear, and no stops, it will get very good mileage.

Think wind power is the answer? Take a look at this:

http://www.protectillinoisenvironmen...tentenergy.htm