[NicknamedBob]

"I didn't use that word."

Cheap shot on my part.

"I'm just not sure it's worth doing."

The conventional wisdom would say, "No, we've tried that, and it didn't work."

I'm suggesting we look at all the systems together, and find a way to recover the energy of the heat that is thrown away in the radiator.

At the very least, a system which allowed some heat storage during close-haul trips could be coupled to housing units, to distribute "free heat" into the house after you run down to the store for milk, bread, and eggs.

The current "energy crisis" is not the shortage of the seventies. This one is for the long haul, and we have to put our thinking caps on. It would be stupid not to.

[VadeRetro]

The conventional wisdom would say, "No, we've tried that, and it didn't work."

Yes, but there's a reason why it didn't work. I say it's a wash because, while the expansion of liquid water to steam generates gas pressure, the quenching action of converting the liquid to steam steals from the heat and thus the gas pressure you got from burning the gasoline. You've already liberated the energy, you're just making it do more work inside the cylinder.

Yes, with the engines we have now, even after you let the pressure off, there's still residual energy in the exhaust. All we do with it now is warm the passenger compartment in winter and dissipate the excess with the radiator. There might be something you can do with that, but it's hard to see just what.

[ForGod'sSake]

This thread has sortof taken a turn, where's Rube when you need him???

And no Forrest Gump fans either???