Air powered technology

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jimmy101
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Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:38 pm

A compressed air car is going to be inherantly inefficient. No ifs ands or butts about it. The thermodynamics are all wrong and regardless of what folks claim, thermodynamics is the boss of the universe.

Some obvious problems;
1. You can't easily compress air to a liquid, that means the storage capacity of a tank is going to be very small. CO2 would be much better since it can be liquified at much lower pressures.
2. When you compress a gas it heats up, a lot. That heat is lost to the environment. That heat cost $$$ to produce. You can't easily recover most of that lost heat. (Heck, you can see this with a garden variety compressor, the hose from the compressor head to the storage tank will get too hot to touch. That's wasted energy.)

Jitup: The NASA guy was pulling your leg. Yes, enzymes can indeed be very epensive. However, I know of no process that is feasable on a small scale that isn't more feasable on a large scale.
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jitup
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Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:24 pm

Jimmy, I know and I am a little ticked :evil: I was crunching the numbers over the enzyme pricing and it is cheaper and way more efficient to produce large quantities of ethanol using my process! :twisted:
I would still like to give my start up a shot but I am still short a whole lota cash and no bank is going to loan to a 17 year old. I am sill refining the formula. I Reiterate Ethanol Is NOT the Solution It will just help ease the crisis if it is not made of corn
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judgment_arms
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Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:42 pm

Bah...
this is just an idea I've been working on but...

what about steam?
if you had an electrolysis machine to separate the hydrogen and oxygen out of water, I guess it's called dihydrogen oxide gas. (I could tell you some funny stories about dihydrogen oxide :D )
used the H2O gas to fuel the fire.
used the steam produced to run the car, truck, generator, etc.
the exhaust gas passes through a second set of cylinders which generates electricity to run the electrolysis machine, then is condensed back to water and dumped into the electrolysis machine.

the basic design would be akin to an articulated engine, except the second set of cylinders would run the generator.

all you'd have to do (once it got started) was provide water.

so, no it's not something from nothing, it's something from water.


if you could separate the hydrogen and oxygen you could then adjust the mix to produce the hottest fire possible. the hotter fire would be more efficient by generating more steam for the given amount of fuel.


sorry for getting off subject, just adding my "green" power plan...
oh how I loathe this whole notion of "green"...
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Fnord
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Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:14 pm

Sorry Judge, but you violated the laws of thermodynamics in there somewhere:). In a non-perfect world it takes more energy to split water than you get from burning it.

I don't want to veer too far off topic so I'll just leave it at that.

To the rest:
If you want to get into alternative fuels, think about this: Every type of naturally occurring fuel on the planet contains energy from one source: the sun*.
The process for storing this energy into plant matter (photosynthesis) is, at MOST, around 15% efficient (correct me if I'm wrong).

Solar cells have already passed this number, so the only practical problem is producing solar cells that are cheaper to make/maintain than an equivalent field of biodiesel corn or whatever.

This won't happen soon, but in the future it will. Right now we just need to start trying to produce this stuff as cheap as possible. Battery power-to-weight ratios also need to get better for non-hydrogen electric cars to be useful.

*Geothermal energy isn't significant enough to mention in this case, but it is a viable energy source if converted directly to electricity or steam.
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judgment_arms
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Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:12 pm

_Fnord wrote:Sorry Judge, but you violated the laws of thermodynamics in there somewhere:). In a non-perfect world it takes more energy to split water than you get from burning it.

I don't want to veer too far off topic so I'll just leave it at that.
Bah... oh well...

fine by me though, Coal is infinitely simpler to use.

my real vote is on coal, there's enough coal in the Pocahontas alone to power these United States, not including the several hundred square miles that is burning and could be tapped in a manner similar to geothermal.
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john bunsenburner
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Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:34 am

Ok i think we are looking at alerntive energy with a Co2 output that is 0 or close to that. Solar energy costs alot, geothermal is very difficult in most places but island, WVO is a good idea only in america and other Mc. Donalts ruled contries, hydor electric is good but is a bummer for the enviroment, HHO or browns gas wont work much, Bio gas works well, and compressed air need something to compress it but has potentual as an energy carrier. I quite like the idea of geothermal and nuclear fusion(latter i did not mention) but if you have anything to add to my list then please do so, i just supplied some ideas, and im happy to elaborate, i think this is an interesting topic and if we, spud gunners could solve the energy crisis that would just be awsome, so keep discussing and talking, ill pop by every o often to see whats happening, inbetween that i will think of other fuels. Hope to hear many ideas from you all!
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starman
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Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:05 am

john bunsenburner wrote:Ok i think we are looking at alerntive energy with a Co2 output that is 0 or close to that.
This isn't going to happen on any real meaningful scale and nor does it need to. I'm with Judge on this whole "green" talk. CO2 is not a poison nor is it a "greenhouse gas". The earth requires it for its very survival and it is extremely efficient at scrubbing it and producing it as required. There is no proven correlation between CO2 levels as a causative function of planet temperatures. On the contrary, it has been shown that as CO2 levels rise as a result of warm temperature swings. If there is any corrolation as all, it's a result...not a cause.

The whole global warming hokum has been thoroughly debunked by highly educated scientists. Open your eyes folks, do some research, ask critical questions, don't blindly accept the propaganda and above all, don't allow yourselves to be deceived into being a joiner.
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john bunsenburner
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Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:19 am

you might be right but there are three reasons so use fuels with a low CO2 out put:

1.People buy them which is important
2. They are mostly natural and grow back and so we dont need to dig for coal or oil(or really on others to do so....)
3. who knows maybe you are wrong maybe you are not but i think it seems obvious that chemicals that are chemically stored over millions of years arent the best ting for our atmostphere are they(ok the last one was dumb but who knows)

And if we find the GREEN FUEL the wold is talking about it wold be great, even if it doesnt reallly make a difference... and im not totally sure if you are right, no offence but still
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MrCrowley
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Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:25 am

You all know why.
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