Salt Water Fuel powers a Stirling engine

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

Bah! This invention is NOTHING next to the perpetual motion cold fusion carburator that I have developed! I can get 250 miles per gallon from a Hummer using just discarded dish soap and hamster saliva as fuel and emitting only lightly scented fairy farts as exhaust. I could tell you about it, but the oil companies have already sent hit men to sabotage my operations using government technology obtained from the Alien craft stored at Area 51.

Either that, or it is a case of reporters without a science background being asked to cover a science story and not having the slightest clue what kind of questions to ask. Just another reason why FIRST matters.

"Imagine that... hamster saliva as the ultimate clean fuel!"

Sigh... I should be doing something useful right now....

Jason

I'm not sure I want to see an entire gallon of hamster saliva in one place at any time, much less a full tank of it.

[artdutra04]

If we really want to solve our energy problems in regards to oil/cars/energy, we first should sit back and examine how our entire society uses energy. To solve any problem in life, you have to go back to the root of the problem and tackle it there.* Every day, tens of millions of people in this country get into several thousand-pound automobiles, and drive long distances to commute to and from work.

Just think about the shear amount of energy used to move that much mass, that much of a distance. It's a lot!

Now think of ways on how we can reduce the overall amount of energy used in the total system. Mass transit, better city planning, and stricter regulations on the minimum MPG for cars will all help our society become much more energy efficient. Of these, the first two are the best long term goals.

Reducing the amount of sub-urban sprawl and converting it into smart-growth with good mass transit (buses, rail, monorail) options are our best long term goals for reducing the amount of energy our country uses. (Besides, mass transit easily run off electricity, and investing in renewable energy sources can make these 100%-complete zero emission solutions.)

And to make mass transit even more efficient, better use of Segways and/or bicycles greatly extend the range and area that is serviceable by mass transit without the need to build additional transit lines.

We're all FIRSTers. We all build robots, solve hard problems, and complete tasks in a very short amount of time with very little resources. Consider Global Warming the newest game challenge released on Kickoff. We as a community will only be able to surmount this challenge by using the skills and innovative thinking through such programs as FIRST to come up with genuine solutions.


* Trying to 'solve' the side-effects doesn't do anything to help the situation, just in the way that taking painkillers won't fix a problem that needs surgery to correct, or using duct tape to fix a robot that really needs replacement parts. They fix the short-term problems, but they don't do anything to actually anything.

[Cody Carey]

Originally Posted by TimCraig

Maybe you should have. From the same website, it indicates that the current death rate from cancer in the US is 1 in 4 or 25% of the current population will die eventually of cancer. Taking your population figure, that's over 75 million people in the US alone who will contract and die of cancer in the current population.

Which is WHAT percentage of the total population of the US (a lot smaller than the world), Tim?

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Now think of ways on how we can reduce the overall amount of energy used in the total system. Mass transit, better city planning, and stricter regulations on the minimum MPG for cars will all help our society become much more energy efficient. Of these, the first two are the best long term goals.

Reducing the amount of sub-urban sprawl and converting it into smart-growth with good mass transit (buses, rail, monorail) options are our best long term goals for reducing the amount of energy our country uses. (Besides, mass transit easily run off electricity, and investing in renewable energy sources can make these 100%-complete zero emission solutions.)

That's all good and well to say, but what's going to make it happen?

I note from your profile that you live in S Meriden, CT. A bedroom community, I presume, from it's location. Would you and your family be willing to move into a high-rise in Hartford or NYC to save energy? Would you be willing to spend an additional $3000, $5000 or $10000 on your new car, so that you could maybe save $500 of gasoline per year? How much are people willing to pay to achieve energy independence? That's the big question this country has to answer. Just telling people what they "should" do won't make them do it. Telling people what they "must" do won't be politically acceptable in this country. How do you get people to change their lifestyles?

The only true way to get people to conserve energy, or any other commodity, is to allow or make the price rise to the point where they won't pay it any more. Even with $3.00+ gasoline, most families are spending a smaller portion of their income on fuel than they did in the past. The tremendous price increases have only just begun to catch up with inflation over the past decades.

So how do we do it? Heavily tax gasoline or any carbon fuel so that people have an incentive to conserve? Try getting that through Congress.

I don't have any answers. But you can't rely on just telling people they should do something. The biggest and best hope we have for the future is to make photo-electric generation viable for cost and capacity. We have an incredible amount of sunlight energy that hits this planet every second. We just have to find a cost-effective way of capturing it.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

Try getting that through Congress.

Gah, you're ruining my idealism!

[6600gt]

Global warming problem is greater than any one person, city, state or nation. It affects the Earth as a whole. Thus, the fundamental problem is us, the people. But we are also the solution.

Over the years I have realized that no technology can solve this problem. Technology only follows our lead. So the only true solution is to change our mind set. This is the GREATEST CHALLENGE OF MANKIND.

Hydrogen is not going to "truly" here till 2050; if we think we cav wait that long we are sadly mistaken. Ethanol and biofuels: a lot of pollution comes from fertilizer runoff and quite a few starving people would like to eat corn. When you factor in economics, many of these fuels just can't compete with gasoline.

Few understand the scale of this problem and how it affects every aspect of our life. The solution requires a radical change in the universal principals of mankind. No matter how try to solve this problem, it will radically affect our economy. But the cost of doing nothing will be far greater.

Basically, we, the people, are the core of the problem and a balance must between the economy and the environment must be reached.

[DonRotolo]

I have a fundamental issue with this.

If he puts a tube of salt water into the RF field, it heats up and produces a burnable gas.

If he puts his hand into the RF field, nothing happens.

Not sure about you, but my hand is mostly salt water.

Wy doesn't his hand produce a burnable gas in the RF field?

Don

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

I note from your profile that you live in S Meriden, CT. A bedroom community, I presume, from it's location. Would you and your family be willing to move into a high-rise in Hartford or NYC to save energy?

In our particular case, even though we live in a little residential neighborhood in the center of Connecticut, our house is only a block away from my mother's job (an elementary school), and only a few miles from my father's job (a municipal electric utility company), most of which can be covered by a paved bike trail. When it's not raining or snowing, my mother usually walks to work, and my father will take his mountain bike and has been seriously considering purchasing a Segway to commute.

If my parents worked in Hartford or NYC, they'd probably move much closer to their jobs, if not into the city itself. (Especially since my mother hates driving in highway traffic with a passion, and does everything she can to avoid it.)

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

Would you be willing to spend an additional $3000, $5000 or $10000 on your new car, so that you could maybe save $500 of gasoline per year?

$3K yes, $5K maybe. At $3K extra, and with $500 savings per year, you'd pay off the extra costs after six years, and after that would save money. If you put 10-15K miles onto your car per year, it's quite reasonable to have a car for 8-10 or more years, meaning you'd save several thousand dollars over the life of the car.

It's just like the energy-efficient light bulbs. As each of the regular incandescent light bulbs in our house dies, we've been converting them over to the daylight-corrected fluorescent ones. (Except for the halogen ones on dimmers, as you can't put fluorescent bulbs on a dimmer.) Even though they cost more, you get the equivalent of a 100W light-bulb with only 37W of power. Plus, add in their increased lifespan, and you'll save money over the life of the bulb.

When you work out the math, and you can have a net gain in money over the lifespan of the product, it's worth the extra upfront cost.

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

How much are people willing to pay to achieve energy independence? That's the big question this country has to answer. Just telling people what they "should" do won't make them do it. Telling people what they "must" do won't be politically acceptable in this country. How do you get people to change their lifestyles?

Lead by example.

There's not much one can do about existing "grandfathered" development, but if city planners across the country all started to develop better planning methods and tax credits to make better use of the land, and encourage better/higher zoned developments around mass transit stations for future growth, then we have started off on the right path.

90 years ago, most towns and cities in this country had efficient transportation networks and city planning. People lived near where they worked, and if they did live in the suburbs, they lived near the train or trolley line. Cars undid all that, for better or worse, depending on your point-of-view. There's nothing wrong with suburbia, as long as it's close enough to a transit line to make it worthwhile.

The challenge for the 21st century is going to be balancing our desire to live out in surburbia with efficient city planning and transportation networks. And the only way to get people to want to do it is by just starting. Cities across the country are expanding their commuter train service, and building light rail networks. Las Vegas recently became the first American city to begin using transit monorails in dense urban areas. Tax breaks for living closer to transit stations help people and businesses migrate back into better, denser, more livable developments.

If our government moved several billion per year from the Hgihway department to Amtrak, we might actually be able to have a decent high-speed rail network. Right now, we are the only industrialized country in the world which lacks a bullet train network that's competitive with airlines for short and medium trips. (I can see where large [rural] portions of our country don't need high speed train service, but certainly corridors like NYC-Chicago-Denver-LA, or from Seattle-SF-LA-San Diego, or DC-Atlanta-Orlando-Miami would benefit greatly from them.)

After all, no matter how much the government throws at expanding our highways, they are always just as crowded and packed as they were before. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then why do we keep pouring tons of money into highways hoping that each new expansion will be the one to make a difference when they never do?

Originally Posted by 6600gt

When you factor in economics, many of these fuels just can't compete with gasoline.

Brazil is entirely energy dependent because of ethanol-based fuels. They no longer have to import a single barrel of oil to sustain their economy. While fertilizer and run-off are sources of pollution, the United States is one of the largest farming nations in the world. The Midwest is HUGE. Our government also subsidizes farmers who plant way more food than is actually used. Basically, we have the potential to create our own bio-fuel economy.

While bio-fuels may not be the perfect answer (fertilizer and run-off pollutes our water, ethanol doesn't contain the same bang-for-the-buck in the octane department as gasoline), they can solve many of our short term goals. If GM and Ford currently sell Flex Fuel cars in Brazil, why can't they sell them here? If we have the potential to plant vast amounts of corn and ethanol-producing plants in the United States, thus lowering the amount of foreign oil we need to import, is this not a positive and attainable goal?

Would not the improved (though not perfect) carbon emissions also help our country in our quest to lower emissions of greenhouse gases by virtue of the recent G8 Global Warming conference?

Since most of our foreign relations are muddied because of concerns over oil, if we drastically reduce our need for foreign oil, we can better avoid confrontations in the Middle East. Right now the Middle East has one "ace in the hole" over the United States (and the world), and that is that we need their oil. And with China and India fast become large oil consumers as well, we are increasingly going to be fighting over a ever shrinking supply of oil.

I wouldn't be surprised if a large war was to erupt in 50 years over oil supplies, or at the very minimum very tense relations between the countries of the world. Surely, wouldn't the United States rather avoid such a confrontation and seek energy independence as well?


Wow, this turned out to be a long post.

But if you read nothing from the above commentary, the only true solution to everything is by tackling the problem from all sides, and taking steps and implementing better solutions from all angles. Right now it doesn't matter what those steps look like, as long as we keep moving forward. As Walt Disney loved to say, "It's time to stop talking and start doing!"

[cooker52]

No way am I going to make quotes from there.

The countries are actually expecting oil supplies to dwindle in the next 20 years. Knowing our gas consumption, it will be just that long. We don't need to make these the goals for the next 50 years, but the goals for the next 20. What we need to do is to convince the government to start pushing this more. A lot more. They are starting to make ethanol plants, which is one of the first steps. Now they need to push ethanol using vehicles. It will be a slow change. People will be reluctant to go out and willy nilly buy a new car. Especially if they just bought a new one. But what we can do is convince the government to let us trade in gas hogging cars for new ethanol cars. The problem with that is that it will hurt our economy.

It will be a slow complicated change, but that's all the more reason we need to start now.

For now, since it is the summer, there is no reason for many people who live in the city to just ride their bikes or walk all of the time. My friends live 10 miles out of town and they still ride their bikes in all the time. There is no reason for the government to push more to people to ride their bikes and walk around town. Here in Indiana, I see hardly any rail trails. Even when I do, they aren't to long. Heck, I wouldn't mind a rail trail from here in Huntington all the way up to Fort Wayne, I would ride that all the time. Heck, they could connect all of our counties together. You almost can go anywhere from Huntington without going out on a highway. I have ridden along highways on my bike. I always hate doing so. I can guarantee that rail trails do get people out of the cars and and more active. I'm just shocked they don't push those more in some areas.

Well, now I feel like writing a letter or two to our mayor and governor.

[FourPenguins]

Seems to me from what everyone's said that the RF is dissociating the sodium choride, leaving sodium metal in water (highly reactive), resulting in a flame of about that color. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[6600gt]

Their Quote, "...send a letter to the editor telling automakers to use their engineers, not their lawyers."

Here is a new hurdle!

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/avp/


There is no such thing as a ZERO emissions vehicle, unless you start the timer after it has rolled of the production line. Manufacturing a car generates quite a bit of pollution. So don't trust the commercials or the media. Maybe the car can suck up the pollution...

Transportation is a good start. But the scale of the global warming problem and the limited time requires us to look at other sources of pollution: power plants, deforestation...

Our future solutions have to be throughly researched and planned and logical. We don't want to create other environmental problems while solving the current ones.
In case of hydrogen, we are not even solving our current problem... If you don't know, Water Vapor is a green house gas!

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by 6600gt

There is no such thing as a ZERO emissions vehicle, unless you start the timer after it has rolled of the production line. Manufacturing a car generates quite a bit of pollution. So don't trust the commercials or the media. Maybe the car can suck up the pollution...

My father tells this story of an emissions testing facility in Los Angeles during the 1970s. They'd hook up some equipment to the exhaust pipe of a car and read out the emissions to make sure they were within legal limits. One particularly smoggy day someone got cute and stuck the test nozzle out the window. The results: the air outside the building failed the emissions test. The cars using that air to run their engines passed.

There are also semi-serious proposals to put catalytic-converter-like coatings on the outside of car radiators to remove pollutants from the air while the cars drive down the highway.

In case of hydrogen, we are not even solving our current problem... If you don't know, Water Vapor is a green house gas!

The water vapor content of the bulk of the atmosphere is already in equilibrium at a given temperature. Add more, and more precipitates out. Add less, and there's room for more to evaporate from surface water. Emitting steam from an engine's exhaust does not increase the total amount of water vapor in the air. We can't really affect it much, and it can't be considered a pollutant any more than sand on the beach can be.

Increasing temperature, however, means the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. More water vapor tends to hold in more heat, increasing the temperature. Positive feedback -- make it warmer by a little, and it ends up being warmer by more than you expect. It's an important factor in modeling the climate. But we can't affect it directly; only by manipulating the global temperature through other means can we change the amount of water vapor in the air.

[NoodleKnight]

Just a few ideas to throw into the mess:

What about plug-in hybrids? 40-60 miles on all electric range (which satisfies the average person's daily driving needs), you roughly pay about 7 cents a mile when running in electric mode; beyond that the car would run as a conventional series-parallel hybrid.
The technology is available (although this claim is pretty controversial between the people who R&D plug-ins and car companies). I can't remember the exact increase in overall price, but I think it was in the range of $5-7k, which is about what you pay for a lot of fancy creature comforts that most people don't often use in their car (like the sun roof, or fancy navigation system). Plug-in hybrids, in my opinion, seem to be the best option to displacing the consumption of fossil fuels -- that and it would be a good crossover to going back to all electric vehicles

By the way, to convert the current US fleet from gasoline to ethanol isn't possible, because we can't produce enough crop to produce enough biofuel.

And lastly, hydrogen isn't a miracle fuel, well it isn't a fuel at all. Fuels is a resource you harvest and refine; hydrogen is just an energy carrier, since we need to extract it from the air or from water. It also takes 3 times as much energy to create hydrogen compared to the same amount of gasoline, as of right now. So hydrogen cars may produce 'zero-emissions' but the pollution is just moved upstream. You also lose energy by having to store it in the high pressure tanks. Quite a few problems and not enough time

[Adam Y.]

There are also semi-serious proposals to put catalytic-converter-like coatings on the outside of car radiators to remove pollutants from the air while the cars drive down the highway.

You do know that platinum is probably rarer than oil.

It's just like the energy-efficient light bulbs. As each of the regular incandescent light bulbs in our house dies, we've been converting them over to the daylight-corrected fluorescent ones. (Except for the halogen ones on dimmers, as you can't put fluorescent bulbs on a dimmer.) Even though they cost more, you get the equivalent of a 100W light-bulb with only 37W of power. Plus, add in their increased lifespan, and you'll save money over the life of the bulb.

And yet the light bulbs are full of mercury. If you don't throw them out correctly you'll end up with a serious problem..

90 years ago, most towns and cities in this country had efficient transportation networks and city planning. People lived near where they worked, and if they did live in the suburbs, they lived near the train or trolley line. Cars undid all that, for better or worse, depending on your point-of-view. There's nothing wrong with suburbia, as long as it's close enough to a transit line to make it worthwhile.

That isn't going to happen anytime soon. There are still some parts of the country where you need a car to get anywhere. It's not a matter of public transportation more than the nearest supermarket is twenty miles away.

The countries are actually expecting oil supplies to dwindle in the next 20 years. Knowing our gas consumption, it will be just that long. We don't need to make these the goals for the next 50 years, but the goals for the next 20. What we need to do is to convince the government to start pushing this more. A lot more. They are starting to make ethanol plants, which is one of the first steps. Now they need to push ethanol using vehicles. It will be a slow change. People will be reluctant to go out and willy nilly buy a new car. Especially if they just bought a new one. But what we can do is convince the government to let us trade in gas hogging cars for new ethanol cars. The problem with that is that it will hurt our economy.

I have to find the article but I remember reading that deforestation isn't the problem. The main problem is emissions output.

[6600gt]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

I have to find the article but I remember reading that deforestation isn't the problem. The main problem is emissions output.

Deforestation is a huge problem. Tree absorb tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. Many forests, especially the rain forests, control the global climate. If the Amazon Rain Forest is gone we are going to have a serious problem. Emissions is big but we can't allow our forests to be destroyed in the background: we will lose the best way to clean up the current CO2.