SpudFiles

I thought I had agreed that was the best solution...

yah sorry, i didnt know if you knew that atv engines have the tranny on board already

No worries 8)

What size atv engine are we talking?

it is 80 cc, pretty small

oo hmm that might be hard, im guna assume its 2 stroke, which is good, but i just rebuild my 610cc to run high comp. for a total of about 900cc's but its not impossible, your power is just going to take a hit

The guy working on the six-stroke is Bruce Crower. Look him up. Neat stuff. There are a few problems with the design, such as water getting in the lube oil, but I think it's feasible.

Like Jack said, a exhaust turbine would be a far better idea than a steam engine. Seriously, they are heavier and less efficient than you think. And trust me, even modern boilers are very maintenance intensive.

Here's an idea... Wood Gasification

First a bit of history when gas was short in europe due to the world war two people began to convert their vehicles to run of of wood chips through a prosecces known as wood gasification. They ran everything from cars to ferries on this stuff. It is still used today in High efficency wood stoves and even more so in coal power plants (aka Coal Gasification)

Your going to have to look around on the web... but I did some reaserch on it a few months ago an theres tons of infomation out there on it...

But in short it works like this. You have wood chips that are basicaly smoldering in a contianer that is oxygen starved...the gas that is put off is the wood gas...extremely flammable... this stuff is piped to tha carberator and burned in an internal combustion engine. The wood basically all vaporizes and all that is left is a fine ash... So you have a near complete combustion of your wood products.

This system used to be commercialy manufacture but I don't think you'll find it sold any where now... how ever people in lue of gas prices have experimented with and made it work and at least one V8 engine. A dodge I think...

The down size is that you'll have to have a source of wood chips and the wood gas is rich in carbon monoxide which is dangerous. So be carefull about running it inside...

However I think it is probably well with in your cababilties to biuld something like that since the are often constructed out of things like metal garbage cans or 55 gallon drums. Look it up I garentee you'll find it intresting.

i like that idea theres a great altenative fuel

http://www.aircaraccess.com/nealtank.htm


What do you all think of this????? Interesting site for (solar)air power

@Solar: Just because a patent has been issued, does not mean the idea will work. The patent office's only job when issuing such a thing is to ensure it's individuality, not it's practicality.

In spite of it's own claims, it does break the laws of physics.

Nothing can generate more energy than it consumes, under any circumstances - anything that promises that is lying, no matter what explanation they try to give for it.
Now, when it's talking about compression not adding any energy to the air, that is actually true, and any extra energy added by a compressor is lost as heat. If you use absolute pressures, 10 litres of air at one atmosphere is the same as 1 litre at 10 atmospheres.

But what it fails to mention is the most important rule. There is energy in ambient air, however it cannot be used.

For example. Say you have... I don't know. A mix of juice that you want to freeze into ice lollies. For that, you need to take some of the heat energy it has away. You can't do that unless you put it somewhere where it's temperature will flow away - the freezer.
Same thing with something on your desk. That has energy. To get some of that energy out of it, you need to push it off the desk - having it's height "flow".

You can't use the energy from anything unless you have somewhere with a lower density of energy. So, in order to use the energy in regular air, you need to have a vacuum to move some of that energy to in order to be able to use it. This flow of pressure can then be used to do work.

So, to do work, you need a "gradient" of an intensive quantity - temperature (not heat), pressure, height - anything not dependent on how much of the substance there is.

Looking back at the earlier example, when you consider the amount of energy that can actually be used - the 1 litre at 10 atmospheres has infinitely more available energy than the 10 litres at 1 atmosphere - because the last atmosphere in both cases cannot be used, because it cannot flow. The 10 litres has only one atmosphere in the first place, so it can't be used.
That makes the usable energy of the 1 litre at 10 atmospheres equal to 900 joules, compared to 0 joules in the opposite case, even though the absolute energy of both is 1000 joules.
So, when I pressurize one of my launchers, there is strictly no more energy in the chamber than there was in the air before, but there is a heck of a lot more that can be used, because of the pressure difference.

In short, the laws of thermodynamics do not allow machines that creates more energy than they use, or even a machine that perfectly recycles it's energy.

The laws of thermodynamics are much neglected by people hoping for cheap or free energy. Usually when the projects they are watching (while hoping for this ideal) fail, they will cry havoc - "The government made them disappear!!!" - completely neglecting the fact it wouldn't have worked in the first place. (Earning them the nickname of tinfoil-hatters - "O noes, theyre reeding mi brian" - as if there were anything useful in there in the first place... )
Sometimes when you see these things, the people doing them are blissfully unaware they're destined to fail. But many people know they're destined to fail, and it's just a scam designed to get money out of people.

These critical laws boil down to:
#1: You can't get over 100% efficiency (more energy out than in)
#2: You can't get 100% efficiency (equal out and in)
#3: Absolute zero cannot be reached (for the same reasons as before. To get to that point, you need to be able to move it's heat to somewhere colder - and there is nowhere.)

Personally, I think anyone with an interest in areas of science (for whatever reason) should have these firmly stuck in their brain, along with Newton's laws of motion.

...you...you... mean I spent all that money for nothing?


Yes its a good alternative energy right up until a lot of people start using it kind of like bio fuel...once Mac Donald's figures out it can make money selling this stuff they'll start at a premium price...

The environmentalist would start to complain when the forests begin to disappear faster and faster...

On the bright side it won't be MPG any more it would be MPT (miles per tree)

The best alternative energy right now is trying to be more efficient with using what we have...

starman wrote:

jackssmirkingrevenge wrote:Great, now I can tell you two apart

Didn't Spitfire have the topdown view of Iowa?

\

Thats me, or rather was me

[quote="Ragnarok
#2: You can't get 100% efficiency (equal out and in)
[/quote]

The antimatter to matter (or thrust) conversion is 100% effeicient, but thats the only known one. Now us spudders just gota find out how to make antimatter

haha, ok Ragnarok, I have similar views on such claims. I am intrigued by the whole maxwells demon thing though. The guy claims that by using the Bernoulli principle, one can inject low pressure air into a higher pressure tank by using a series of check valves and inserting the low pressure air into a pocket of air(vortex) that exists behind the injection point of the higher pressure air. Thoughts?

....you lost me...and no I don't think its possible