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General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 10:30:18 AM

Title: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 10:30:18 AM
OK, I'm very sceptical. This sounds impossible. Other articles on this guy and his Mustang quote 110 mpg with more to come.

I guess we'll have to see what happens when he enters it in the X-prize competition. If it's true, it is a world changer.

Note there are no details about how he did it and so far the only testing appears to have been done by the venture captial company supporting him.

Sounds like some serious smoke blowing going on here but it would be pretty cool if it were true.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080701/BUSINESS02/807010341

Quote
But looks can be deceiving. Mr. Pelmear's 21-year-old pony car has enough technological innovation to quadruple the classic Mustang's original gas mileage while almost doubling its available horsepower.

That's 80 miles per gallon and 400 horsepower, folks. And the 48-year-old electronics engineer and master mechanic is not done yet.

The third-generation automotive tinkerer hopes that next year his Mustang - more specifically its engine - will help him win the $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize: a "race" to find an affordable, marketable automobile that gets at least 100 miles per gallon, or its equivalent.

"I'm an optimist, and I think people need to know there is hope out there," Mr. Pelmear said. "That's why I decided to enter the X Prize race. I could have sold this [technology] off, but then people might not have seen it.

"It's not about the money. Our country really needs this."



Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 07, 2008, 10:36:59 AM
hmm interesting...

When is the X-Prize race?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Saxman on July 07, 2008, 10:41:00 AM
Is the guy already entered in the race? I'd be surprised if he'd commit to something so public if he didn't have something.

If this is true, Muscle Car enthusiasts are bound to be wetting themselves with glee if they can get the same high-performance engine without sacrificing fuel economy. ESPECIALLY if there's a way to develop this to where an existing engine can be upgraded, rather than having to replace it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 10:42:29 AM
The finals are 2009.

Quote
The proposed X Prize rules have been released for comment, and the final rules will probably be published this summer. Teams that enter the contest will present their designs for review in mid-2008.

Judges will take a hard look at optimistic numbers and throw out the dreamers, predicts Theodore. "Somebody will say, 'We are using unobtainium, but when we get into production, economies of scale will bring down the cost to less than that of compacted dirt,'" he chuckles. "That is what we are trying to screen out."

Those teams whose cars are deemed viable will build their machines to contest the qualifying race in early 2009. To survive that round, entries must achieve 75 mpg (or the equivalent in some other form of energy, designated MPGe) and low emissions.

The qualifying race winners in the mainstream and alternative classes will split a cash prize (no amount has been set, but we've heard $25 million), with the winning mainstream team getting 75 percent of the booty and the alternative team getting the remaining 25 percent.

Top finishers from the qualifying race will advance to the final race in mid-2009. This event will require 100 MPGe and will be conducted over thousands of miles across the country, with varying conditions and even the use of non-team drivers, with possibly average citizens and even journalists taking turns at the wheel.

The winner will be the car that meets all of the minimum requirements and finishes the race in the least time. Again, the mainstream class gets triple the cash of the alternative class.

Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 10:45:02 AM
Remember the old saying about something that sounds to good to be true.

He's increasing the efficiency of that Mustang by 4-500 %.  I think sceptical is a good stance right now. If he does it and gets this stuff into production though, I think we should have a beautiful girl kiss his axe on the 50 yard line of the 2010 Superbowl at half time.  ;)
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lasersailor184 on July 07, 2008, 10:50:12 AM
Remember the old saying about something that sounds to good to be true.

He's increasing the efficiency of that Mustang by 4-500 %.  I think sceptical is a good stance right now. If he does it and gets this stuff into production though, I think we should have a beautiful girl kiss his axe on the 50 yard line of the 2010 Superbowl at half time.  ;)

It's actually very interesting.  I've been learning about electronics and ICE's recently.  And this is where the money is to be made.


Not in finding some odd ball fuel source.  But increasing the efficiency of all thermodynamic processes.  Same applies for Solar Panels.  At best, the current top of the line Solar Panels convert 20% of the sun's power. 

That's 80% power not ever to be used.  Even doubling the power from 20% to 40% would suddenly make Solar Panels viable over regular power WITHOUT subsidies.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 07, 2008, 11:08:29 AM
38% efficiency with standard internal combustion and fuel engine layout... A classic heavy framed muscle car pushing 400hp would come out on top of the "save the world" XPrize field of Jetsons-like solar snailmobiles and microeconoboxes :lol
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lasersailor184 on July 07, 2008, 11:13:57 AM
38% efficiency with standard internal combustion and fuel engine layout... A classic heavy framed muscle car pushing 400hp would come out on top of the "save the world" XPrize field of Jetsons-like solar snailmobiles and microeconoboxes :lol

With the mechanics and electronics running underneath his hood, I bet you'd need a Doctorate or Masters just to fix it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 11:22:22 AM
If it works, they'll reduce to to snap in / snap out modules made in China.  :rofl

I cannot, in my heart, believe the guy has actually done it in a mass producable, affordable way.

However, I cannot help but chuckle when I imagine 100+ mpg Suburbans zipping around. It'd still be on Arab oil though and that's a downer.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Saxman on July 07, 2008, 11:27:05 AM
True, but you'd need less of it.  :aok
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 07, 2008, 11:30:52 AM
I cannot, in my heart, believe the guy has actually done it in a mass producable, affordable way.
Yeah.. I don't follow the industry much, but from what I recall, not too long ago Volvo was leading the pack of experimental internal combustion efficiency.. I can't recall what their % efficiency was, but it was impressive, and 38% is more than they had managed.  And they and the rest of the world have been at it orders of magnitude more, in man-hours and funds, than this guy.  38% is more than any established energy source of any type that I can recall.
The article is on a local newspaper from Toledo... Come on :) The industry would have had at least someone all over this and it would have made headlines in a bigger newspaper already.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 11:33:29 AM
Oh, he was on TV on one of the major network evening news shows. My wife saw it and mentioned it to me and I started surfing.

So he's had some press.

Of course.... bum-bum-bum-baaaaah! Bush has that supersecret government killing agency out there trying to put a hit on this guy because Bush's buddies in the Awl Bidness asked him too. But you knew that, right?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Gunslinger on July 07, 2008, 11:41:11 AM
True, but you'd need less of it.  :aok

That's great until demand increases.  If we have more cars on the road using gass the fact that they don't use as much of it becomes irrelevent.  This would be a temp to short term fix in my book.  Of course it's a good first step.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Megalodon on July 07, 2008, 11:56:23 AM
Hp2g.com Check the bottom video. 12 sec car that gets 100mpg :O

http://www.hp2g.com/videos.html

edit:
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2008


FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:                                 

Julie Myers                                                                                                                   

Regional Growth Partnership

Phone: 419/252-2700
 
Rocket Ventures Revs its Engine with Horsepower Sales Sponsorship

Horse Power Sales.net Inc., a Napoleon-based company, has created a superior engine that is poised to revolutionize fuel efficiency and auto manufacturing as we know it. Rocket Ventures, a program of the Regional Growth Partnership, is pleased to announce its sponsorship of Horse Power Sales’ HP2g TEAM in the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE – a competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles. The independent and technology-neutral competition is open to teams from around the world that can design and build production-capable, 100 MPGe (miles per gallon energy equivalent) vehicles that people will want to buy and that meet market needs for price, size, capability, safety and performance
Through patented technology, Horse Power Sales.net Inc. president Doug Pelmear has discovered a way to allow a standard V8 engine to travel the energy equivalent of 110 mpg on E-85 (Ethanol Blend) fuel. The most striking feature of the HP2g engine is that it’s designed to run in SUV’s and larger family cars.
“As gas prices soar, consumer preference is shifting to cars that are fuel-efficient and buyers are choosing smaller more compact cars. I wanted to throw the concept that a fuel- efficient car has to be small out the window, so I specifically designed my engine for SUVs and larger vehicles,” said Pelmear.
On June 14, Hp2g will be put to a real-world test at the Milan Dragway in Milan, Michigan.  Pelmear believes that the results will back-up his fuel-efficiency estimates and will position HP2g as a major contender for the X PRIZE.
“Northwest Ohio is replete with experts in advanced manufacturing and engineering, and Horse Power Sales.net Inc. is no exception. Rocket Ventures was tasked by the state of Ohio to help advance entrepreneurs with innovative technology. Doug certainly fits that mold and we are thrilled to support the Horse Power Sales’ HP2g TEAM. Everyone at Rocket Ventures is looking forward to seeing the results of the race on June 14, “said Dr. Todd Davies, Rocket Ventures business development manager.
About Rocket Ventures
Rocket Ventures, a division of the Regional Growth Partnership, is a pre-seed, early-stage venture fund for technology-based entities/companies operating within the state of Ohio. It consists of $15 million in state funding and $7.5 million in private sector investment.
About The Regional Growth Partnership
The Regional Growth Partnership is a private nonprofit development corporation dedicated to fostering local, national and international economic growth opportunities for Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan."

To get a State govrenment involved, I bet it works!
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 07, 2008, 12:12:01 PM
hmmm doesn't sound like they are using normal gasoline..
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Megalodon on July 07, 2008, 12:15:16 PM
hmmm doesn't sound like they are using normal gasoline..

 No, but he says if he did use regular gas the figures would be even higher, but e85 has less "footprint".
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 07, 2008, 12:55:10 PM
Funny there's nothing online about the results of his run at the Milan dragstrip. That was supposed to be almost a month ago.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 07, 2008, 01:03:16 PM
There certainly is room for improvement in the efficiency of American made engines.  It would be trivial to boost the efficiency, of current production engines, by 50 to 80% (higher in some cases).  A nominal boost of 25% should be easily achieved while increasing the power as well.

However, I am skeptical that anything more than 100% improvement is possible for a mass produced engine.  Certainly, very specifically designed engines could achieve those numbers, but that removes them from the realm of cost efficient mass production.

If we were not such a litigious society the efficiencies could be much higher through weight savings.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 07, 2008, 01:13:30 PM
Bones you mean from the safety risks of lighter cars?  VW is supposed to have a 600lbs 200+MPG car that's as safe as GT cars.  It costs 30k$ or more, but from what I read, that's because of the lightweight elements, so it ought to be easy enough to get a safe enough price/weight compromise. 
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 07, 2008, 01:22:20 PM
Not so much safety risks.  A 100 pound 5MPH bumper does not do a lot to improve safety when a collision is at 50MPH.

A better structural design could improve safety while reducing weight.  As an example, if large vehicles are needed only to move people, then it should be quite easy to design a vehicle which could carry 8 people that does not weigh 2.5 to 3 tons.  The weight of a 'Suburban' like vehicle is not due to safety considerations.  Better aerodynamic design of vehicles would also yield much higher fuel efficiencies.  Let's face it.  Trucks are large bricks with wheels attach.

There are a number of ways to improve the efficiency of a vehicle without resorting to exotic materials.

The American automobile manufacturer has had little to no impetus to design more efficient vehicles.  It appears when you mention 'efficiency' to most Americans, they immediately think slow and small.  I think this mentality is what keeps the American manufacturer from even trying.  Of course, that is just a search in order to find some reason why they still are not doing what they are really capable of.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Captain Virgil Hilts on July 07, 2008, 01:33:10 PM
It is true the as many as 8 out of 10 firing events fail to produce measurable power in an internal combustion engine, if you could get EVERY firing cycle to produce 100% of the power a good firing cycle is capable of, I don't think you can do what he claims. The law of diminishing returns still applies. Having made my living full or part time working on engines for near 30 years now, I find it hard to believe this guy has increased efficiency to that level. There's only so much you can do with electronics when you're working with a production engine like he is (it's a 5.0 liter 302 Ford Windsor, fuel injected, with a roller cam). He's getting nearly 80% more HP as well. Electronics cannot change the thermal efficiency, nor can they alter the friction inherent in the engine. They can only manage fuel and ignition better. But I don't see how they can do it 500% better. Even given the extreme HP the Formula 1 guys get from their stuff, I do not see how it is possible with what he has to work with. I hope that I am wrong and he is right. But I seriously doubt he has gotten 100 MPG, or even 100MPGe out of a 302 EFI Ford small block. Ford didn't switch to a 4.6 liter DOHC engine 5 times more expensive to produce because the 302 was that efficient, or even potentially that efficient.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lazs2 on July 07, 2008, 02:21:31 PM
I'm all for it...

I will settle for 60 mpg and 1,000 hp from my big block.. where do I buy the thingie to plug into my cigarette lighter?

lazs
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Delirium on July 07, 2008, 03:52:28 PM
Better efficiency on oil isn't the answer, we need to find new technologies to get away from oil altogether. This ideas (if they work) may be good for bridging the gap between now and then, hopefully.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lasersailor184 on July 07, 2008, 03:58:01 PM
Better efficiency on oil isn't the answer, we need to find new technologies to get away from oil altogether. This ideas (if they work) may be good for bridging the gap between now and then, hopefully.

Which sounds good until you realize that there is no viable alternative to oil.  There is nothing out there that can provide as much energy as easily as oil can.



I still maintain we're on a plateau until we find that Star Trek barillium sphere power source.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Saxman on July 07, 2008, 04:06:55 PM
Which sounds good until you realize that there is no viable alternative to oil.  There is nothing out there that can provide as much energy as easily as oil can.



I still maintain we're on a plateau until we find that Star Trek barillium sphere power source.

Ye cannae change tha' laws o' physics!
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Cthulhu on July 07, 2008, 04:17:10 PM
I still maintain we're on a plateau until we find that Star Trek barillium sphere power source.
You first. Beryllium is toxic. :D
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Cthulhu on July 07, 2008, 04:22:13 PM
Electronics cannot change the thermal efficiency, nor can they alter the friction inherent in the engine. They can only manage fuel and ignition better. But I don't see how they can do it 500% better.
Exactly. I smell snake oil.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Captain Virgil Hilts on July 07, 2008, 06:13:07 PM
IF the production and distribution infrastructure was in place,(or once it is in place), then alcohol could or would be a viable fuel. Even though alcohol contains just under 50% of the energy gasoline does, it CAN be made efficient enough to be a viable fuel. However, engines must be specifically designed AND tuned for it, and that will preclude fueling those engines with gasoline. Therefore everywhere gasoline and/or diesel is sold, alcohol will have to be available. If the infrastructure is not there, alcohol vehicles just are not viable. We have land lying fallow, and there are already plants producing methanol. Recently, in racing, methanol has been oxygenated, producing more power and a more complete burn, so there's room for further improvement as well.

Any gasoline fueled vehicle (or even diesel fueled vehicle) CAN be converted to run methanol, but it can be expensive. The engine needs to be completely rebuilt, the fuel system replaced, and any electronic engine or drivetrain controls completely reprogrammed or replaced. The exhaust system requires modification as well, since burning alcohol creates formaldehyde and higher nitrides of oxygen. Upper engine lubricants will alleviate some of the formaldehyde issues.

Properly built and tuned, an alcohol fueled engine can produce as much as 25% MORE torque than a comparable gasoline fueled engine. In theory, alcohol fueled engines could be smaller and still power the same vehicle at the same level of utility, comfort, and performance. Cooling systems could be reduced in size and weight, further increasing efficiency. Alcohol has an almost limitless octane rating, so turbocharging can also be used to make smaller engines useful in larger vehicles.

Synthetic motor oils are actually alcohol (synthetic esters) based. If we were to use no mineral oils for lubrication  or hydraulic systems, and no mineral oil for fuel, we could make serious gains. But it would be neither fast nor cheap. Further, the very green/eco/liberals who scream for an end to dependence on foreign oil are guaranteed to go ballistic over the agricultural and industrial changes required.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Swager on July 07, 2008, 07:16:22 PM
He never should have went public with this until after the election.  I feel this guy is going to have a bad accident.  Unless, of course, he is willing to sell his patent to the oil companies.

Bad Timing!
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Captain Virgil Hilts on July 07, 2008, 08:32:31 PM
He never should have went public with this until after the election.  I feel this guy is going to have a bad accident.  Unless, of course, he is willing to sell his patent to the oil companies.

Bad Timing!

You left out the  :noid :noid :noid
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 07, 2008, 09:07:43 PM
All this guy has to do to evade the mythical oil company hit squads is to publicise the results verified by a reputable independent lab complete with a dyno report that can eliminate the variables in the test. Of course even the hydrogen fans won't do that. If the lab tested it and published the results even protecting the patent materials the info would be too widely known to be quashed. I suspect snake oil too. Until independent labs can analyze and verify the results for the modifications to the vehicle it's all snake oil.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Baitman on July 07, 2008, 09:34:50 PM
Snake oil.. :rofl But it would be nice if it were a little true. I think the guy would be better off to claim smaller gains and rope every one in rather than a few  :pray investors. I have been in some of the offices of junior mining companies and the incompetence runs rampant.

BTW I have the universal picture hanger if anyone is interested send $10 and I will send one. (a nail) :rofl
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: rpm on July 07, 2008, 10:20:25 PM
When I was a kid my Dad and I saw a news report about a guy that drove a 1974 Ford Galaxy 500 from Dallas to StLouis and he got 100mpg. My Dad would always bring that up anytime someone talked fuel milage. He was convinced some oil company bought the patent and buried it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on July 08, 2008, 05:28:03 AM
The other day I saw a VS commodore in town that had in HUGE blue lettering on the sides THIS CAR USES WATER FOR FUEL.
I turned back for a look and to leave a note for the owner to drop into the workshop so we could check it out, but by the time I got back there they'd left. :(
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 08, 2008, 06:33:52 AM
http://www.clean-air.org/Hydrogen%20Commodore/hydrogen_powered_commodore.htm?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Jackal1 on July 08, 2008, 06:40:06 AM
The other day I saw a VS commodore in town that had in HUGE blue lettering on the sides THIS CAR USES WATER FOR FUEL.


We have a nearby station that evidently believes that all cars will run on water.
I couldn`t even get the friggen lawnmower to run on the stuff.  :rofl
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on July 08, 2008, 07:59:13 AM
http://www.clean-air.org/Hydrogen%20Commodore/hydrogen_powered_commodore.htm?
Close but that car runs on bottled hydrogen gas and it's a VB commodore. The one I saw was a V6 VS commodore, a much later model and it claimed it used water as it's fuel. I was very curious to see it, since the only bona-fide water powered car I know of was Steven Horvath's Water powered Datsun from back in the 70's
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 08, 2008, 09:21:54 AM
Every time hydrogen is brought up people are wanting to poor water into their gas tank and have the car produce it.  Why bother with that?  As long as the car can run on hydrogen what's wrong with letting a gas station produce the hydrogen by what ever means necessary and let the cars fill up there instead of having the cars producing it themselves by pooring water in the gas tank.  As long as I can fill up with hydrogen safely at a gas station I don't see it being a big change to the way we would use cars today.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lasersailor184 on July 08, 2008, 12:10:05 PM
Every time hydrogen is brought up people are wanting to poor water into their gas tank and have the car produce it.  Why bother with that?  As long as the car can run on hydrogen what's wrong with letting a gas station produce the hydrogen by what ever means necessary and let the cars fill up there instead of having the cars producing it themselves by pooring water in the gas tank.  As long as I can fill up with hydrogen safely at a gas station I don't see it being a big change to the way we would use cars today.

The problem with Hydrogen is that it's not a Fuel Source.  It's a battery.  You still need to use fuel and energy to get Hydrogen into a useable state.

This process WILL waste at least 50% of the energy.  So you're not really saving the planet.  You're wasting more energy to accomplish the same amount.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 08, 2008, 12:38:55 PM
But if you can create the hydrogen with a currently unused energy source like wind/solar or energy from a place where it can't presently be used and transport it as hydrogen,  it can work out over the long term.

Right now though it's not ready for prime time IMO.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Nashwan on July 08, 2008, 12:45:29 PM
It takes about 60 kw/h of electricity to produce 1 kg of hydrogen by electrolysis. 1kg of hydrogen is equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline.

Electricity from the grid costs about 10c per kw/h. Alternatives like solar and wind cost more.

Transporting hydrogen is also expensive. You have to either compress it, which uses 20% as much energy as the hydrogen contains, or better still liquefy it, which uses 40%.

Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 08, 2008, 12:48:38 PM
Which is why I said long term benefit and not yet.  Eventually though tech advances may make it work out long term.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Baitman on July 08, 2008, 12:49:46 PM
In Vancouver they have city buses that run on hydrogen. Big and bulky tanks on top the bus, great but not good for truckers. :aok
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: john9001 on July 08, 2008, 01:26:28 PM
It takes about 60 kw/h of electricity to produce 1 kg of hydrogen by electrolysis. 1kg of hydrogen is equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline.

Electricity from the grid costs about 10c per kw/h. Alternatives like solar and wind cost more.

Transporting hydrogen is also expensive. You have to either compress it, which uses 20% as much energy as the hydrogen contains, or better still liquefy it, which uses 40%.




you people really need to get up to speed, honda is puting hydrogen cars on the street in Cal. and they are building solor powered hydrogen refueling stations to refuel them.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 08, 2008, 01:27:55 PM
Sounds more like it's for profits than as a real answer to the energy problem.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Megalodon on July 08, 2008, 01:31:25 PM

Right now though it's not ready for prime time IMO.

http://world.honda.com/news/2008/4080702FCX-Clarity/

I bet we see a few running around soon.  :aok plus Arnie is fixing it so they can run up and down the state

edit: http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/drive-fcx-clarity.aspx
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 08, 2008, 01:36:41 PM
That VW 230MPG model. (http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/laugh-at-high-g.html). Tiny machine (and only two seats) but the article says it's crash-safe as a GT car.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Nashwan on July 08, 2008, 02:06:36 PM
Quote
I bet we see a few running around soon.  Thumbs UP! plus Arnie is fixing it so they can run up and down the state

You might see a few if you live in California. Honda is only building 100 - 200 over the next 3 years, and has admitted the cost of each car is close to $1 million. Nobody can buy one, they are all being leased by Honda, and only to a select few.

Quote
you people really need to get up to speed, honda is puting hydrogen cars on the street in Cal. and they are building solor powered hydrogen refueling stations to refuel them.

They aren't looking to make money, though. They are doing it for research and PR, nothing more.

The facts about hydrolysis are simple. The most efficient industrial scale units need 50 kw/h to produce 1 kg of hydrogen. A theoretically perfect system, which can never be built in practice, needs about 35 kw/h, iirc. Typical systems in use now use about 60 kw/h.

Electricity has been in mass use for well over 100 years. Huge amounts of money have been spent researching cheaper ways of producing electricity. Renewables like solar and wind cost more than coal. I don't think the price of electricity is going to fall massively soon.

Quote
Eventually though tech advances may make it work out long term.

I'm not so sure. For hydrogen to work we need 3 major advances. A cheaper way to produce it, a better way of storing it, and better fuel cells to use it.

The most efficient way of powering a car is by electricity. For that we only need one major advance, a better battery.

The head of the European Fuel Cell Forum laid out why Fuel Cells aren't the answer for transport:

Quote
Hydrogen is an artificial, synthetic fuel. It has to be made from other energy. If you look at renewable energy, most of it is harvested as electricity, some as biomass and some as solar heat, but basically most of the renewable energy is harvested as electricity. Hydrogen has to be made artificially by splitting water by electrolysis. This requires more energy than you will ever recover from the hydrogen. However, hydrogen has to be compressed or liquefied for handling, it has to be distributed, and then reconverted back to, guess what, electricity. That means electricity derived from hydrogen has to compete with its original energy source, electricity. If you go through a hydrogen chain, you find that after the fuel cell only 25% of the original electricity is available for use by consumers. A hydrogen economy is a gigantic energy waste. We cannot afford this in the future. Therefore, three of four renewable energy power plants are needed to balance the losses within a hydrogen economy luxury.

Quote
With the same amount of electricity, original electricity, be it from wind solar energy, with the same amount of electricity you can drive an electric car three times farther than a hydrogen car. On 100 kWh of electricity you can drive an electric car 120 kilometers while a hydrogen fuel cell car of similar size can do only about 40 km. If we want to have mobility and a sustainable future, we have to go for electric cars and not for hydrogen cars because we electric cars are less costly to operate. It is not the vehicle technology, but a question of energy cost of the fuel. Hydrogen must always be much more expensive than electricity needed to split water by electrolysis etc.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lazs2 on July 08, 2008, 02:42:09 PM
I rarely agree with nashwan on anything but on this..  I think he has a pretty good handle on it on this one.. at least the way things are right now..

who knows what breakthroughs will happen but.. right now?   He probly has it right.

lazs
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 08, 2008, 02:44:16 PM
Nashwan, have you heard anything about eestor's batteries?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 08, 2008, 02:55:21 PM
EEstor is pretty tight lipped. I haven't really found much on them or Zenn.

I did find this, dated 6/26:

Quote
Sometime over the next several weeks, a privately held and ultra-secretive company named EEStor Inc., based in Cedar Park, Texas, is expected to release the results of independent third-party testing of its electrical-energy storage unit, which aims to replace the electrochemical batteries we now use in everything from hybrid cars to laptop computers. EEStor says its system, combining battery and ultra-capacitor technology and based on modified barium titanate ceramic powder, could power a car for 400 kilometres with regular performance. It claims the unit would charge in a few minutes and weigh less than 10 per cent of current lead-acid batteries for the same cost.


If they really have 3rd party proof we're halfway to the "next several weeks" release date. We'll see.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 08, 2008, 03:21:53 PM
LM had signed some partnership with them pretty early, so it made the radio silence pretty ominous, given their claims :)  I did read that the few-minutes recharge time is not possible with regular home eqpt, but that the battery does guarantee overnight charging being more than enough. 
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on July 08, 2008, 03:48:44 PM
Assuming 100% thermal and mechanical efficiency,

400 hp => 400 * 2525 btu = 1,018,000 btu/hr

Gasoline = 18,400 btu / lb +> 84,000 btu / gallon

400 hp = 12.11 gallons / hr at 100% efficiency

80 mpg at 50 mph = 1.60 gallons per hour.

If you want 80 mpg at 50 mph, you can only have about a 40 hp engine.... and unattainable efficiency.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Baitman on July 08, 2008, 04:10:11 PM
Assuming 100% thermal and mechanical efficiency,

400 hp => 400 * 2525 btu = 1,018,000 btu/hr

Gasoline = 18,400 btu / lb +> 84,000 btu / gallon

400 hp = 12.11 gallons / hr at 100% efficiency

80 mpg at 50 mph = 1.60 gallons per hour.

If you want 80 mpg at 50 mph, you can only have about a 40 hp engine.... and unattainable efficiency.

That is what I was looking for. :salute :salute :salute
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: AKIron on July 08, 2008, 04:14:57 PM
I don't think the guy is claiming 80mpg while the engine is producing 400hp. Just that the car is capable of 80mpg and 400hp, not necessarily simultaneously.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Baitman on July 08, 2008, 04:21:21 PM
Jetta or Golf VW diesel will get close on the highway 60+- but not 400hp and it is burning fuel with more BTU per gallon :aok
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 08, 2008, 05:45:32 PM
I don't think the guy is claiming 80mpg while the engine is producing 400hp. Just that the car is capable of 80mpg and 400hp, not necessarily simultaneously.
Yeah, the only way it makes sense is if the journalist made a mistake. You need more than 40hp to push that car safely on public roads.  And it'd be pretty stupid to get on the xprize roster with such an easily debunked scam.  If he's really that stupid, it's tough to believe he'd have gotten that other Ohio company to join in.  Where's he profiting?  He couldn't have done all this without something to gain out of it..

I must have screwed up the math.. I get that he needs an ~8,000HP engine for 80MPG@50MPH, if the engine is 38% efficient..
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 09, 2008, 11:26:23 AM

Well if anyone can make an electric car work it would be these guys they seem to have the right idea:
Tesla Electric Car (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRd7ER7u-KU&feature=related)
The unveiling of the Tesla Motors Electric Car (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOl_1S10jTk&feature=related)
Tesla Electric Car Segment - BBC World (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKUyZHTNOiY&feature=related)



However it might meet the same fate as GM's EV1..
Who Killed the Electric Car? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vD33UMAtBY&feature=related)

Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: ghi on July 09, 2008, 11:33:39 AM
I don't know what to believe about this movie about Free Energy - No Fuel Magnetic Motor, seems presented by a serious news agency , and are more on same page with bikes and cars already built on same idea, Maybe fake hoax, but i don't think we learned everything about the electricity and magnetism in less than 200 years .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvB3PiPBozU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvB3PiPBozU)
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 09, 2008, 12:24:49 PM
Assuming 100% thermal and mechanical efficiency,

400 hp => 400 * 2525 btu = 1,018,000 btu/hr

Gasoline = 18,400 btu / lb +> 84,000 btu / gallon

400 hp = 12.11 gallons / hr at 100% efficiency

80 mpg at 50 mph = 1.60 gallons per hour.

If you want 80 mpg at 50 mph, you can only have about a 40 hp engine.... and unattainable efficiency.

Just out of curiosity, how does that calculation work with the new "wonder" fuel, hydrogen and oxygen, made at about 1 to 2 liters per hour in the vehicle?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Nashwan on July 09, 2008, 12:36:45 PM
Quote
I don't know what to believe about this movie about Free Energy - No Fuel Magnetic Motor,

It's the latest in a very long line of free energy fakes. The most famous in recent years was by an Irish company called Steorn. They paid Ł100,000 for a full page advert in the Economist, and promised a public display in London. The display went ahead, the machine didn't work, they blamed "bearing problems" and promised another demonstration. That was a couple of years ago.

Sadly there are always people ready to invest in such schemes.

Quote
Well if anyone can make an electric car work it would be these guys they seem to have the right idea:
Tesla Electric Car
The unveiling of the Tesla Motors Electric Car
Tesla Electric Car Segment - BBC World



However it might meet the same fate as GM's EV1..
Who Killed the Electric Car?

Probably not. The batteries are better than the EV1's, and the car is aimed at a small niche.

It does illustrate the problems with battery powered cars, though.

The Tesla is based on the Lotus Elise. It's even made by Lotus in the same factory. Performance is similar to the Elise.

The Tesla costs $50,000 - $70,000 more, though.

If you buy a Lotus Elise the $50,000 saving will buy you over 12,000 gallons of gasoline at today's prices. The Elise does about 25 miles to the gallon, so 12,000 gallons is enough for about 300,000 miles. Neither car will last that long, so you save money on the Elise.

If you stick the $50,000 saving in the bank and buy fuel with the interest, you save even more. $50,000 at 5% will give you $2,500 a year. That's enough for  600 gallons, and a range of 15,000 miles. Most cars don't drive 15,000 miles a year, so the interest alone will pay for your fuel.

Either way the electric car costs far more to run, even if you assume the electricity to power it is free.

There're two reasons electric cars haven't caught on, and neither is anything to do with oil company conspiracies. First, they are less convenient than oil powered cars. The Tesla has less range than the Lotus, takes much longer to refuel, and is much heavier, so the driving experience isn't as good.

The second is cost. Electric cars still cost far more than a comparable oil car, even counting the running costs.

Quote
Nashwan, have you heard anything about eestor's batteries?

Haven't heard any news from them for quite some time. That's not a good sign. The market for a battery/capacitor that can power a reasonable, cheap electric car is huge. The fact that they haven't announced manufacturing deal with major industry players suggests that they haven't got anything ready for mainstream yet.

According to Wikipedia, they have signed a deal with Lockheed, but of course the military requirements are very, very different from the car buying public's.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 09, 2008, 12:37:42 PM
Just out of curiosity, how does that calculation work with the new "wonder" fuel, hydrogen and oxygen, made at about 1 to 2 liters per hour in the vehicle?

If you have a HHO booster that is only putting out 1 to 2 liters per hour you REALLY screwed something up. Mine on the bench right now is generating 1.5 liters a minute and I haven't finished conditioning my core yet. Right now I'm only running at 10amps cold and after a 30 minute on time I'm drawing around 14amps.

By the way that calculation wont work with the HHO because your burning 2 different gases at the same time. Try and factor in the different octane levels for gas, HHO output from a booster, ambient air temp and pressure all effect engine performance. Simple formula Holdin is using that doesn't even come close to taking into account ALL the variables to reach an accurate conclusion.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 09, 2008, 01:01:10 PM
While the battery needs a lot of work, the electric motor also needs a lot more work to improve its efficiency as well.

There are some ways to drastically improve an electric motor's efficiency.  Someday, someone who has the money will figure it out again, and it might get funded.  I won't hold my breath.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 09, 2008, 01:07:49 PM
Maybe the volt will do it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgTcdfkihE4
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 09, 2008, 01:10:33 PM
"No Fuel Magnetic Motor?"
It's the latest in a very long line of free energy fakes. The most famous in recent years was by an Irish company called Steorn. They paid £100,000 for a full page advert in the Economist, and promised a public display in London. The display went ahead, the machine didn't work, they blamed "bearing problems" and promised another demonstration. That was a couple of years ago.
Yep. Apparently they were getting those results from incorrect measurements. 
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Lutec1000/#Negative_Result_Reports
Although Steorn seemed like a scam from the start, rather than mistaken inventors.

Quote
Haven't heard any news from them for quite some time. That's not a good sign. The market for a battery/capacitor that can power a reasonable, cheap electric car is huge. The fact that they haven't announced manufacturing deal with major industry players suggests that they haven't got anything ready for mainstream yet.

According to Wikipedia, they have signed a deal with Lockheed, but of course the military requirements are very, very different from the car buying public's.
Thanks, that's all I'd heard too, but as Toad found they're supposed to get peer reviewed in a few weeks. 
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on July 09, 2008, 01:10:58 PM
If you have a HHO booster that is only putting out 1 to 2 liters per hour you REALLY screwed something up. Mine on the bench right now is generating 1.5 liters a minute and I haven't finished conditioning my core yet.

At what pressure is your hydrogen produced / measured?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on July 09, 2008, 01:18:47 PM
Just out of curiosity, how does that calculation work with the new "wonder" fuel, hydrogen and oxygen, made at about 1 to 2 liters per hour in the vehicle?

I have not found the actual number, but mass energy density of hydrogen is like 3 to 4 times better than gasoline.  So instead of 18,400 btu / lb it is somewher near 60,000 to 80,000 btu per lb.

But remember, any conversion from one form of energy to another consumes more useful energy than it yields. If it could do the opposite, creating energy out of nothing, you could create a perpetual-motion machine violating the laws of physics. Conversion losses are unavoidable.  So you would be more heat efficient if you just took the energy you use to make the hydrogen and burned it in your car directly.

The only reason hydrogen makes sense is if you made hydrogen at home with solar of wind.  ie. you can store the wind / solar energy as hydrogen and use it later in your car.

Takes a couple of acres of solar to keep up with the energy needs of an average car though.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 09, 2008, 01:48:50 PM
I do not think you need acres of land.  One of my little projects is generating about 3000W@120V in a 10 square foot area.  However, it is a little different than what is commercially available.

I have not taken any time to calculate how much hydrogen could be produced as I think hydrogen powered cars is something not really practical yet.

I could probably push the output to 4500W with little effort, but it served the purpose I needed at the time.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Nashwan on July 09, 2008, 02:01:11 PM
Quote
While the battery needs a lot of work, the electric motor also needs a lot more work to improve its efficiency as well.

Larger electric motors are already pretty efficient, over 90% in most cases. Tesla quote 85 - 95% for their motor.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 09, 2008, 02:01:55 PM
At what pressure is your hydrogen produced / measured?

My booster at "full" operation and going through two bubblers is running right at 5psi on the core. Now my measurements are done using the water displacement method. I'll fill a 2 liter soda bottle with water, place that in a bucket of water and turn it upside down. The output line from the booster goes into the bottle and I time with a stopwatch how long it takes to displace 2 liters of water. Right now I'm getting right at 1.5 liters a minute of HHO gas at 1 atmosphere outside pressure and 5psi booster pressure.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 09, 2008, 02:10:19 PM
Larger electric motors are already pretty efficient, over 90% in most cases. Tesla quote 85 - 95% for their motor.


Once you control the forces that make an electric motor inefficient, then you will have an efficient electric motor.  There is not a motor design available to the public which accomplishes that.  If there was such a design available to the public, there would be a patent filed for the design.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 09, 2008, 03:02:07 PM
Hornet, Typo there I meant to put in liuters per minute. Now how many liters per minute of air does the car flow per minute?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 09, 2008, 03:24:42 PM
Hornet, Typo there I meant to put in liuters per minute. Now how many liters per minute of air does the car flow per minute?

That's a real good question and unfortantly not one I can answer. Even if I could find the factory specs for my engine, they wouldn't matter too much since I have an aftermarket K&N intake and filter. The only way I could messure that would be to use a scan guage and get a reading off the MAF sensor and then convert the units of messurement. Too much math involved for all that :) not to mention the $160 for a Scan Guage II system. I might end up getting one later on down the road though just because they are a handy thing to have but for now I'll have to do without.

One thing to remember though is the booster isn't trying to replace incoming air with HHO, nor is it trying to replace regular gas. It mearly adds a small amount of highly combustable gasses to the regular fuel/air mix that allows the regular gas to burn more efficiently, cleaner, and use less regular gas for the same power settings on the engine, thus increasing the MPG of the engine.

No one has ever claimed that an "onboard hydroxy on demand" booster system can or will replace regular fossil fuels and for most people the idea of having to keep a constant eye on the thing wouldn't sit well either. People want to hop in their cars and go without having to worry about checking electrolite levels, water levels, current draw, and temp of the reactor chamber.

For people like me that like to experiment with new things that show potential, well here I am building one and I'm excited to see what this thing can do for my truck. Lots of research, tons of reading, and a little blood, sweat, and tears involved. 22gauge SS sheet metal can cut good when it gets loose in the drill press :eek:
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 09, 2008, 04:17:17 PM
I didn't figure using the browns gas would take the place of gasoline. I am extremely skeptical of the claims regarding the use of the conversion gadgets on gasoline vehicles. To date I have not seen any 3rd party analysis of the results of using the gadget. I doubt that adding a 1.5 to 2.0+ liter per minute of hydrogen and oxygen will have anything but a trivial impact on the hundreds of cubic feet per minute of air flow through a vehicle engine. That large amount of air also contains more than a trace of oxygen so adding a trivial amount (.5 to .75 liter per minute of oxygen as a third part of the browns gas) to the amount of ambient oxygen is not likely to have a significant impact. To prove that it does would require the use of a lab dyno analysis and no one seems to be willing to do that.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lasersailor184 on July 09, 2008, 04:38:18 PM
Larger electric motors are already pretty efficient, over 90% in most cases. Tesla quote 85 - 95% for their motor.


True, but the energy conversion from the source to electricity is not.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 09, 2008, 07:17:13 PM
I didn't figure using the browns gas would take the place of gasoline. I am extremely skeptical of the claims regarding the use of the conversion gadgets on gasoline vehicles. To date I have not seen any 3rd party analysis of the results of using the gadget. I doubt that adding a 1.5 to 2.0+ liter per minute of hydrogen and oxygen will have anything but a trivial impact on the hundreds of cubic feet per minute of air flow through a vehicle engine. That large amount of air also contains more than a trace of oxygen so adding a trivial amount (.5 to .75 liter per minute of oxygen as a third part of the browns gas) to the amount of ambient oxygen is not likely to have a significant impact. To prove that it does would require the use of a lab dyno analysis and no one seems to be willing to do that.

Tell you what, when I finish my booster and have some data of my own I'll put my truck on a dyno if you pay for it. I don't know anyone who has a dyno so it would cost me a bunch of money to do it. I do however own a calculator, a pen, and a notebook so when I take a receipt with the amount of gas I buy and do the math in relation to how far I drove since the last time I filled up I can get hard data from that. That's what everyone else has been doing and they are seeing very good results so something is working. Also I don't think an engine is moving hundreds of cubic feet of air a minute through intake.

But the offer stands if you want lab tests. You get the lab and pay for the tests and I'll bring my truck and booster.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Captain Virgil Hilts on July 09, 2008, 07:22:56 PM
Depending on your location, a chassis dyno may not be that far away. Over the past decade or so they've become very popular and much more affordable. Most areas of 75K population or more have one or two. The new cars with computer controls being hotrodded is the biggest contributor, they tune them with a lap top or PC while they're on a chassis dyno. I think we're at about 110K population now and we have as many as 4 in business at any one time.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 09, 2008, 09:45:55 PM
Hornet,

You already know non dyno comparisons on the road on differing conditions makes the results invalid and totally subjective. Particularly when there is no lab work done before as well as after the modifications were done. If it makes you happy to make an unsubstantiated claim go for it.

FWIW I wasn't talking about your specific situation only either but you are also welcome to think I was as that is your problem not mine. My particular objection is towards the folks who market a piece of technology, make claims for improvements of mileage, power, sexual attributes of the user, hair restoration of same etc., and sell the same product without any 3rd party analysis. If their product was such hot stuff they would be demanding an independent test to prove it. At that point they just might be able to show unequivocally that they have a real product that is worth the investment. Secondarily that would also negate any oil company hit squads that might be called in to "eliminate the competition".

Just what are the manufacturers of this little gadget promising you will see in your vehicle?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on July 09, 2008, 10:10:17 PM
... got to get my calcs better...
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on July 09, 2008, 10:12:17 PM
Also I don't think an engine is moving hundreds of cubic feet of air a minute through intake.
Just for the sake of argument, the numbers on the Holley carbs are their rating in CFM, so a 350 Holley would have a max. flow of 350 Cubic Feet per Minute, a 650 would flow 650CFM, and the 750 would flow 750CFM.  :aok
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on July 09, 2008, 10:31:35 PM
My booster at "full" operation and going through two bubblers is running right at 5psi on the core. Now my measurements are done using the water displacement method. I'll fill a 2 liter soda bottle with water, place that in a bucket of water and turn it upside down. The output line from the booster goes into the bottle and I time with a stopwatch how long it takes to displace 2 liters of water. Right now I'm getting right at 1.5 liters a minute of HHO gas at 1 atmosphere outside pressure and 5psi booster pressure.

So P = 14.7 + 5 = 19.7 psi 19.7 * 144 = 2896.8 psf

I'll assume 80 deg F ,,, 540 Deg R

you made a stochiometric mixture gas of H2 and O2 out of H2O...

Mole % will be 16 weights of O2 for 1 weight of Hydrogen... so 1/17th of your gas is hydrogen.

Using partial pressure, we can assume 1/17th of the pressure is due to H2, 16/17 of the pressure is O2.

P = 2896.8 psf / 17 = 170.4 psf

R  = 1545/MW Mw of Hydrogen

=> 2.016 => 1545/2.016 = 766.34

V = 1.5 L = 1.5 (0.03532 cu ft) = 0.0471 cu ft

PV = MRT  (Ideal Gas Law)

170.4 * 1.5 = M * 766.34 * 540

M= ..0006 slugs ==> ..0199 lbs.

at 60 kBTU per lb you have produced 1,193 BTU's of hydrogen...
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Baitman on July 09, 2008, 10:49:21 PM
So P = 14.7 + 5 = 19.7 psi 19.7 * 144 = 2896.8 psf

I'll assume 80 deg F ,,, 540 Deg R

you made a stochiometric mixture gas of H2 and O2 out of H2O...

Mole % will be 16 weights of O2 for 1 weight of Hydrogen... so 1/17th of your gas is hydrogen.

Using partial pressure, we can assume 1/17th of the pressure is due to H2, 16/17 of the pressure is O2.

P = 2896.8 psf / 17 = 170.4 psf

R  = 1545/MW Mw of Hydrogen

=> 2.016 => 1545/2.016 = 766.34

V = 1.5 L = 1.5 (0.03532 cu ft) = 0.0471 cu ft

PV = MRT  (Ideal Gas Law)

170.4 * 1.5 = M * 766.34 * 540

M= ..0006 slugs ==> ..0199 lbs.

at 60 kBTU per lb you have produced 1,193 BTU's of hydrogen...


 :O Thats not much is it :O
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 09, 2008, 11:49:06 PM
Guess what?? An old Coast Guard buddy of mine has one of his sons going to the local ATI college for deisel engine machanic and they have a dyno lab at the school. I'm going to get in touch with Mathew (the son) in the next couple of days and see if his teacher might want to get involved with this little experiment. If so I'll have a dyno test done before I install the booster and then go get anouther one 30 days after the install and see what the tests give me.

Maverick I'm not trying to start a bunch of crap with you. I actually think like you do. I'm a pretty skeptical person about most things but the HHO boosters I've researched the hell out of and I was impressed enough to give building one a try. Your right though, some independant third party controlled lab testing needs to be performed and I'm all for that. If I can make the arrangments to get into ATI's auto lab and get a baseline for my truck before and after I think that would be great. I'm an Electronic Technician by proffesion so I'm a firm believer in hard data.

I wouldn't have even considered trying to get tests like this done had you not brought it up, but now that the bug is planted I'm going to try and make this happen. I'm really interested to see what happens.

I'll keep the BBS informed as to what is going on and I'll post whatever results I get.

Fair enough??
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on July 10, 2008, 03:53:06 AM
:aok
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 10, 2008, 11:05:15 PM
Yep Hornet it sounds pretty good. I'd like to see hard data on it one way or another. Looking at the amount of gas flowing into the intake vs the amount of ambient air just does not make the situation look like there is much chance of any substantial improvement in either performance or mileage. There is not enough power in the minimal amount of hydrogen to make a change in the engine output. I am very disappointed that the folks who put these things on the market don't have the confidence in them to really test it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 30, 2008, 08:05:35 AM
First trials for EEStor (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/eestor-announces-certification-additional-key/story.aspx?guid=%7BAB6D95CC-0C6B-4734-83CB-990B4451270C%7D) passed above expectations..
Quote
next material milestone with EEStor is the third party verification of permittivity of their production materials
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 30, 2008, 12:42:29 PM
By the way I have an appointment this Friday to get my truck on the Dyno at ATI. This is the pre install run.

We're going to check fuel flow, intake air flow, exhaust flow and content, engine water and oil temps, manifold pressure and horse power output for the following conditions.

25mph 0 grade, 10% incline grade, 10% decline grade, 2500lb tow load 0 grade
35mph
45mph
55mph
65mph

5 minute runs at each parameter. The data will be saved on the computer and when I come back after the install we'll run the exact same test routine and get a comparision for the 2 runs. It'll be interesting to see the results. What got better, what got worse, what changed in the performance curve.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 30, 2008, 01:08:18 PM
First trials for EEStor (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/eestor-announces-certification-additional-key/story.aspx?guid=%7BAB6D95CC-0C6B-4734-83CB-990B4451270C%7D) passed above expectations..

ZENN is suppose to make a electric car using EEStor's technology in the next year or two.

If EEStor's technology dosen't pan out, altairnano's Lithium-titanate battery being used by pheonix motorcars looks like a decent option..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wEo_teikU
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Furball on July 30, 2008, 02:19:19 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/09/travelandtransport.carbonemissions

Quote
The Electric Lightning GT appears to have everything an ecoconscious lover of British sports cars could want: a luxury interior, a top speed of 130mph and acceleration that would put a Porsche to shame

http://www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk/
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 30, 2008, 02:24:42 PM
Hornet,

You already know non dyno comparisons on the road on differing conditions makes the results invalid and totally subjective. Particularly when there is no lab work done before as well as after the modifications were done. If it makes you happy to make an unsubstantiated claim go for it.

FWIW I wasn't talking about your specific situation only either but you are also welcome to think I was as that is your problem not mine. My particular objection is towards the folks who market a piece of technology, make claims for improvements of mileage, power, sexual attributes of the user, hair restoration of same etc., and sell the same product without any 3rd party analysis. If their product was such hot stuff they would be demanding an independent test to prove it. At that point they just might be able to show unequivocally that they have a real product that is worth the investment. Secondarily that would also negate any oil company hit squads that might be called in to "eliminate the competition".

Just what are the manufacturers of this little gadget promising you will see in your vehicle?

lab work and reality are like theory and reality. they seldom agree, and reality almost always wins........
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 30, 2008, 02:30:18 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/09/travelandtransport.carbonemissions

http://www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk/

I think altairnano's Lithium-titanate battery is being used with that car as well....

Next two or three years we may seem some interesting EV development...
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Fulmar on July 30, 2008, 03:47:37 PM
The problem with Lithium-Ion cells is that even though they held more advantages over NiMH (found in your Prius and other hybrids on the road today), they couldn't deliver high output electrical surges.  Granted in a hybrid the gas engine could take over for this when needed in fast acceleration, but in a total electric car you'd be seeing some problems.

But if all pans out with Lithium-titanate, pure electric cars could really prove feasible on a large scale.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 30, 2008, 04:00:48 PM
The problem with Lithium-Ion cells is that even though they held more advantages over NiMH (found in your Prius and other hybrids on the road today), they couldn't deliver high output electrical surges.  Granted in a hybrid the gas engine could take over for this when needed in fast acceleration, but in a total electric car you'd be seeing some problems.

But if all pans out with Lithium-titanate, pure electric cars could really prove feasible on a large scale.

problem with pure elecrtric cars is that you have to recharge them sometime. you're not cleaning anything. you're only moving the source of polution.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Fulmar on July 30, 2008, 04:11:05 PM
problem with pure elecrtric cars is that you have to recharge them sometime. you're not cleaning anything. you're only moving the source of polution.
Lithium-titanate, from the claims can charge insanely fast as compared to Lithium-Ion.  The fastest Li-Ion cells can do about a 2.0C rate.  E.g. A battery can charge from 0-100% in 30 minutes (1.0C being 1 hour).  IIRC, titanate can do 10C as it claims.  I'd wait 6 minutes to charge my battery.

Or what if I mounted solar panels on the roof of my car, and at least extend the range on the batteries before I need to pull over and charge my battery.

However, any battery that charges at a high rate is going to generate a lot of heat, so insulation will be key.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 30, 2008, 04:45:43 PM
Lithium-titanate, from the claims can charge insanely fast as compared to Lithium-Ion.  The fastest Li-Ion cells can do about a 2.0C rate.  E.g. A battery can charge from 0-100% in 30 minutes (1.0C being 1 hour).  IIRC, titanate can do 10C as it claims.  I'd wait 6 minutes to charge my battery.

Or what if I mounted solar panels on the roof of my car, and at least extend the range on the batteries before I need to pull over and charge my battery.

However, any battery that charges at a high rate is going to generate a lot of heat, so insulation will be key.

insulation and wear. when you generate heat like that, you create wear too.

the lithium ion battaries i use in my electric models are very small.......2100MAH, 3 cell. flying a 36" span corsair, with a small outrunner, and i 20amp max(i think) speed controller, i've recorded that battery at over 100 degrees. i always let it cool before charging.

 what we need is impulse drives for our cars :D
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 30, 2008, 07:43:49 PM
The problem with Lithium-Ion cells is that even though they held more advantages over NiMH (found in your Prius and other hybrids on the road today), they couldn't deliver high output electrical surges.  Granted in a hybrid the gas engine could take over for this when needed in fast acceleration, but in a total electric car you'd be seeing some problems.

But if all pans out with Lithium-titanate, pure electric cars could really prove feasible on a large scale.

Tesla motors did a decent job using Lithium-ion batteries to deliver a fast 0-60 time in 4 seconds,

Tesla motors (http://www.teslamotors.com/)

I'm assuming they are using the standard lithium-ion battery.  I wonder how they handle safety for it.

The last part of the video shows 'Thermal runway'(a politically correct way to say the battery explodes) with a standard lithium-ion battery during nail penetration..   However it looks like A123system has developed a lithium battery that does not do that. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ayuFBDrSg

altairnano's Lithium-titanate avoids the 'thermal runway' as well..

[edit]
hmmm tesla doing 120 at le mans... cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMUuEEd2jws&feature=user






Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 30, 2008, 10:39:23 PM
Tesla motors did a decent job using Lithium-ion batteries to deliver a fast 0-60 time in 4 seconds,

Tesla motors (http://www.teslamotors.com/)

I'm assuming they are using the standard lithium-ion battery.  I wonder how they handle safety for it.

The last part of the video shows 'Thermal runway'(a politically correct way to say the battery explodes) with a standard lithium-ion battery during nail penetration..   However it looks like A123system has developed a lithium battery that does not do that. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ayuFBDrSg

altairnano's Lithium-titanate avoids the 'thermal runway' as well..

[edit]
hmmm tesla doing 120 at le mans... cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMUuEEd2jws&feature=user








i am by no means a chemist, but i think it is the lithium in the lithium ion and the lithium polymer batteries that reacts with the air. expose it, and it kinda sorta explodes.

 again, when we use the small ones in our model aircraft, if we crash, and the pack doesn't fire up right then, we generally cannot re-use them, as they are dangerous at that point.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on July 30, 2008, 10:51:34 PM
The Lithium won't explode. It will however oxidise rapidly, turning black on the surface first then degrading into a black crumbling mass.
Sodium is pretty reactive, it will burn on contact wit the air and can explode when immersed in water.
Potassium is a much better one, it can have an extremely violent reaction.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 30, 2008, 10:55:21 PM
I stand corrected... It does not explode, it just 'vents violently'...

 :devil



[edit]

another video of lithium ion 'venting violently' when it is overcharged...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5f0VCoFuFM&feature=related

Lithium Polymer 'venting violently'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQjudHKh-bI&feature=related
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 30, 2008, 11:24:57 PM
lab work and reality are like theory and reality. they seldom agree, and reality almost always wins........

If you had something to say here you failed to really communicate anything.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 30, 2008, 11:29:11 PM
I stand corrected... It does not explode, it just 'vents violently'...

 :devil



[edit]

another video of lithium ion 'venting violently' when it is overcharged...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5f0VCoFuFM&feature=related

Lithium Polymer 'venting violently'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQjudHKh-bI&feature=related


that's what i was trying to say! :D
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 30, 2008, 11:38:24 PM
If you had something to say here you failed to really communicate anything.

ok.......in theory, things almost always work the exact way they're intended. then you it out into reality, and build it. it never does what you expect it to. so...theory and reality disagreed....reality won.


hornet is doing the dyno tests as you want....and i can't wait to see the results....good or bad.

but as he's stated to you, no matter hwat all of your figuring and numbers crunching is telling you, the reality of the mater is that there's hundreds of people that've put these things on their cars, and gained improvement.
 reality cannot be argued. if one drives the same places each day, and fills their tank every 3 days, then installs one of these units, and suddenly is only filling up every 4 or 5 days, what lab work is needed? what else could've changed it? littel green men from mars?

 sorry if i'm sounding like i'm being rude, but i've seen the reports too. talked with some that've tried this. i didn;'t think something like this could or would work, but now i'm in the process of building a small unit to try on my geo. it gets 35 mpg right now. i drive the exact same areas day in and day out. i know what my car does. i've just this week started keeping it on paper.  i get the feeling i'm going to end up topping 40mpg.

 if this helps my geo this much, you can bet there's gonna be a bigger one on my dakota.


 so i guess that what i'm saying is that if john smith was burning 60 gallons a week, and now after the install, nothing else changed he's only burning 45 gallons a week, there is no need for lab testing.


 sorry if ya didn't understand that. :D
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on July 30, 2008, 11:59:08 PM
I was figuring you were trying to convey something like what you finally did state outright. Lets look at something here, in reality.

You state that many folks have used the gadget and "claim" there was an improvement. They have no real data to back it up other than their claims which are subjectively based. There are so many variables that using this kind of "proof" is not testing the gadget but the environment, driver's competence, fuel quality / formulation, weather, road surface, tires and so on. Not the least of which is the drivers expectation that they are going to have some kind of improvement after shelling out the money. The real "reality" of the situation is that there is no verified third party proof that the gadget works as claimed. You saying it works is not proof, it's another claim until actually tested.

The lab, Dyno actually, is a far better determiner of a real change in performance. It's a pretty common and industry accepted testing environment where all the other variables can be eliminated. It's not theory, it's practice testing the theory of the gadgets claims of better power, mileage and so on. That's the reality of using a scientific test to prove the claims of the inventor / vendor.

When the folks who made the gadget are unwilling to put it to the test that tells me they are into snake oil not real engineering. I am more than extremely skeptical when they didn't go to the normal step of actually doing a verifiable test on a dyno. This isn't number crunching by using a dyno, it's proving that there was some definable change. The theory is taking the word, untested, unverified of the manufacturer of the kit gadget as proof that you will gain anything by using his gadget and spending good money to test it yourself when they didn't have the confidence to do so themselves.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: g00b on July 31, 2008, 02:14:09 AM
Just wanted to plug my company, we make kick bellybutton electric dirt bikes.

www.zeromotorcycles.com

EV's are inevitable, just a matter of when...
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 31, 2008, 07:40:13 AM
Just wanted to plug my company, we make kick bellybutton electric dirt bikes.

www.zeromotorcycles.com

EV's are inevitable, just a matter of when...

i saw this site before. they are kick ass.....

but the fact still remains with electric vehicles. we're not cleaning anything up at all. we're just moving the source.

 here's another possibility. in kalifornia, where they tend to do the rolling blackouts(?). the workforce all leaves for work at 6am. on average, they'll get to the office around 7 or 8am. they pull in, park, and plug in their cars. they leave around 4pm to go home. they get home around 5 or 6pm. they plug in their cars. both times this causes a surge, and extra load on the power plants. they ramp up to handle it. they also blow out much much more pollution than gas powered cars would be. they also creat a situation where the rolling blackouts are much worse, much more often, and much longer.

 how's that helping anything?

 i realize i could be wrong on that, but it's just a thought.......
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 31, 2008, 09:34:42 AM
i saw this site before. they are kick ass.....

but the fact still remains with electric vehicles. we're not cleaning anything up at all. we're just moving the source.

 how's that helping anything?

 i realize i could be wrong on that, but it's just a thought.......

I'm not sure about the California situation but typically if people charge their cars during off peek hours there is excess capacity available at that point so until the excess capacity is all used up you would not see additional pollution. 

I think the long term goal would also include having existing power plants move towards clean coal technologies,  or building of new power plants that use thermal solar, solar, wind, and/or nuclear which would also reduce pollution levels.

Even if the above does not happen what I'm more interested in is reducing our dependency on imported oil.   IMO this out ways any other benefit that may come from using EV's.  If I could fill my car up with hydrogen, or natural gas I would be all for it as long as it reduces our dependency on oil.   I'm tired of spending money that helps fund the communist revolution in Venezuela or countries that sponsor terrorism.  We've been getting the short end of the stick on this since the 1960's and it's time to move on..

I really hope the EV technology will work out, it seems to be the best long term fit for us.  But unless they can get the price down to where it will compete with internal combustion engine(ICE) vehicles it will not happen.  The day I can buy a Tesla Roadster for 30K without the government subsidizing it will be the day ICE will be dead.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 09:45:29 AM
I'm willing to bet ICE won't die, for the sake of motorsports.  Petrol ICEs maybe.

CAP - Cutting car pollution by changing them to electric will move the pollution to energy production sites, which if nothing else will be easier to control than x hundred million polluting cars scattered over the road system. 
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 09:53:21 AM
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/smallbusiness/blacklight.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008070210 (http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/smallbusiness/blacklight.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008070210)

Check this outfit out. Blacklight Power Inc. http://www.blacklightpower.com/index.shtml (http://www.blacklightpower.com/index.shtml)

I've spent a couple of days reading over the information on their website and what this company is doing is nothing short of incredible. They are looking to have a plant online within the next year or so.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 10:11:26 AM
Blacklight is bogus.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 31, 2008, 10:26:01 AM
I'm willing to bet ICE won't die, for the sake of motorsports.  Petrol ICEs maybe.

CAP - Cutting car pollution by changing them to electric will move the pollution to energy production sites, which if nothing else will be easier to control than x hundred million polluting cars scattered over the road system. 


EASIER,  yes. but also much more expensive. that's the main reason they've been taking aim at cleaning up cars to begin with.

 if it still works like i remember, when NJ(for instance) cleans its air by XX amount, they earn carbon credits(or clean air credits i'm not sure what they call them now). NJ then in turn sells these credits to power companies, or manufatuurers, allowing them to continue to function without cleaning up.

 so basicly, nothing will change.

 if it does, when the govt finally starts forcing the power companies to clean up, it's going to raise their costs, and they're only going to pass that on to us, the consumers. at that point, we'll be in the same boat.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 11:09:19 AM
Blacklight is bogus.

Then why is a power company in Delaware signing on with them to install their new power generator system? The installation is supposed be completed within the next 12 months and the system online providing power to the grid within 6 months after that.

Blacklight isn't some fly by night outfit. They've been in buisness for almost 20 years, all of it in the hitech application fields. Lasers, hydrogen power, optics, ect. Read the bio's of the scientists and engineers that work there. These are some highly inteligent folks working on this thing.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 31, 2008, 11:27:56 AM

EASIER,  yes. but also much more expensive. that's the main reason they've been taking aim at cleaning up cars to begin with.

 if it still works like i remember, when NJ(for instance) cleans its air by XX amount, they earn carbon credits(or clean air credits i'm not sure what they call them now). NJ then in turn sells these credits to power companies, or manufatuurers, allowing them to continue to function without cleaning up.

 so basicly, nothing will change.

 if it does, when the govt finally starts forcing the power companies to clean up, it's going to raise their costs, and they're only going to pass that on to us, the consumers. at that point, we'll be in the same boat.

Cost may rise, but that cost will be dollars spent here in the US instead of some other country hostile to our way of life.  Plus this will give us more control over our energy policy, where incentives could be given to increase capacity to reduce costs.  Our current situation does not allow us to do that.  We have no control over what OPEC does.  The president has to fly out to Saudi Arabia and beg them to increase production.  We can't continue to do that long term.  The Middle east is way to unstable and if something were to happen there that spins out of control we may find that the costs are much higher than a small increase in our electric bills.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 11:55:31 AM
Then why is a power company in Delaware signing on with them to install their new power generator system? The installation is supposed be completed within the next 12 months and the system online providing power to the grid within 6 months after that.

Blacklight isn't some fly by night outfit. They've been in buisness for almost 20 years, all of it in the hitech application fields. Lasers, hydrogen power, optics, ect. Read the bio's of the scientists and engineers that work there. These are some highly inteligent folks working on this thing.
I did what you're doing now, almost 10 years ago.  They're just another crank investor bait, just like Steorn and countless others.  Did you notice Mills' "Grand unified theory of classical quantum physics"?  It's the basis (or bootsrap'd to look like it) for his whole energy scam and doesn't even stand up mathematicaly.  There might be something going on in his patented cells, but at best he has no idea what's going on and is just using it to (you guessed it) rake in more suckers' investments.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 12:29:07 PM
You forgot one little thing there Moot, Blacklight has had independant third parties come in and check their system out. Folks that said what they are doing is impossible have seen it and said that even though it's mathmatically impossible by current physics standards, it works. So if it works is Blacklight fooling everyone (people with PHD is phyics and mathmatics) or have they discovered something totaly new and are re writing the book?

The theory's of quantum physics that are used today are still in their infancy. No one knows with 100% certainty what can and cannot be done in regard to physics. Blacklight is punching a hole in alot of theory's that people believe can't be broken.

Smart people happen everywhere and when they show people something that nobody believes is possible, the majority of the believers of the status quo will try to shoot it down. Kinda like the Earth is flat theory, or the Earth is the center of the universe, or the sound barrier can't be broken.

The folks that are saying this breakthrough violates the laws of physics and is impossible might not be right. The Earth is round, we're not at the center of the universe, and the sound barrier was broken.


As far as you doing what I'm doing now 10 years ago, I assume your talking about building a hydroxy booster, and I'm also going to assume that it didn't work for you? If you don't mind can you tell me what you tried and what results you got?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 12:51:13 PM
No I didn't forget anything. There's something up too, in one of the cold fusion schemes, and no one can explain that either. If it can't be explained, it can't be produced by anything else than groping in the dark, and everything else downstream of that, experimentaly and commercialy, is up to chance.
The amount of energy they're getting the last time I saw, was barely above noise.  It wasn't exceptional.

What I did 10 years ago was notice someone saying something different, looked into it, and found that not only was there the usualy snubs and plain ignoring by the majority of specialists, there were also a few people (who are "smart" if that's your criteria) who pointed out some pretty ridiculous flaws in the math and physics behind his whole scheme.
Every teacher, high or low in academia, that I showed his papers to (everything but the actual meat of the paper removed from sight) was rolling his eyes either halfway thru it or after they skipped to the math.

So all I see is some guy with something acting funky but not producing any exceptional power, with no math nor physics to back up any of his explanations for it.  He's gotten all this investment for at least 10 long years, and hasn't come up with anything but a "Grand unified theory of classical quantum physics" which not only fails to explain his experimental funkiness, but also fails to actualy unite classical and quantum physics.  Which you DO realize is something of a holy grail, right?

There's a whole lot of people who are "punching holes" into accepted models, like the surfer guy a while back.  These assertions take time to be proven true or false or something in between.  So far Mills' "Grand unified theory" has racked up way more negative assessments than any other hypothesis does, in average.

I think you just got caught in the hopeful enthusiasm.  That means nothing, scientificaly.  What matters is for the actual theoretical and practical science to be flogged till it breaks.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on July 31, 2008, 01:15:30 PM
You forgot one little thing there Moot, Blacklight has had independant third parties come in and check their system out. Folks that said what they are doing is impossible have seen it and said that even though it's mathmatically impossible by current physics standards, it works. So if it works is Blacklight fooling everyone (people with PHD is phyics and mathmatics) or have they discovered something totaly new and are re writing the book?

The theory's of quantum physics that are used today are still in their infancy. No one knows with 100% certainty what can and cannot be done in regard to physics. Blacklight is punching a hole in alot of theory's that people believe can't be broken.

Smart people happen everywhere and when they show people something that nobody believes is possible, the majority of the believers of the status quo will try to shoot it down. Kinda like the Earth is flat theory, or the Earth is the center of the universe, or the sound barrier can't be broken.

The folks that are saying this breakthrough violates the laws of physics and is impossible might not be right. The Earth is round, we're not at the center of the universe, and the sound barrier was broken.


As far as you doing what I'm doing now 10 years ago, I assume your talking about building a hydroxy booster, and I'm also going to assume that it didn't work for you? If you don't mind can you tell me what you tried and what results you got?

wasn't there a day when it was "mathmatically impossible to fly? or to leave the atmosphere?

i know i'm over-simplyfing, but it seems about the same. if we all continue to think and experiment within current logic, and knowledge, we'll never get anywhere.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 01:52:34 PM
Whatever Moot. You obviously haven't read everything about what they are doing and the published results, verified and backed up by third party studies.

Also if they system wasn't proven to work, why would a power company invest the time, money, and effort to convert one of their power plants over to this system for full scale real world trials? That is not a goal for them, it's actually happening now. In the next year and a half they will be online with this system and they are planning to go into full scale production within the next 2 years.

They have a small number of investors that have put over $60 million into this. Investors that have worked in the power production industry for many years and know what they are talking about. A crackpot who doesn't know what he's talking about and can't prove his theory's isn't going to be able to pull in that kind of investment from the type of people that have invested in Blacklight.

I think they have something revolutionary here. Something that will turn the world on it's ears if they're given half a chance to run with it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 02:15:07 PM
You're just along for the ride based on some social dynamics gut feeling Hornet. 
Quote
Something that will turn the world on it's ears if they're given half a chance to run with it.
.. You mean like 50 M$ and counting?  Where are the hydrinos?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on July 31, 2008, 02:15:42 PM
You notice there hasn't been anything on Pelmear and his Mustang since early July? What happened to the monitored test at the drag strip?

All quiet on the 100 mpg Mustang front.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 31, 2008, 02:35:31 PM
Hornet, I hate to tell you this, but there have been plenty of investors who have been fooled by a good marketing plan.  Here is the situation.  An investor sees this marketing spiel.  Decides to have it checked out.  The investor has no clue what he is doing, but hires someone he thinks does to tell him what the real skinny is.

Now, the guy who is supposed to be giving the investor the straight scoop is concerned the Blacklight guys might be on to something so he hedges his bet.  Basically giving a vague recommendation to the investor.  The investor decides it is worth the risk and plunges into it.

There was an Internet appliance once that was used in a marketing plan to drain $40M dollars from investors.  The investors never saw a nickle.

I have witnessed these types of shenigans first hand.  I wish I could be that inscrutable.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 02:45:58 PM
You're just along for the ride based on some social dynamics gut feeling Hornet.  .. You mean like 50 M$ and counting?  Where are the hydrinos?

The hydrinos will be in the new prototype plant in Delaware next year. You know an actual working power plant tied to the electrical grid. They are way past the theory on paper stage, they are at 50kw bench test units and scalling up for full production of a commercial unit.

Not some gut feeling here, they have backed up all their claims and theories with real results. The ONLY folks that don't agree with it have nothing but a theory to counter Blacklights physical, documented, and proven results, so who is going with the gut feeling?

Also who do you know in the buisness world who would invest $60 million based solely on someones theory? They wouldn't unless that person had something solid to back it up.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 31, 2008, 02:53:49 PM
The investors for the particular Internet appliance put $40M into it based on a theory.  The theory being that people would be happy to allow thier Internet purchasing activities to be watched if they could get a discount on thier purchases.  Course you had to buy the product as well.

$40M was poured into that black hole.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 03:02:17 PM
No Hornet, why haven't they been seen by a single astronomer? Some guy that can't make sense theoreticaly, and despite this claims to unify pretty much the biggest rift in physics today... will somehow revolutionize everything with an energy process he might not understand himself, and theory that doesn't even make sense (http://taenia.homestead.com/files/A_critical_analysis_of_the_hydrino_model.pdf)?    If I were on flamewarriors.net I'd say you're caught in the same inspiration that's gotten you building your hydroxy booster :P.
Do you really think there's no precedent for incorrect science to get funding?  Even if we recognize that his spectral lines are funky, he doesn't come up with anything to explain them that makes sense.  The best explanation for all this at this point is that Mills is the proverbial pig fumbling onto an acorn.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 03:17:52 PM
Are we even talking about the same thing?? An astronomer? We're talking sub atomic particals here, so how is an astronomer going to see that? Yeah let me use the hubble to look inside a hydrogen atom. That requires a mass spectrometer which they have used and have documented their results which prove the exsistance of hydrinos and how they are created. It was a partical physicist that works for Blacklight Power that discovered them, and then had his information corroborated by third party studies also documented, not an astronomer with his telescope.

Were did you learn your science? Astronomer.....really???
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on July 31, 2008, 03:31:30 PM
I agree it is investor quality data, but I also agree with moot on that there is far too much 'pie in the sky' in that data.  Armed with patents, they should have no problem discussing in detail the discovery and process.  I see a very vague description of both.  At least, vague to me.  I cannot get passed the contridictions as well.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 04:30:17 PM
Hydrogen spectra in deep space (21cm right?) is from electrons going from higher to lower states, isn't it?  Wouldn't conversions between Mills' particle and regular H radiate differently?  No mass spectrometer needed there.  Where did you learn your science Hornet? Even on earth, why hasn't a single scientist working on H plasma or gas or playing around with particles detected this?    Where have you been hiding under for the last few dozen years to miss all the crackpots attracting tons of investor cash? DId you read the paper I linked to?  Did you see this part?
Quote
Most importantly, we found that CQM does not predict the existence of hydrino states!
or
Quote
Hence CQM lacks important features of quantum mechanics and does not
describe known physics properly.

All I'm sure of is that the guy you're insisting will change the world has been caught making mistakes on the order of fundamental inconsistencies in his math and physics, or of copying others' previous scientific research into his papers word for word.  I'm saying this guy, if he's really discovered something new, doesn't know how to explain it. 

My gut feeling is that Mills is full of poop and is milking his little anomaly (if not hoax).  The trials ought to bear the truth sooner or later, and so far even NASA back in the 90s (when BLP was "HydroCatalysis" ) failed to get the hydrino stuff to work.  My gut feeling is that he's found something funky like the cold fusion people did, and that the phenomenon isn't going to produce anything anywhere near extraordinary or world changing. Not in his hands anyway.

Yep.. I remembered right, here you go Hornet:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/h21.html#c1
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on July 31, 2008, 05:52:22 PM
Tesla production model #6 has crashed...

Well that didn't take long..

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/worlds-first-fo.html

 :cry
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Hornet33 on July 31, 2008, 07:16:54 PM
Hydrogen spectra in deep space (21cm right?) is from electrons going from higher to lower states, isn't it?  Wouldn't conversions between Mills' particle and regular H radiate differently?  No mass spectrometer needed there.  Where did you learn your science Hornet? Even on earth, why hasn't a single scientist working on H plasma or gas or playing around with particles detected this?    Where have you been hiding under for the last few dozen years to miss all the crackpots attracting tons of investor cash? DId you read the paper I linked to?  Did you see this part?or
All I'm sure of is that the guy you're insisting will change the world has been caught making mistakes on the order of fundamental inconsistencies in his math and physics, or of copying others' previous scientific research into his papers word for word.  I'm saying this guy, if he's really discovered something new, doesn't know how to explain it. 

My gut feeling is that Mills is full of poop and is milking his little anomaly (if not hoax).  The trials ought to bear the truth sooner or later, and so far even NASA back in the 90s (when BLP was "HydroCatalysis" ) failed to get the hydrino stuff to work.  My gut feeling is that he's found something funky like the cold fusion people did, and that the phenomenon isn't going to produce anything anywhere near extraordinary or world changing. Not in his hands anyway.

Yep.. I remembered right, here you go Hornet:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/h21.html#c1

And yet again you are baseing everything off of the current accepted theories. Mills has said that what he and his team have found doesn't conform to those theories, yet they have at present a working hydrogen based power cell that once started can sustain itself and by using the heat generated from the reaction to boil water to steam and pipe that through a steam turbine generator and produce 50kw of power out the back end, and that's just the small one in the lab. The design is able to be scalled up for commercial applications and that's what they are doing right now. That's why Delaware Lectric has partnered with them to install the system into one of their power plants this year.

Everyone is trying to shoot the idea down using mathmatical formulas and what not, yet the physical equipement is there and it works just like he said it would. How do you explain that? He's had scientists and engineers come into to look at his design and none of them deny that it works, they just can't explain how.

I don't pretend to understand all the math involved in this because I don't. Partical physics is not my field, but it is theirs. I'm an electronic technician. I deal with hardware and software and I know how to read engineering schematics. I've also been reading alot about hydrogen power systems to learn as much as I can about them. That's how I stumbled across Darklight Power Inc. These guys aren't working out of their garage in their spare time, they are a full time research and engineering firm that has developed a whole new way to generate large amounts electrical power cheaper, and cleaner than anything else on the planet and they have the data to prove it. Not to mention the backing of a bunch of scientists, engineers, and major corporations. They have patents pending on all their equipment, and are preparing to go into full scale production.

So I'll ask you again. HOW can they do that if the damn thing doesn't actually work? If this guy is such an idiot, then how has he fooled the scientists and engineers that have seen his device in operation?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on July 31, 2008, 08:21:48 PM
HOW? The same way every other scam went as far as it did.. Remember cold fusion Hornet?  What if the BLP gadget works for some reason other than what Mills pretends?  Don't you think something's amiss when his papers had parts taken verbatim off other papers?  When the theory he pretends explains his extraordinary claims neither makes sense on its own, nor actualy backs up the claims, and isn't even backed up by reality?  When after so many man-hours (people all over the world for this past century at least) not one hydrino was detected in any work with hydrogen, not even in all the vastness of outer space?

And you're buying everything this guy is pitching.  You want to believe.. You're passionate.  I'm seeing all the clues of a big bubble waiting to burst.  Best case scenario, this leads to something like the funky heat in those Pons/Fleischman cold fusion experiments, and we get at least one step closer to making sense of them. But it won't be thanks to theories that don't even make sense.  For all they're worth, his gadget's just doing regular chemistry..  So far Mills ranks right with Michael "solid sun" Mozina
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 01, 2008, 01:58:26 AM
I do not think you need acres of land.  One of my little projects is generating about 3000W@120V in a 10 square foot area.  However, it is a little different than what is commercially available.

I have not taken any time to calculate how much hydrogen could be produced as I think hydrogen powered cars is something not really practical yet.

I could probably push the output to 4500W with little effort, but it served the purpose I needed at the time.

I know that this is a late response, but here goes anyway...

In the USA, in June, west of the Mississippi, you ban expect 8 to 14 KWhr/M2/day of solar insolation on a 2 axis  tracking plate collector.

Call it 10 KWhr/M2/day...

Call the daylight a very conservative 12 hrs, that means yo can get 1 kw/ sq metre, which is about 10 sq ft.

This means you need to attain 300% efficiency in your solar collector.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 01, 2008, 06:11:38 AM
You have made assumptions about the configuration that do not apply Holden.  My calculations are based off a smaller working model of the system.  There is no reason to expect a larger model to not meet what is expected.

If I had access to better tools and materials, it could be more efficient, but I will settle for what it will provide.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 01, 2008, 06:59:59 AM
You have made assumptions about the configuration that do not apply Holden.

I got my numbers from http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/ (http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/)

I made my assumptions based on solar insolation in kilowatt-hours per square meter per day.

This is a physical phenomenon based on the sun and the earth.  Configuration of the system is moot.

http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-insolation-window.html (http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-insolation-window.html)

The chart in the link above shows the insolation for many US cities.

This shows that your goal of 3kw/10 sq ft is much more than the sun sends us.


Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on August 01, 2008, 07:31:59 AM
Tesla production model #6 has crashed...

Well that didn't take long..

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/worlds-first-fo.html

 :cry

i like how they tried to say it went "unnoticed" because it was quiet.

ya can't hear 1/2 the mileaga masters and imports anyway :rofl :rofl
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 01, 2008, 07:45:55 AM
Tesla production model #6 has crashed...

Well that didn't take long..

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/worlds-first-fo.html

 :cry

one of the first documented automobile fatalities was in 1869

Mary Ward of Ireland was run over by a steam car.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SageFIN on August 01, 2008, 08:02:46 AM
That Hydrino theory thing has all the looks of a scam, starting from the name of the company. I'd be very surprised if it doesn't die out in due time.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lazs2 on August 01, 2008, 09:35:56 AM
bones..  I don't get it.  If you are never going to get a thing out of the deal.. and you are going to spend all of your time and money on working on it anyway...

Why not just put it out there for everyone?

It is possible that you are some unsung genius and not a bitter nutjob.   I have no way of knowing.   I do know that I can't figure out your explanation for why you are acting the way you are.

Why not just open a website and put all your thoughts out on it?   why not update as you progress?   If it is worth a damn.. there should be plenty of people who see the value and would be glad to contribute even.

If you have lost faith in people...   I would put forth that your attitude doesn't do much for my faith in people.

lazs
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 01, 2008, 10:10:02 AM
I got my numbers from http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/ (http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/)

I made my assumptions based on solar insolation in kilowatt-hours per square meter per day.

This is a physical phenomenon based on the sun and the earth.  Configuration of the system is moot.

http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-insolation-window.html (http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-insolation-window.html)

The chart in the link above shows the insolation for many US cities.

This shows that your goal of 3kw/10 sq ft is much more than the sun sends us.

Allow me to take anohter tack.  What you do not know about my design is plentiful.  You have not idea how or what is being coverted to what in the design.  The assumptions you are making are too many to list.  You have no idea what energy or method is being used to convert to electricity.  You are also assuming a flat conversion of energy per square foot.  It is quite easy to multiply the amount of energy collected per square foot.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on August 01, 2008, 10:36:54 AM
I'm just the messenger so don't shoot me.. I think he means that there's not that much solar energy falling over that area to begin with.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 01, 2008, 10:43:45 AM
I understand what he is saying and I know what he is referring to.  It assumes a flat model.  The same amount of energy is also available 1 foot off the ground.  Then again at 2 feet off the ground, then again at 3 feet off the ground and so on.

It is more an engineering issue than a scientific one.  There is one new piece of engineering/science, which if explained, would help you and Holden understand much more what is going on in the process.  That is my pride and joy.  The piece I worked on for over 15 years.  The piece that makes it all much easier to do, but not impossible to do without it.

I know you would like to know about it, but I am not giving that away to anyone.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on August 01, 2008, 10:52:55 AM
Hehe :) 
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Toad on August 01, 2008, 10:55:59 AM
I am pretty much flabbergasted.

So you have this big secret that would <edit> potentially improve the quality of life for many, but not all </edit> and it's already working but.... you can't tell anyone and you're going to burn your notebooks and take the secret to your grave because.... <edit> you had bad luck with investors and you are so bitter about mankind in general?
</edit>

Gotcha.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 01, 2008, 11:07:14 AM
I do not recall saying no one believed me.  If that works for you, then run with it.

I would not categorize what I have done to be a huge boon to humanity.  It had the potential to improve the quality of life for many, but not all.

Really never felt like I owed anyone an explanation for anything I have done in my life.  Whether or not I am believed makes no difference to me.

Look at it this way.  I thought of it.  You can be sure others will think if it as well.  It is the nature of invention.  Maybe those others will have better luck with investors and not be so bitter about mankind in general.  I am probably driven more by spite than any other emotion at this moment in time.

Next, will be my car.  It will take a few years, but it will get done.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on August 01, 2008, 12:30:13 PM
Toad,

I think that the discussion on solar in this part of the thread has just dropped to the "neener neener neener I know a secret and you don't!" level.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 01, 2008, 12:47:20 PM
I like that.

Appropriate on so many levels.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 01, 2008, 03:22:36 PM
bones..  I don't get it.  If you are never going to get a thing out of the deal.. and you are going to spend all of your time and money on working on it anyway...

Why not just put it out there for everyone?

It is possible that you are some unsung genius and not a bitter nutjob.   I have no way of knowing.   I do know that I can't figure out your explanation for why you are acting the way you are.

Why not just open a website and put all your thoughts out on it?   why not update as you progress?   If it is worth a damn.. there should be plenty of people who see the value and would be glad to contribute even.

If you have lost faith in people...   I would put forth that your attitude doesn't do much for my faith in people.

lazs

Missed this before.  I was not ignoring you.

You are correct.  You do not know if I am a nutjob or the real deal. However, I thought I was pretty clear.  I was doing it for the money.  I took my life savings, countless hours, and poured it into this project  and others.

I sought out investors.  They told me they had to have a working model.  I did it.  Then they wanted a full blown model.  I did that. Then they wanted the plans to the models so they could have third party people verify them.  All without showing me a nickle.  That I did not do and will not do.  I do not have the money for a patent attorney and right now feel it would be a waste of money.  I got screwed out of a patent before.

In my life I have made a lot of people very rich.  Twice burned.  It was not gong to happen again.  I have nothing to show for the millions I made for others but some plaques on the wall.  When I need motivation to go keep going I remind myself of what I have created that will never be available to anyone.  I can say, "Screw society!" with a smile on my face.

I am not above rubbing salt in the wound, so I will probably post pictures of the system when it is completed.  No one will be able to tell enough about it to help duplicate it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on August 01, 2008, 05:30:37 PM
Missed this before.  I was not ignoring you.

You are correct.  You do not know if I am a nutjob or the real deal. However, I thought I was pretty clear.  I was doing it for the money.  I took my life savings, countless hours, and poured it into this project  and others.

I sought out investors.  They told me they had to have a working model.  I did it.  Then they wanted a full blown model.  I did that. Then they wanted the plans to the models so they could have third party people verify them.  All without showing me a nickle.  That I did not do and will not do.  I do not have the money for a patent attorney and right now feel it would be a waste of money.  I got screwed out of a patent before.

In my life I have made a lot of people very rich.  Twice burned.  It was not gong to happen again.  I have nothing to show for the millions I made for others but some plaques on the wall.  When I need motivation to go keep going I remind myself of what I have created that will never be available to anyone.  I can say, "Screw society!" with a smile on my face.

I am not above rubbing salt in the wound, so I will probably post pictures of the system when it is completed.  No one will be able to tell enough about it to help duplicate it.

smart thing not giving them the plans and stuff......they sound like they were roping ya along. 

i thought that once you had a patent on something, it was yours and yours only for whatever the time was? or was that twisted around by a ""better"" lawyer than you had?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 01, 2008, 08:15:00 PM
Allow me to take anohter tack.  What you do not know about my design is plentiful.  You have not idea how or what is being coverted to what in the design.  The assumptions you are making are too many to list.  You have no idea what energy or method is being used to convert to electricity.  You are also assuming a flat conversion of energy per square foot.  It is quite easy to multiply the amount of energy collected per square foot.

If I change the design of a dam can I multiply the amount of water so that the river flows over it twice or is there only so much water flowing by?

Enlighten me.  How can you harvest more sunlight than the sun sends us?  If the sun sends us 1 kw per sq meter, designing a collector that is not more than a sq meter that collects more than 1 kw is a guaranteed Nobel Prize in physics.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 06:15:57 AM
smart thing not giving them the plans and stuff......they sound like they were roping ya along. 

i thought that once you had a patent on something, it was yours and yours only for whatever the time was? or was that twisted around by a ""better"" lawyer than you had?

Deep pockets can pretty much win whatever case they want in our court system.

If I change the design of a dam can I multiply the amount of water so that the river flows over it twice or is there only so much water flowing by?

Enlighten me.  How can you harvest more sunlight than the sun sends us?  If the sun sends us 1 kw per sq meter, designing a collector that is not more than a sq meter that collects more than 1 kw is a guaranteed Nobel Prize in physics.

I'll say it one more time.  You and those two sites you are quoting, make assumptions that do not apply to my design.  You can keep quoting them like they are some type of holy grail for energy creation, but they still do not apply to my design.  Flat panel collectors?  Voltaics?  Not even close.  You have no idea what is involved in my design.

I'll toss you a bone.  A properly engineered collector could focus 100 square feet of sunlight in an area as little as 8 square feet.  Nothing tricky about it.  It is just an engineering challenge.

So the first assumption you made was I told you the area of my collector and I have not.  Therefore you cannot make any further assumptions about the power output.  Whether it is based on voltaics or solar collection makes no difference.

I tried to hint at you that you were assuming a flat model.  I thought you might catch that.  If you still do not get it, then just drop it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 02, 2008, 06:46:58 AM

I'll say it one more time.  You and those two sites you are quoting, make assumptions that do not apply to my design. 

I will say it one more time.

They do not. The 2 sites I quote show how much energy the sun imparts upon a square meter of the surface of the earth.

Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time. It is commonly expressed as average irradiance in watts per square meter (W/m˛) or kilowatt-hours per square meter per day kW·h/m˛·day.

Over the course of a year the average solar radiation arriving at the top of the Earth's atmosphere is roughly 1366 watts per square meter.

By the time it gets to the earths surface, it is appx 1000 w/m2.

Regardless of your design, you can not harvest more solar radiation per square meter than the sun sends us.  This is not based upon design, but based upon the physical world we live in.

You could gather more energy with mirrors and reflect light to the collector, but then the mirrors are collectors and your surface area increases as you collector area is now including the mirrors:  the 1 kw/m2 is still sacrosanct.

Your 3 kw/m2 is bogus, you cannot do it.   You cannot design around the constants of our earth.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: lazs2 on August 02, 2008, 11:02:43 AM
bones..  at the risk of maybe getting a letter bomb in the mail....

I have upgraded you from nutjob to dangerous bitter nutjob.

I bet your system wouldn't help anyone.   

I know if I exaggerated the case a little I could say that I have come up with several ideas in the past that have made others millions and.. I never seen a cent of it.

What I did was enjoy the fact that others had a good time with some of my ideas.. 

lazs
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 11:18:59 AM
Well Holden, you get it then you don't.

I will say it again.  It is easy to have a collector surface area of 100 sq. ft in an 8 sq. ft area of land.  Not sure what about that you are not understanding.  You even said it yourself.  It is a simple engineering issue.  Nothing more.

Unless you can grasp that simple concept, then we are at an impasse.  I have never stated what the collector area is.  I have never stated I use a collector.  I have never stated anything about how the system works.  You can assume whatever you like.  I am done with it.

I have nothing to prove to you or anyone else.  Your lack of understanding is not my problem.  whether or not you believe me is not my problem either.  If you just have to be right, then so be it.  You are right.  Better?

bones..  at the risk of maybe getting a letter bomb in the mail....

I have upgraded you from nutjob to dangerous bitter nutjob.

I bet your system wouldn't help anyone.   

I know if I exaggerated the case a little I could say that I have come up with several ideas in the past that have made others millions and.. I never seen a cent of it.

What I did was enjoy the fact that others had a good time with some of my ideas.. 

lazs

I could care less if it will help anyone else.  I am more than happy it will help me out.  That is all that matters.  I can be dangerous and have managed to blow open some items during various tests.  I am absolutely bitter.  I enjoy the company of many others that were also considered nutjobs for their ideas that eventually helped mankind.  None of mine will.  That you can be sure of.

You can also add spiteful to the list laz.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on August 02, 2008, 11:23:25 AM
Well Holden, you get it then you dont.

I will say it again.  It is easy to have a collector surface area of 100 sq. ft in an 8 sq. ft area of land.  Not sure what about that you are not understanding.  You even said it yourself/  It is a simple engineering issue.  Nothing more.

Unless you can grasp that simple concept, then we are at an impasse.  I have never stated what the collector area is.  I have never stated I use a collector.  I have never stated anything about how the system works.  You can assume whatever you like.  I am done with it.

I MISSED PARTS OF THIS, BUT I THINK I GET WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO SAY.

holden is saying that you can only harvest (for instance) 10 KW of solar energy per 100 sq. ft.

so by taking and fitting 100 sq. ft of collector into 10 sq. feet, you could then place 9 other collectors of the same capacity, each one collecting 10KW, thus multiplying the amount of energy you can collect.

i think?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 11:25:30 AM
Yes CAP1, that is essentially it.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on August 02, 2008, 11:51:56 AM
Yes CAP1, that is essentially it.

now that's effed up though.......

in the other thread, it took a couple posts for me to get the 4.5% to 5% thing...and i understood what you're talking about right off the bat.

 i hope it works for ya.....it would be good. i also wish i could figure out how to do it too. would be nice to convert mom's house to solar, for everything, as she's having serious trouble affording it now......
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 12:19:42 PM
It was a discussion.  I never said I was doing it.  I have a model that I did that shows how it works.  From that I learned some other things and applied that and from that I learned more, and so on.

The system that will power my home is a combination of technologies, along with a couple of things I created.  I have not found one specific technology that would supply electricity consistently in all conditions.  Does not mean there are not any technologies that would.  Many of the things I simply cannot afford.

So my system ends up being a compromise of sorts.  Although there is a couple of new twists and one totally new concept/invention that makes it all work in such a compact area.  Otherwise, I would be stuck with a 38 to 40 foot parabolic dish.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SageFIN on August 02, 2008, 12:34:42 PM
The problem here is that with the sun as the energy source, only the projected solid angle towards the sun matters. So even if a miraculous fractal solar collector had an area of gazillion square meters, it could collect as much energy as it's angular size (as seen from the sun) allows for (i.e. it's projected area). The numbers Holden posted mean basically the same thing.

The following thought experiment might help. Say the sun radiates at the power of P watts (all wavelengths combined). This radiant flux is divided approximately uniformly in all directions. Well then, if we think of an imaginary sphere around the sun then every patch from this sphere receives an amount of power equal to the patch's area divided by the area of the whole sphere, if we approximate that no radiant flux is lost in the interplanetary space. Then if we think of a sphere that has a radius equal to the distance of the earth from the sun, it is clear that the whole of earth receives only some little fraction of P watts in power, equal to the angular size of the earth as seen from the sun divided by the area of the said sphere (a rather huge sphere at that).

Proceeding to an even smaller scale, it is obvious, that a solar collector working at a 100 % efficiency can only ever produce as much power as the projected area of the whole assembly allows for. The only way to get additional energy is to add it in some other form, such as the rays of the sun heating up a substance releasing chemical energy or such.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on August 02, 2008, 12:40:27 PM
I MISSED PARTS OF THIS, BUT I THINK I GET WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO SAY.

holden is saying that you can only harvest (for instance) 10 KW of solar energy per 100 sq. ft.

so by taking and fitting 100 sq. ft of collector into 10 sq. feet, you could then place 9 other collectors of the same capacity, each one collecting 10KW, thus multiplying the amount of energy you can collect.

i think?

Cap1,

What Holden has been saying is this. There is not enough sunshine impacting the area to get the Kw power that bones is claiming to collect.

This is another example. You have a spigot that flows 1 gallon per hour and you need to collect the water. Holden is saying no matter what size or design collector you have you can't collect more than 1 gallon per hour of water from a hose or spigot that flows only 1 gallon per hour.

Bones is saying his gadget with it's increased surface area and design will collect say 10 gallons of water per hour from the same spigot. There is a bit of a disconnect there and both sides of the discussion cannot be correct.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 12:58:09 PM
It does not increase the surface area.  I was simply discussing how you could create a 100 sq ft collector and not have to lay it out flat on the ground.  Why that concept is so difficult for people is beyond me.  I cannot take credit for it either.  Not my idea.  I have seen the designs and various implementations of the concept.

There is no disconnect.  Everyone seems to be assuming a system that is 100% solar driven, in a conventional collector or photovoltaic manner.  This is where the problem is.  This is where I can understand why there is a misunderstanding.  You are not familiar with the design nor the concept of the design.  Therefore you cannot begin to toss numbers and formulas at it which would make much sense.

Analogous to calculating the thermal energy in a gallon of gasoline for a car which is only using 1% gasoline to generate motive power and then stating you cannot get 100 miles to the gallon from the gasoline. Hmmm.  A bit wordy.  Maybe the point will stick though.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SageFIN on August 02, 2008, 01:13:05 PM
It does not increase the surface area.  I was simply discussing how you could create a 100 sq ft collector and not have to lay it out flat on the ground.  Why that concept is so difficult for people is beyond me.  I cannot take credit for it either.  Not my idea.  I have seen the designs and various implementations of the concept.

Well, this is entirely reasonable. However, one could just construct an elevated flat section of solar panels and it would be just as good.

Quote
There is no disconnect.  Everyone seems to be assuming a system that is 100% solar driven, in a conventional collector or photovoltaic manner.  This is where the problem is.  This is where I can understand why there is a misunderstanding.  You are not familiar with the design nor the concept of the design.  Therefore you cannot begin to toss numbers and formulas at it which would make much sense.

Analogous to calculating the thermal energy in a gallon of gasoline for a car which is only using 1% gasoline to generate motive power and then stating you cannot get 100 miles to the gallon from the gasoline. Hmmm.  A bit wordy.  Maybe the point will stick though.

As I stated before, if the system is not 100 % solar powered, then it could get almost any amount of power per square meter. The energy is just introduced in other than solar form. Would you mean something analogous to using a solar collector to heat water and use it to power a turbine as in this solution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 01:28:09 PM
Steam requires an enormous amount of continously supplied thermal energy and the potential for energy loss is high.  Then you have the problem of continuing to supply that thermal energy over night unless you want to use some type of battery storage system as a backup.  Then you have maintenance costs, which can be quite high, due to the corrosive effects in dealing with steam and battery systems.

A steam turbine would be out of the question for personal use.  Far too expensive.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SageFIN on August 02, 2008, 01:32:01 PM
Steam requires an enormous amount of continously supplied thermal energy and the potential for energy loss is high.  Then you have the problem of continuing to supply that thermal energy over night unless you want to use some type of battery storage system as a backup.  Then you have maintenance costs, which can be quite high, due to the corrosive effects in dealing with steam and battery systems.

A steam turbine would be out of the question for personal use.  Far too expensive.

I chose my words poorly anyhow. Using a steam turbine with solar power would produce no net gain over the total radiant energy. To get more output than what the sun's radiation affords, the suns rays would have to be used to light up some combustible for example, the chemical energy of which would faciliate the greater power output.

Without knowing the exact details of your system, it is quite impossible to say more about it. The fact however remains that using nothing else but solar radiation it is impossible to get more than the amount of power that the sun radiates over a given projected surface area.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Bones on August 02, 2008, 01:46:12 PM
Absolutely true.  You cannot get out more than you put in.  Always been a good rule to go by.

The Sun at approximately the 40 degree latitude, places approximately 1KWH of energy per square meter (about 2280 BTU's for the entire daylight period) to the ground.  It will vary a little during the course of the year.  If it is a thermal system, you have to decide how you are going to convert that to electricity.  There are a number of ways to accomplish that,  The method you chose will dictate how much thermal energy, from the Sun, you will need to provide the electrical power you want.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 02, 2008, 08:51:20 PM
Well Holden, you get it then you don't.

I will say it again.  It is easy to have a collector surface area of 100 sq. ft in an 8 sq. ft area of land.  Not sure what about that you are not understanding.  You even said it yourself.  It is a simple engineering issue.  Nothing more.

Unless you can grasp that simple concept, then we are at an impasse.  I have never stated what the collector area is.  I have never stated I use a collector.  I have never stated anything about how the system works.  You can assume whatever you like.  I am done with it.

Sure I can have 100 sq ft in 8 sq ft of land, but It is only the area of the collector perpendicular to the suns rays that count.  That means that for every m2 of are perpendicular to the suns rays, you can only collect 1 KW.  That is all that is avalable.  There is no more.  If I design a system that collects all the energy from the sun Regardless of design I can only collect 1 KW  that is all anyone can get.  It does not matter the design,  there is only 1 KW to collect.

What you said that I first objected to was,
Quote
One of my little projects is generating about 3000W@120V in a 10 square foot area.  However, it is a little different than what is commercially available


This is impossible, as there is only 1 KW of sunlight available in a 10 sq ft area.

You claim that you are collecting three times more energy than is available to collect in a 10 sq ft area.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on August 02, 2008, 09:00:56 PM
Holden I see what you're getting at but I think you're missing the point. What you state is true IF you are using conventional collection techniques.
What Bones is alluding to is that although the physical size of his apparatus is only 10sq.ft. the effective collector area in his design is 30sq.ft.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 02, 2008, 09:09:47 PM
Holden I see what you're getting at but I think you're missing the point. What you state is true IF you are using conventional collection techniques.
What Bones is alluding to is that although the physical size of his apparatus is only 10sq.ft. the effective collector area in his design is 30sq.ft.

What I state is true regardless of collection technique.  There is only so much sun to collect.  It you want more, you must have more area perpendicular to the suns rays.

I suppose if you had a 100 m tower 2 meters wide at the south pole, you could get 200 M2 of collector perpindicular to the suns rays on a small footprint, and then collect 200 KW, assuming 100% efficiency. 

Is that where this collector we are talking about is?

Let see 3 : 1 is this at 71 degrees N latitude?   

Solar 2 in the Mojave is using 4000 acres to get 750MW, in 2010. thats about 35 sq M per KW ... mirrors and sterling cycle.

PV are on the order of 20% efficiency, 40.7% was a laboratory world record last year.

So if PVs are used at 20% efficiency, you get 200W/M2
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on August 02, 2008, 09:12:12 PM
I understood that not only the top area was collecting.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 02, 2008, 09:24:46 PM
It is the geomerty that is important.  If I take a collector and put it at 45 Deg angle of incidence to the suns rays, it will collect only 70.7% (sine of 45 Deg) of the rays per sq ft of the collector than if the collector is perpinducular to the rays.  If the panel is 60 Deg to the suns rays, then it collects only half.

The most efficient way to have a solar collector arranged is to impinge in the suns rays at perpindicular (hence the tracking collector technology) and at perpindicular the sun only delivers 1 KW/sqM.   
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Rolex on August 02, 2008, 09:43:10 PM
Well, looks like those years we spent studying calculus-based Physics and Thermodynamics were wasted, Holden.  ;)
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on August 02, 2008, 09:47:25 PM
No Holden, I mean the only way to break the insolation limit for any given area is for any given area to put the insolation to work on more than just the topmost layer.
|   |      |  |    |
 v  v      v  v   v
--------|---------
 v  v    | v      v
--------|---------
     v   |          v
--------|---------
          |
____________
/   /     /    /    /
How that can happen is beyond me, but that's the only way I can think to make sense of the math.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 02, 2008, 11:10:20 PM
No Holden, I mean the only way to break the insolation limit for any given area is for any given area to put the insolation to work on more than just the topmost layer.

But... the insolation limit of 1 kw/sq meter is the limit.  You cannot harvest more from the sun than it sends us.

Putting multi layer collectors can work to increase the collecting efficiency (there is a company out there who make a window film collector so the windows you look thru can generate some electricity)

Trying to get more than 1 kw/m2 with your multi layer idea is like harvesting the wheat field and then doubling the harvest by running the combine over the cut feild again.  There ain't no more wheat in a harvested field.  You have to wait for it to grow again.

You can more efficiently harvest sunlight, up to the efficiency limit of 100%.  Once you harvest all there is, (100% efficiency) you have no more to gather and you have gathered 1 kw/m2.  That's all there is, there ain't no more.

Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: moot on August 02, 2008, 11:33:48 PM
Yes I know Holden, I took the first 3 years of engineering like everyone - but that's all the data there is. That's what I have to base it on..  The next question from that basis is "Is there any way to exploit photons without entirely stopping them from continuing on to the next panel (to be exploited)?".  I'm not arguing anything but what the math premise is supposed to imply.  That's what needs to be answered before any speculation about how it actualy happens. 

E generated by total panel area = X watts/cm2
Insolation = Y W/cm2
Bones' setup : X/Y equal >1

This implies either that energy is made by the panels without photons being drained of all their energy (E drained from photons per solar panel < Y ), or that the insolation figure you found is wrong, or that Bones' numbers are somehow wrong. 

Of course I may be completely mistaken thanks to too much beer.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 03, 2008, 12:02:38 AM
The next question from that basis is "Is there any way to exploit photons without entirely stopping them from continuing on to the next panel (to be exploited)?". 

Einstein recieved his Nobel for work in the photoelectric effect which is the physics behind PV panel technology. In the photoelectric process, if an electron absorbs the energy of one photon and has more energy than a specific amount, it is ejected from the material. If it recieves less than a specific amount (The work function) the electron remains in the matrix material.

The photon is a quantum amount of light. How do you siphon off only some of the energy of a quantum amount of energy?  If you could do so, it would not be a quantum amount.

So the answer to your question is no.

That's for PV.  If your process is lenses or mirrors, then the photons are directed towards some collecting system and by design do not travel thru unmolested to areas below the lenses or mirrors.

Regardless of the process, the sun delvers only a specific amount of light per sq area to the surface of the earth (area measured perpindicular to the suns rays) and that is appx 1 KW/M2
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: CAP1 on August 03, 2008, 12:54:29 AM
Holden I see what you're getting at but I think you're missing the point. What you state is true IF you are using conventional collection techniques.
What Bones is alluding to is that although the physical size of his apparatus is only 10sq.ft. the effective collector area in his design is 30sq.ft.



exactly. this way, he could....using your example........triple the amount of energy in a given space.

i think
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 03, 2008, 12:58:10 AM


exactly. this way, he could....using your example........triple the amount of energy in a given space.

i think

sigh...
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Holden McGroin on August 03, 2008, 05:05:01 AM
OK lets see if I can explain it more clearly.

The sun only sends us 1000W/M^2, the M^2 measured perpendicular to the suns rays.

Now if one can imagine a bunch of straws with a 1M^2 cross section gathered up in a bunch and pointed at the sun, each of those straws delivers us 1 KW of energy.

In any one of these tubes that we gather all the radiation and do not allow to hit the earth, 1 KW can be gathered.

No matter how we gather the energy in any one of these straws, we cannot go over 1000 watts, because after that the straw is empty.

Now after we gather the light from the straws, there is a shadow 'downwind' of that straw.

When the shadow is cast on the earth, it will have AT LEAST one square meter of area that will be in shadow.  At high noon on a certain day in the tropics, that shadow will be 1 square meter.  At any time other than high noon local time on specific days in the tropics, the shadow will measure more than 1 M^2, as the light hits the spherical earth at an angle different from perpendicular.

The only way to gather more than 1 KW is to harvest more shafts of light... more straws.

In order to gather 3 KW (as claimed) we must gather the light of at least 3 straws.  As a matter of practice, the world's best PV cells would need to gather the light of 7.5 straws, because 40% is presently the world record for gathering efficiency.

So 7.5 M^2 of solar collector will cast a shadow on the earth of more than 7.5 M^2 except in very specific geographical and temporal locations.

But lets give him the benifit of the doubt and say he has 100% effeciency on the gathering of light energy.

I can build a 3 M^2 collector and mount it to a superstructure that mounts to a pole sunk into the ground with a footprint on the earth only a foot square, so now is my effective collection 3 KW per sq foot? 

No, it is still 1 KW /  M^2 

And 1 KW / M2 is all that I could dream for.  I can never get better than that, unless I go to orbit.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: DiabloTX on August 03, 2008, 05:51:41 AM
Wow, I just walked into a real live episode of the Big Bang Theory.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: soda72 on August 03, 2008, 06:52:22 AM
Speaking of solar power does anyone think this idea has any possiblities?  I had always wonder if this would work...

IBM Uses Magnifying Glass to Boost Solar Output (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2307301,00.asp)
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: SD67 on August 03, 2008, 06:56:13 AM
5 times the output ? 230 watts of energy on just one centimetre? That can't be possible since that would work out to more than 1KW/M2 :O
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: mietla on August 03, 2008, 01:26:50 PM


exactly. this way, he could....using your example........triple the amount of energy in a given space.

i think

why only tripple? I'd go for at least a million


There is a 100 fish in a small pond. How many fish can you catch assuming that your rod has a million hooks?
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: Maverick on August 03, 2008, 01:43:41 PM
Cap,

Go back to the example I gave you. Holden is stating that there is a fixed and finite amount of sunshine hitting any given square meter of Earth period.

Like the water example I gave you. A spigot flows 1 gallon per hour. No matter what size or design of bucket you use under it you cannot collect more than one gallon of water per hour.
Title: Re: Forget the 50 mpg carb; this guy has a 80 mpg Mustang
Post by: vorticon on August 03, 2008, 01:53:16 PM
5 times the output ? 230 watts of energy on just one centimetre? That can't be possible since that would work out to more than 1KW/M2 :O

"230 watts of energy on just one centimer of solar cell"
"this means there'd be a decrease in the needed quantity of photovoltaics, thereby lessening installation costs."

doesnt change the amount of area they are gathering light from, just reduces the amount of costly solar cell required to convert that light to electricity.