Peewee Power

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | July 2002 | Fred Hapgood

[anymouse]

Interesting tech.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

For me, a non-engineering type, this kind of work sounds fascinating. Thanks for the post.

[Mr. K]

how about an electric car based on a grapefruit (or smaller) sized model?

[concretebob]

I wonder how long it is.

I mean, a quarter is what, 3/4" in diameter?
They surely don't mean it's the same size, i.e. thickness, of a quarter.

Wonder if it would work on a skateboard?

or mini-bike

go-kart????

[Publius6961]

What a fascinating article! As an engineer, however, this article raises more questions than it answers.
The diameter of a quarter? or the volume of a quarter? Why no pictures or diagrams? It takes a lot to get me excited about new technology, most modern technology is an abuse of a good thing (how many people actually need telephones that take pictures? The abuse of that "good" thing far outweighs its benefits, but I digress...)

I would certainly be excited with the idea of investing in the practical uses of this technology. And, in theory at least, it should not be limited to being fueled by kerosene. Why not hydrogen? grain alcohol? the possibilities are endless.

[G.Mason]

Interesting.

Thanks.

[spodefly]

Ounce for ounce, a minuscule turbine generator fueled by kerosene could produce 10 to 20 times the power of a conventional battery ... a cell phone cartridge might fuel 72 hours of conversation.

HELLO??!! HELLOOOOO??!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU .. MY CELL PHONE TURBINE GENERATOR IS RUNNING.

[BwanaNdege]

I haven't tried posting photos yet, but here's a link with photo.

http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage1569.html

[theFIRMbss]

>"we probably will use these microturbines the most in areas we conceive of the least"

Well, we all know who
is always first to make use
of leading edge tech:

somehow the porn folk
will find a way to market
turbine adult toys . . .

[REDWOOD99]

Imagine the helmet you'd have to wear!

[RAY]

Gas turbines are not particularly energy efficient. There so much heat lost in the exhaust and compression of the incoming air. In large power stations, the heat in the exhaust is captured to generate steam which in turn drives the a steam turbine - so you have the gas turbine driving a generator and a steam turbine driving a generator from the same fuel charge. Thermal efficiencies of these set-ups (combined cycle), roughly speaking, are somewhat over 50%. However, a typical gas turbine alone has a maximum thermal efficiency of upwards to 35%. There are some more recent developments that are doing somewhat better.

In a small system, it may be more difficult to take the advantages demonstrated in large power plants. However, as a mechanical engineer, all such development are exciting - and we are often surprised by innovators who take such development much further than expected.

[mamelukesabre]

Ah, you are thinking way too big. This is a very small device for generating very small amounts of EKECTRICAL power. Think more along the lines of a pen light that runs on kerosene, rather than batteries. It's going to be a long long time before this tech turns into anything useful.

The mention of using it to power a hair dryer is kind of dumb, in my opinion. All he did to come up with that silly idea was to try to think of an application that would turn it's biggest flaw(heat) into an asset...tada! a hair dryer...whatever.

Here's a bit of not so useful info for you. turbine engines are not very efficient. THe military uses them because they can generate very large amounts of power from a small, light package. But the downside is they practically need a tanker truck full of fuel too run them...just not very useful in normal day to day life.

The best use I can think up with(and I'm just a layman, no scientist) is something to do with robotics or small scale remote control vehicles...toys...maybe scaled down versions of those little moon rovers and such.

[BJClinton]

[Rane _H]

Hopefully the explosiveness of the fuel won't hold its development back too much. I doubt they would be allowed on airlines in the near future anyways.

As mentioned before, the porn people will definitely take advantage of something like this. Yikes!

I'm not too knowlegdable on it but would the fuel requirements for this thing actually be much bigger than what could fit into a typical battery? (proportional to the product it's powering, of course)

[Laserman]

Actually they do mean the size of a quarter.

[genefromjersey]

Yeah ! A $ 3 million hairdryer !

[nuke rocketeer]

I remember Mechanical Engineering magazine had an article on these and other MEMS a while back. Utterly facinating. They also are working on pumps.

[nuke rocketeer]

gas turbines are more efficient than an internal combustion engine.

[WayneH]

You have to read a copy of "Trustee from the Toolroom" by Nevil Shute, who also wrote "On the Beach". The trustee has this miniature "petrol" engine which he amuses people while he is searching for his niece and nephew(I think) in the South Pacific.

[jim_trent]

They are going to need a VERY small funnel to refuel it.