Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Brilliant

I am no physics guy, but it seems to me if the heat was already created, you lost a chance to more efficiently turn it into electricity before it was turned into heat.

Now you want to undo the heat that was generated? Sounds a lot like shutting the barn door after the horses got out.


29 posted on 03/24/2008 6:25:18 AM PDT by HD1200
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies ]


To: HD1200

I see your point. But burning gasoline is necessarily going to create heat. The question is whether you can somehow utilize it rather than waste it as we are doing now.

Of course, a fuel cell will convert the fuel directly into electricity without first converting it to heat. That would be preferrable, I guess, if you can make the fuel cell idea work. And even then, there is some wastage in the creation of heat.


32 posted on 03/24/2008 6:31:23 AM PDT by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies ]

To: HD1200

I am no physics guy, but it seems to me if the heat was already created, you lost a chance to more efficiently turn it into electricity before it was turned into heat.
*****************************************************
I’m no physics or chemistry guy either but I know that gas engines need to be kept in a narrow temperature range to avoid creating pollutants that cannot be recombined/destroyed in a catalytic converter,, most of todays engines could be made much more energy efficient if we rolled back pollution controls to the early 1990’s or so and reprogrammed the fuel and ignition curves. Capturing and using the heat created after the fact is the only workable solution I see to creating electricity via induction as he proposed... Think about how inefficient your cars alternator is ,, it makes AC power (which is why it’s called an alternator) and then 1/2 of the wave is discarded using a diode to turn the output to DC..


35 posted on 03/24/2008 6:37:49 AM PDT by Neidermeyer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies ]

To: HD1200

I am a physics guy, and the heat Brilliant is talking about is waste heat due to the fact that engines are far from 100% efficient. If you can turn that into useful energy with a TE device, that would be fine, but cost-effectiveness and the useful integration of the energy into the rest of the electrical system would be the main issues.


37 posted on 03/24/2008 6:42:25 AM PDT by expatpat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson