Future power plants <OT?>

Jeff DeWitt did pass the time by typing:

Nope. Diesel engines are better for constant load situations which makes them ideal for running generators.

As I think Bill first pointed out here, energy conversion in any direction always means loss of energy. If you convert a lot of energy, you lose a lot of energy. For that reason, hybrid technology is a lot like the Emperor's New Clothes. Lots of people know it is wrong, but lots of people want it to be right too.

I think what we need is more efficient engines, of whatever fuel type, and more modest transportation requirements. Take my 1999 Honda Civic HX, which gets 45 mpg, and has room for five and a trunk too. I consider it the equal of any hybrid on the market, in terms of usefulness. Or take my neighbor who drives everywhere, the only passenger in a full sized Suburban, in a town you could walk across in ten minutes.

Earle

Hybrids are a cruel hoax! What happens in 5 to 6 years when the replacement batteries will cost what the car is worth? My last Jetta tdi averaged 49.6 mpg for over 100k miles. Liberty CRD's are getting 20 to better then 30 mpg and can run on clean burning vegetable oils!

JoBo

I think that is overstating it a bit, and I expect it won't be too long before the batteries are replaced with capacitors.

In any case hybrids as we know them now are a sort of transitional technology, much as turboprops were the transitional technology between piston powered planes and true jets.

Once the automobile becomes a mature technology I expect they are going to have hydrogen fueled fuel cells driving electric motors (in the case of Jeeps there will be one motor per wheel).

It may be that those vehicles will have battery or capacitor packs much like todays hybrids have, the hybrid technology is really an electric flywheel and a big energy flywheel (like a big cache in your computer), will make it function more efficiently.

Jeff DeWitt

Jo Bo wrote:

While the basic CRD technology can handle biodiesels in principle, in practice current CRDs are very fuel-specific. They like a fuel that amounts to a more lubricious and dense version of Jet A. No such fuel is available in the US, and both VW and VM CRDs are having a lot of fuel related issues.

Mechanical diesels are much more fuel agile. The most agile, besides purpose desgned military multifuel engines, are prechamber engines with Bosch inline injection pumps. Two cycle DD engines are also relatively unfussy. Large Cummins engines with PT injection are okay with a lot of fuels as long as lubricity is good or you fit the hardened pump and injectors.

It will be a long time before US diesel meets First World standards, because the powerful truck lobby wants cheap diesel fuel. Eisenhower built the Interstate system for national defense, but by letting trucks undercut the railroads it destroyed transportation efficiency in the US.