These guys: http://ecatcar.org seem bent on making the first LENR car.
However, they seem to be intent on making an electric car with an LENR trickle-charger. Is their approach going to fly? Would they be better off putting in more LENR power, and driving the car directly from the LENR’s heat? I still think that the steam engine, such as those provided by cyclonepower.com are the way to go. With the steam engine, they can eliminate the transmission. But in addition to that, the heat store in the steam engine can act as an energy buffer smoothing out hills and passing speed.
It just seems good sense to me to have an LENR -> Steam -> wheels cycle, rather than an LENR -> steam/stirling -> generator -> battery store (heavy) -> electric motor -> wheels.
What say ye.
Tags: automotive industry, car, e-cat, energy
July 12, 2012 at 5:28 pm |
What you say makes sense to me… energy is lost converting… kinetic(heat) to electrical… then to chemical(battery)… back to electrical… then back to kinetic(motion) Just ’cause we have nearly free energy is no reason to be wasteful; environmental costs of both excess heat and manufacturing effect should still be considered.
The ease is in taking an approved vehicle to mrkt… though you can drop any non polluting power plant into any registerd car and it can still be running on road.
This guy is obviously unaware that the high cost of the Tesla is prohibitive as is… check out the cost of battery replacement. Raise the price further to put in LENR. Ouch. Not for the masses but a for the 1%; a get rich scheme for a guy who, as far as I can see, has not contributed to LENR or green auto manufacturing.
The auto manufacturers would most likely work directly with LENR manufacturers to make an affordable car running directly on LENR power.
I hope to drop a cyclone (the larger one will fit) into my bus, heat it up (needs 900C), and hit the road.
I guess this is phase three of his business plan, to have a vehicle run directly on LENR power.
Anyways, direct electrical from blacklight power makes the most sense; throw away those expensive batteries and I might be able to afford a Tesla or at least a Chevy Volt.
July 12, 2012 at 9:52 pm |
From what I read at Cyclone, their engine operates on temperatures from 500f (260c) to 1200f(650c). Rossi says he’s got ecats at 600c.
July 13, 2012 at 5:04 am |
they clealy know that tesla is expensive, but it is a concept car, and maybe a “hollywood star” car. It is better to take a Tesla because it is sexy. If you take a peugeot 205 electric city car and install LENR on it, it will be expensive and not sexy.
level 2 is more what you want for a taxi car
July 12, 2012 at 6:40 pm |
They should name it the eCatillac.
I prefer steam……better whistle.
July 12, 2012 at 6:48 pm |
I think the trickle charge methodology makes sense for existing electrical cars, as a quick help to their charging problems. Having to plug in is a huge negative. Having a car charging all the time is a real plus over plugging in, but its just stop gap!
I think a LENR car will be made of a combination of methods. Battery (small), super capacitors and some Heat to electricity conversion to drive a motor. There are a lot of interesting conversion technologies on the drawing board. I don’t think LENR cars will be mainstream until one of the conversion means reaches proper functionality. That may not be that far away though. Steam Cars -No!
July 12, 2012 at 7:33 pm |
Cyclone is a good fit with E-cat.
July 12, 2012 at 7:35 pm |
Yeah, the eCat-gen-car would be quicker….eCat-gen-moped even quicker. But this is a dream site and I dream of a steamer (possibly more resistant to EMT attacks, if you can shield the controller). You dream of Genny….but hey, how ya gonna turn that generator shaft? with steam? If you’ve got a mechanical output shaft, why not drive the wheels?
July 13, 2012 at 12:26 am |
If you have rotational energy (Cyclone or similar) then you could add a new component – a generator/transmission. Since the prime driver (Cyclone) will put out a certain amount of power, at any point in time this may be above or below what is required to drive the wheels. If you have excess power, store it in a supercap, and if you need more then take it out. Any conversion will lose energy, but this way reduces the energy losses and keeps the load on the steam engine fairly constant the way it likes it.
Overall, though, battery or supercap storage is expensive, and the less of it you need the cheaper the car could be while still giving reasonable results. If only the 1% can afford it, you’re not going to sell that many, but if the cost of driving overall goes down you’ll sell a lot. There’s still a lot of development needed to get to that point.
July 13, 2012 at 3:21 am |
With mechanical (Cyclone) drive, the small cheap domestic eCat might work.
July 13, 2012 at 7:25 am |
Steam still has too many obstacles.
Do you need to wait for ecat to heat up every morning, or do you just leave it running 24/7.
I just think electric cars are already on the road and would require a lot less in the way of engine design and “patent approval”.
Maybe go steam cars in 10 or 15 years but if you want to be driving a LENR ca within this decade then electric is most plausible.
HYDROGEN: Why are we overlooking hydrogen. With cheap electricity comes cheap hydrogen and cars can run on hydrogen with very little modification. There are tremendous breakthroughs in hydrogen storage, however I like the idea of producing the hydrogen on board. Hydrogen was not mentioned in the article, yet it is more viable as a fuel source than steam within our decade.
I’d sell those penny stocks.
The main goal should be too see cheap and emmission free travel that is promised equally by all three forms of car fuel based on LENR tech.
July 13, 2012 at 8:24 am |
Actually, the cheapest is armchair travel. Stay home, read, watch TV & youtubes, get your stuff from Amazon. If ya really gotta go, walk.
Iggy,
owner of a late model Buick and an 87 4cyl Toyota PU,
but I did walk 5 miles this morning, barefoot.
July 13, 2012 at 12:09 pm |
If you’re generating the hydrogen on board, don’t you have to run a generator to create the electricity to split the water anyway? Seems like convert it to electricity and then to hydrogen just to use it right away is adding a pointless wasted step that will ony lower the efficiency.
I can see generating the hydrogen constantly just to store it for when it’s needed, only if the car can’t generate enough power to push the car in the first place. But then how far could you go before you’d have to stop to let the car refuel itself with more hydrogen?
I’m coming to like the idea of a steam engine, since Brucefast pointed out that modern steam engines recover the steam. So I can see using steam to power the car, with a generator to convert some of it to electricity for both the battery and whatever electricity the car needs.
July 13, 2012 at 7:21 pm
The Hydrogen idea would be a plan to salvage your current vehicle without a lot of modification. Most car engines could easily adapt to hydrogen.
I agree that it would not be as efficient, however the LENR devices are extremely cheap for power and would still save the consumer massive amounts of money and still be green.
July 14, 2012 at 2:01 am
kwhilborn – I used to accept the AGW hypothesis and the IPCC data “on authority” but thanks to Chiefio (start at http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/summary-report-on-v1-vs-v3-ghcn/ and look at the other posts) I know the CO2 issue is just bad science. Pollution needs to be reduced, and we need to stop cutting down forests, but over around 200ppm CO2 has no further effect even if there is a measurable effect (radiation theory) below that point. The measured warming effect is mainly due to thermometer placement and data-handling issues. Green is good, but CO2 emissions are a non-issue.
Hydrogen is a good non-polluting fuel, but also synthetic fuels could be made if the cost of energy is minimal, meaning even less modifications needed to automotive and other transport. By my reckoning we’ll have a few forms of LENR energy by the end of this year – maybe not in full production but at least verified and gearing-up for production. After that it’s a matter of how fast you can get the regulatory approvals done and how fast you can get the factories up to speed. As we’ve discussed here, changing all the oil-burning devices in the world will probably take a couple of decades – it’s a big job. The spur of saving a lot of money will help to speed up this transfer to LENR-powered systems, but it’s still going to take some time.
July 13, 2012 at 11:30 am |
How far can you go on a gallon of water when you are using a steam engine? If I can fill my water tank with 15gallons of water and drive 300 miles before having to stop, great! But unless the steam engine is designed to recover as much water as possible, I’m worried that it would require me to refill the tank every 30 miles or carry 150 gallons of water.
But also, with a cheap source of electricity, why not convert water to hydrogen and then to hydrocarbons in a liquid form and fill the tank with that? Either gas stations could be making and selling gas for under $1 a gallon, or everyone could be making it at home and filling their tank there.
Seriously I think the 600c version of the e-cat could be used to generate dirt cheap gasoline, purer than what is recovered from oil.
July 13, 2012 at 11:35 am |
Please look a little deeper into the modern steam engine. They don’t throw their steam away, rather they recover their steam for the next cycle. The result is that the 2 or 3 gallons of water they use lasts for thousands of miles.
July 13, 2012 at 11:54 am
That would be wonderful. That would solve the problem perfectly. Thanks.
July 14, 2012 at 4:55 am |
Stamley with his cross country winner… bit in the past… against gas and electric… won the race! Steam is even better now-a-days…
July 16, 2012 at 9:00 am |
Has anybody else stepped back and thought about this whole LENR heat thing?
“Yo, I got this box – it like, gets really HOT! You could, like, boil water with it ‘n stuff. Maybe run a steam engine or heat your apartment building with it.”
“You mean like a campfire in an enclosed case?”
“Yeah, kinda. But a campfire that don’t need no extra wood to burn.”
[...]
I know we’re all fascinated with this Nearly Free Heat thing, but, really, heat? Sure LENR might really be the “new fire.” But doesn’t seem strange that we’re back to having to effectively burn something in order to get our energy fix?
[...]
That aside, what of the Tesla Turbine with PowerChips glued to the entire exterior of the turbine casing? Rotational energy and electrical energy at the same time.
[...]
Small LENR reactors can’t easily harness co-generation, large ones will probably be built to do exactly that. The surplus heat, left over after driving steam generators, would be used in alternative energy generation uses.
July 17, 2012 at 1:31 am |
Well… Why should you produce electicity when you can produce heat? LENR produces heat without a carbon footprint… ecat etc.
Well… Why should you produce heat when you can produce electricity… freed electrons w/LENR BlacklightPower NASA etc?
July 17, 2012 at 5:34 am
Sometimes you need heat and sometimes you need electricity but I agree, Blacklight’s claimed direct/gen
would be more useful.
July 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm
OK. That answers that. Who’s ready for some sushi and a cold Sapporo?