Technocrat

The Big, Heavy Green Car

zogger
Thu Nov 06 17:51:00 -0800 2008
Mechanics.
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A team headed by rocker Neil Young has entered the automotive x-prize with a surprising entry, a 59 Lincoln land yacht-his favorite ride- that is being transformed into a series rotary engine natural gas fueled electric hybrid. Neil's idea is simple, he likes big powerful cars, but that efficiency and cleaner emissions are necessary for the future, so why compromise when you can innovate. It's still a work in progress but they have the prototype running now.

"We are over halfway there (to 100mpg) with this car," he said, adding that, despite being green, there's no compromise on performance: the vehicle cruises at 80mph and can reach speeds of 160mph. ed.z.: here is the website for the project: Lincvolt

The Big, Heavy Green Car
Michael Smith
Thu Nov 06 18:21:23 -0800 2008
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false This makes me think of the cover art for Neil Young's album Trans. I am not a typical Young fan because this is the album of his I like the most.

Note that the car from the future is the one which bothers to stop and offer the guy a ride.


The Big, Heavy Green Car
phred14
Fri Nov 07 03:39:18 -0800 2008
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From tfa: "[We've] been enhancing the range and fuel efficiency with another fuel source, which we call the slog," he says. In basic terms, the technique involves running water through a "hydrogen fracturing" process, capturing it in the exhaust, and reusing it.

If that's what I think it sounds like, it looks like someone needs to re-take thermo 101.  Either that, or they've found an economical source of unobtanium for the electrodes of their fracturing cell.

The Big, Heavy Green Car
Bhima
Fri Nov 07 04:35:44 -0800 2008
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I read that too and concluded that they must have lost something fairly important in the translation from the man actually making the car to the reporter.

The Big, Heavy Green Car
David Leppik
Fri Nov 07 11:20:20 -0800 2008
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I just browsed the sponsors section of their website, and one of them links you to "Meyer Water Fuel Cells" which claims be able to do electrolysis exothermically. To wit:

The Meyer Effect is occasioned by the establishment and maintenance of an electron deficit in the water. As the Cell operates, a free electron current develops as two electrons are liberated per water molecule, through first, the ionization and then, the dissocation of each molecule. For this reason, the WFC is a "true" Water Fuel Cell, generating electric power as it operates, the fact that it is also producing fuel gas, notwithstanding.

Sounds like yet another variation on a Brownian motion based perpetual motion machine.

The Big, Heavy Green Car
Bhima
Fri Nov 07 11:50:15 -0800 2008
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Well.  Isn't that just spiffy.  I have to say I'm really, really frustrated by it.

Working on Rotary Engines for Group C racing was the first job I was fired from: they told me to go back to university and become theorist, (for which I am eternally grateful) and so I've always held a soft-spot for odd engines.

The Big, Heavy Green Car
phred14
Fri Nov 07 12:46:27 -0800 2008
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Google is just full of references to "Meyer Water Fuel Cell".  It looks even more like remedial thermodynamics is necessary, though one link to a youtube video is labeled "Water disassociation with zero-point energy."  The only place I've seen zero-point energy used is in the "The Other End of Time" trilogy by Frederick Pohl, and at least those buggers produced electricity instead of hydrogen.  By the way, the Meyer Water Fuel Cell doesn't bother to separate the gases, they're kept as an explosive mix.  None of the articles mention if unobtanium is used for the electrodes of the "Water Capacitor."

The Big, Heavy Green Car
President4242
Fri Nov 07 11:08:25 -0800 2008
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I think I know what might be lost in the translation.

The slog is a *secondary* fuel source.  Primary fuel source is a rotary engine running natural gas, feeding electricity into batteries + whatever their "hydrogen refactoring" (probably just standard electrolosys) is.  The hydrogen cracked out of the water recaptured from the exhaust is then also run through fuel cells to put more energy back into the batteries.

Not really breaking the laws of thermodynamics, just stretching them a bit.

I can't imagine this actually enhancing the range and fuel efficiency very much.

Still, neat article, and answers one of my basic questions- what they've really done isn't truly a hybrid car, it's a mobile generator with an electric drive train, more like a modern GM NatGas Locomotive with a '59 Lincoln body.

The Big, Heavy Green Car
Timothy Brownawell
Fri Nov 07 11:13:35 -0800 2008
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That would be very very silly, since there will be a net energy loss in reusing the hydrogen. The (only) way for it to not be silly is if the energy used would just be lost anyway, like some sort of thermal process using waste heat.

The Big, Heavy Green Car
David Leppik
Fri Nov 07 11:27:37 -0800 2008
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I don't buy it. Water is just the ashes of burned-up hydrogen. Converting water into hydrogen for fuel is inherently an energy-losing proposition. They might as well be taking the carbon dioxide from the natural gas and converting it back into natural gas.

The fact that it's a secondary system still doesn't make it any better than a concrete block tied to the fender.

 

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