NationStates Jolt Archive

Okay so these tough times with high fuel prices have many of us wondering how bad it will get and what we can do about it since the car manufacturers are giving us cars giving 35 MPG and trying to pass that off as some kind of environmentally friendly breakthrough.

One potential solution/scam that I have seen gaining traction lately is this water4gas thing. Have you heard of it? Here, hear about it: http://water4gas.com/

It doesn't take much searching on the webonet to find lively debates about it's effectiveness and the motives of the ebook publishers. I just want someone I know to try it so I can see if it works at all.

At http://www.auto-facts.org/water4gas-scam.html we find someone who did an independent test (with video) and says it is built on sound principles.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

but who needs that? Some engineer in Ohio made a few electronics changes to his '87 Ford Mustang and now it gets 110 MPG without sacrificing horsepower. He's competing for the $10 Million X Prize.
http://www.kmbc.com/automotive/16768626/detail.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


There are a few boring tips and tricks that can help us save a half a mile per gallon here and there like driving 55 MPH, properly inflating the tires and whatnot. But who needs those with crazy stuff like the above? :eek:


Do you have any interesting stuff to share with us regarding this topic? What are you doing to use less fuel? Right now I am just driving as little as possible. I'm considering getting an electric scooter.

I'm trying to drive less frequently. I find it helps if I get drunk more often.

People are always apt to try to stop you if you're going to go drive drunk. They seem to not care if you're going to drive sober. They gotta give me more credit. I mean, like I can't hit a schoolbus and kill 30 children unless I'm drunk? Fuck that, I can do that any time!

The Mustang sounds like bullshit.

Thermodynamic efficiency of any internal combustion engine, depending on type, have long had fixed ideal limits.

38% for a piston engine just isn't possible, especially driven at variable speeds.

Gas turbines can reach that level or higher, depending on design and other constraints.

From wikipedia on gas turbines:

As with all cyclic heat engines, higher combustion temperature means greater efficiency. The limiting factor is the ability of the steel, nickel, ceramic, or other materials that make up the engine to withstand heat and pressure. Considerable engineering goes into keeping the turbine parts cool. Most turbines also try to recover exhaust heat, which otherwise is wasted energy. Recuperators are heat exchangers that pass exhaust heat to the compressed air, prior to combustion. Combined cycle designs pass waste heat to steam turbine systems.

You can go as high as 60% with a combined cycle design running at constant speed. So, if you had a gas turbine at your house, and used it to charge your car's batteries, that would get you a lot more "miles per gallon of fuel" than anything else on the road today. But who has room for the turbine (which is also loud) and the steam turbine waste heat recuperator?

What if Gull Island will give us all the fuel we'll ever need? :p

Water injection is viable. They used it in some supercharged fighter planes during WW2 as a short power boost. The idea is that the water that you directly inject into the cylinder adds more combustable oxygen to the mix and acts as a medium of the explosion, rather than just oxygen that burns in combustion. However, the problem is that, left unburned, water droplets are as hazardous as small BBs in your combustion cylinder. This is why Water/Alcohol injection has been fostered recently.

However, the other problem of water injection is that IT INCREASES FUEL CONSUMPTION. :D

two best ways to increase fuel effeciency of a motor vehicule:

remove two of the wheels, 9/10ths of the fraime and nearly all of the sheet metal.

or, add four more wheels, small diamiter steel ones with flanges on one side of each, arrainged in two four wheel bogeys, and put it on narrow gauge rails.

both of these types of vehicule increase fuel effecience more then double, closer to something like five fold actually.

either of these can be run on some sort of stored energy, ultimately charged up from a grid that could be powered without burning anything. (thus 100% "fuel efficiency" in the sense that no "fuel" as such is thereby involved)

both are friendlier to the envronment too, requiring something like 1/12th as much real estate for right of way.

and while batteries are the obvious way to store propulsion energy, other methods exist and could be used as well.

=^^=
.../\...

and while batteries are the obvious way to store propulsion energy, other methods exist and could be used as well.

=^^=
.../\...

Rubber bands for instance. :)

Rubber bands for instance. :)

actually clockworks, flywheels and compressed air cylanders. the perry people mover, which is a kind of narrow gauge tram, uses a flywheel to store energy.

'rubber bands' of a sort COULD actually be used, but you wouldn't want to be around when one that could do the job eventually cuts loose!

air motors are kind of noisy, but entirely viable and really do exist, both cylander and turbine types, powered by stored compressed air.

there are lots of real alternatives possible, only a matter of engineering, not really totally new tecnologies, and every one mentioned HAS been used in one or more special application as a form of traction power.

obviously none of them enrich the current robber barons which are today into oil, automobiles and roadbuilding.

which is just as obviously the real main reason we're not seeing them, and governments choose policies that don't favor them, even though those policies are hurting everyone except the robber barons in question.

people bitch about paying four dollars at the pump, in total ignorance or indifference to the reality that there are people paying with their lives, through no choice of their own, and reaping no bennifit what so ever into the 'bargan'.

if it's fair for railroads to be taxed to build highways, its just as fair for oil companies to be taxed to pay for bussess and trolleys.

=^^=
.../\...

Okay so these tough times with high fuel prices have many of us wondering how bad it will get and what we can do about it since the car manufacturers are giving us cars giving 35 MPG and trying to pass that off as some kind of environmentally friendly breakthrough.

One potential solution/scam that I have seen gaining traction lately is this water4gas thing. Have you heard of it? Here, hear about it: http://water4gas.com/

It doesn't take much searching on the webonet to find lively debates about it's effectiveness and the motives of the ebook publishers. I just want someone I know to try it so I can see if it works at all.

At http://www.auto-facts.org/water4gas-scam.html we find someone who did an independent test (with video) and says it is built on sound principles.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

but who needs that? Some engineer in Ohio made a few electronics changes to his '87 Ford Mustang and now it gets 110 MPG without sacrificing horsepower. He's competing for the $10 Million X Prize.
http://www.kmbc.com/automotive/16768626/detail.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


There are a few boring tips and tricks that can help us save a half a mile per gallon here and there like driving 55 MPH, properly inflating the tires and whatnot. But who needs those with crazy stuff like the above? :eek:



I don't think anyone cares how " environmentally friendly " a car is. I did not think about how environmentally friendly my new car was when I bought it, nor did I think about it when I bought my other 2 cars.

My 07 Civic SI gets about 23mpg average between highway and city driving.
The 95 V8 T-bird gets about 12 Average.
The Volvo gets about 11mpg average.

Thats not to bad if you ask me.

People who go out and buy Prius's are fools, if you really want good fuel milage , don't change your car. Change how you drive. It really is that fucking simple.

I've gotten my Civic SI up to 47mpg on the highway before. And it has TWICE the power of a Prius. Suck it hybrids.
My 251RWHP ( its modified ) Thunderbird has gotten up to 32 on the highway before. Suck it small cars that get 28.

If you want to save gas. Slow the hell down.

my 1962 honda 55 (two wheeler) had a .8 gallon tank and generally went between 150 and 200 miles before needing refueling. i don't know what the bhp of those 55cc's was, but i know they wouldn't, even then, let anything under 125 on the freeway.

i aggree about the slowing down thing, and that most people are both ignorant, usually innocently, and rather gullable. i don't think caring about the environment is a bad idea though, as after all that IS where the air we breathe comes from and i don't think our speices would last very long without it.

of course there is a lot of flim flaming based on people's gullability about that too, just like about anything else that comes to political attention.

behind the fog and spin there are realities, that really do affect peoples lives, even when connecting the dots is neither obvious nor intuitive.

magic wands that will let people get away with being irresponsible without costing them something somewhere don't exist. hybreds and even streight electrics aren't such magic wands, but the day will come, when petrolium based propulsion WILL no longer be practical for the average joe public. that day isn't here yet. might not be for several decades, but inevitable it reamains that such a day will arrive.

probably within the lifetime of most ns'ers. possibly, though not too probably within what remains of my own.

=^^=
.../\...

5/10

You get points for knowing what your talking about, but lose about half for failing to realize LG's statement was in jest.

I don't think anyone cares how " environmentally friendly " a car is. I did not think about how environmentally friendly my new car was when I bought it, nor did I think about it when I bought my other 2 cars.

My 07 Civic SI gets about 23mpg average between highway and city driving.
The 95 V8 T-bird gets about 12 Average.
The Volvo gets about 11mpg average.

Thats not to bad if you ask me.

People who go out and buy Prius's are fools, if you really want good fuel milage , don't change your car. Change how you drive. It really is that fucking simple.

I've gotten my Civic SI up to 47mpg on the highway before. And it has TWICE the power of a Prius. Suck it hybrids.
My 251RWHP ( its modified ) Thunderbird has gotten up to 32 on the highway before. Suck it small cars that get 28.

If you want to save gas. Slow the hell down.

You =/= everyone. Other than that bit of obviousness, excellent advice.

Water injection is viable. They used it in some supercharged fighter planes during WW2 as a short power boost. The idea is that the water that you directly inject into the cylinder adds more combustable oxygen to the mix and acts as a medium of the explosion, rather than just oxygen that burns in combustion. However, the problem is that, left unburned, water droplets are as hazardous as small BBs in your combustion cylinder. This is why Water/Alcohol injection has been fostered recently.

However, the other problem of water injection is that IT INCREASES FUEL CONSUMPTION. :D

No... it doesn't increase the oxygen availablity, all it does is retard the dread engine destroying "Knock" allowing the use of higher boost pressures. the higher the boost, the more oxygen can be crammed in under pressure, allowing more fuel to be burnt, increasing power. However the more fuel burnt the more heat produced by burning said fuel, heating the cyllinder walls and head so the next compression stroke can be ignited by the waste BEFORE the piston reaches top of it's travel. If the fuel and air mix in a cylinder ignites early while the piston is still travelling up, then the engine stoke, being powered by other cylinders on the way down and sheer momentum of the crank travel, is tring to compress a viloently expanding mass of burning air and fuel.

What the water injection does is cause the excess heat spend itself on vaporising the water into steam, which is exhausted with the hot gasses and carrys off the heat into the tailpipe.

need me to draw pictures too? :D

You =/= everyone. Other than that bit of obviousness, excellent advice.

Anyone who knows anything about cars knows how to REALLY save fuel.

Big Lincolns, Thunderbirds like mine, Caddies, Jaguars and all those other big V8 and V12 cars can actually get VERY good MPG if you know how to drive them.

Keep it at 65, weather you like it or not thats where cars are geared to get the best MPG. This 55 crap is a crock of shit.

And as far as environmentally friendly cars?

Do some research on a Prius. If you REALLY want to help the environment. You'll buy a Humvee. It actually has a smaller carbon footprint over its life time. Unless you drive the prius to 400,000 miles.

No... it doesn't increase the oxygen availablity, all it does is retard the dread engine destroying "Knock" allowing the use of higher boost pressures. the higher the boost, the more oxygen can be crammed in under pressure, allowing more fuel to be burnt, increasing power. However the more fuel burnt the more heat produced by burning said fuel, heating the cyllinder walls and head so the next compression stroke can be ignited by the waste BEFORE the piston reaches top of it's travel. If the fuel and air mix in a cylinder ignites early while the piston is still travelling up, then the engine stoke, being powered by other cylinders on the way down and sheer momentum of the crank travel, is tring to compress a viloently expanding mass of burning air and fuel.

What the water injection does is cause the excess heat spend itself on vaporising the water into steam, which is exhausted with the hot gasses and carrys off the heat into the tailpipe.

need me to draw pictures too? :D

*applauds* Well explained.

Anyone who knows anything about cars knows how to REALLY save fuel.

Big Lincolns, Thunderbirds like mine, Caddies, Jaguars and all those other big V8 and V12 cars can actually get VERY good MPG if you know how to drive them.

Keep it at 65, weather you like it or not thats where cars are geared to get the best MPG. This 55 crap is a crock of shit.

And as far as environmentally friendly cars?

Do some research on a Prius. If you REALLY want to help the environment. You'll buy a Humvee. It actually has a smaller carbon footprint over its life time. Unless you drive the prius to 400,000 miles.

Like I said, excellent advice.

38% for a piston engine just isn't possible, especially driven at variable speeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wärtsilä-Sulzer_RTA96-C

51.7%, obviously not an automotive prime mover. S'truth to say that no automotive gasoline piston engine will ever get 38%.

Also, efficiency is not only affected by combustion temperatures (though that is part of a diesel's advantage), but also the general volume:surface-area of the combustion chamber.

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_fuel_consumption_(shaft_engine)
(obviously the fact that it contains real-world formulae and fails to support the 100mpg secret lost patent conspiracy carburettor means it fails to live up to wikipudia's standards . . .)

*applauds* Well explained.



Like I said, excellent advice.

Oh, I was not yelling at you. But thanks.

What gets me is people who think cars like the Prius are good for the environment. When in all reality they're FAR worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wärtsilä-Sulzer_RTA96-C

51.7%, obviously not an automotive prime mover. S'truth to say that no automotive gasoline piston engine will ever get 38%.

Also, efficiency is not only affected by combustion temperatures (though that is part of a diesel's advantage), but also the general volume:surface-area of the combustion chamber.

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_fuel_consumption_(shaft_engine)
(obviously the fact that it contains real-world formulae and fails to support the 100mpg secret lost patent conspiracy carburettor means it fails to live up to wikipudia's standards . . .)

IIRC, the only combustion engine more efficient than a gas turbine with heat recovery would be an MHD turbine with heat recovery.

Not sure if you can add heat recovery to a diesel.