Above: One of the thousand or so free energy devices you’ll see on line 🙂
From: George C. To: George B
Subject: Fw: ideas
Hi George, I have a couple of ideas if they are feasible would make millions of dollars.. First idea Others probably thought of this too. If technology exits build an alternator or generator for electric powered cars, which would keep the batteries fully charged while the car was being driven. The other idea. There is a lot of water pressure going through the radiator hoses. If and attachment could be built with an impeller inside and hooked into big radiator hose.a generator could be built to generate
power. another idea if something could be built to generate power from wheels turning while vehicle is moving. Any comments
HAPPY NEW YEAR George
My Answer:
Hi George C.
Always good to hear from you, and since there are so many who seem to have the same ideas as you do, I’ve decided to make a post at utterpower about same.
All we really need to do is focus on the fact that there is friction and losses to be summed on our balance sheet as well as energy potential we see.
One of the first experiments and notations many of us made as kids is riding our bicycle off the top of one hill, and seeing that we don’t make it up the next hill nearly as far, it was proof of those losses, stand up on the pedals and your coast was even shorter.
I can remember turning around a number of times, and attempting to make a rough estimate of just how much lower I was on the next hill after trying to wring out every foot of distance I could travel down the hill and up the other side, I’d tuck in tight, and attempt to be as streamlined as possible (reduce losses).
It seems we all develop our own special talents, and as an example; some of us are highly focused on getting the King’s English perfect, but have never pondered why water runs down hill.
I remember discussing an idea with a trained Physicist about an idea that borders on yours, he gave it a moment’s thought, and I think it embarrassed him, but it was evidence that we can deceive ourselves regardless of training by not taking a moment to do the basic math.
Perhaps the best examples I can give you is an electric motor driving an electric generator. What happens when we attempt to have one drive the other? All we need do is inventory the losses, the generator might be 80% efficient, that means, we get 20% less energy out as we put in. Since the Motor is similar as per efficiency, we should expect to lose another 2o percent there. So imagine using an external source of power to bring the paired motor generator up to speed, as soon as you remove the power, the losses will drag the motor generator to a halt. It’s not the energy potential you need to account for, but the losses.
Now back to that car idea, when you go down the road, and your alternator is charging the battery, the engine must work harder to charge the battery, fact is, the energy losses are staggering! In a typical auto, we can measure the energy content of the fuel, and note that we only recover 30 percent of that energy in the twisting force that turns the car’s alternator, but we have to account for the additional losses inside that alternator, and also for the losses in converting that energy back into an electrical charge in the battery. These are all losses that guarentee you will never break even, but there’s even more, we have additional losses when we pull the electrical energy out of the battery to drive the fan motor, or attempt to use the energy to power the car.
Now consider mounting a big wind turbine in the back of a pick up.. What ever power you get out of it will be heavily taxed by the losses (wind resistance) and you are guaranteed loses instead of gains.
I Think about 40 percent of the people on the planet believe there’s a free lunch in energy, and if you go to YouTube you can spend all day reviewing scam artists, and even a few that deceive themselves by not making an inventory of the losses.
Some of these ‘Loss Deniers’ have risen to high places in political office, some who believe in free energy (over unity) also believe in free money. Let’s take Pelosi for instance, she ‘really’ believes that taking money from California tax payers and giving it to others to spend is good for the economy, there are no losses on her balance sheet.. only gains 🙂
At the end of the day, we note that up to 40 percent of the population might believe in free energy, but unlike you, there are many that want to believe so badly that Evil Corporations are the only thing standing between them and the free living they deserve.
Google up the HOJO generator if you want a taste of how unscrupulous people are… some would sell their mothers into prostitution to make a profit, it reminds me of Career Politicians.
One more thought, there’s plenty of useful idiots out there that lead us to think there’s a free ride in energy, and some of them have been very successful in other endeavors, (basic physics is certainly not their strong suits). Take for instance Danny Devito, and Tom Hanks, they are tied to the totally stupid “who killed the electric car fiasco”. Most who take the time to study EVs know that the lack of buyers has been killing EV production since the Bell Electric, not the Government, or Big Oil 🙂 Ask the guy that demands taxpayers fund EV development….. why he doesn’t own one?
All the best,
George B.
And then we have the perpetual warming machine, (brought to us by the anthropogenic gullible warming crowd) our atmosphere, chocked full of CO2. Why don’t we have roof panels filled with CO2 to warm our houses during the day, and cubes of pure CO2 encased in pyrex glass to solar cook some weinies and toast some marshmellows? It’s the same kind of math…..or perhaps big oil has bought the patents and is sitting on them.
It’s up to an Al Gore devotee to bring these free energy devices to market!
Elden, I’m off to bed smiling, we need explore some of your ideas, Likely worth some big grant money! It’s possibly the majority of us here on planet earth that think there is a magic energy source. But as I’ve asked before, aren’t these the same people that know you can create all the wealth we need at the printing press?
Whatever money is today, we can have it sent directly to us by promising the impossible. All we need do is sell our souls as so many Politicians have.
We should just put tin foil on our heads? That’s what belief in perpetual does for everyone. It’s as bad as all these crazies believing that magnets can do work. Just do the math. NOT, they don’t do the math.
Richard There’s really only two groups of people, those who will invest a few minutes to do the math, and those who never will. I saw a post on a face book friends page about how a woman was going to be helped by Obamacare. I saw that there were a number of likes and positive comments. For those with the ability to run a pencil, we wonder about that small penality you need to pay IF you don’t have another insurance plan, and the fact that people who support obamacare beleive that their medical coverage will be equal to others regardless of whether they pay the penality or pay for insurance. Those with pencil in hand ask.. where does the money come from, and won;t millions of ‘have nots’ cross the border to take advantage of this government give away? It is the belief in free energy, free money, and the thought that Tinker Bell will make it all work by spreading her fairy dust around. Next… the free energy crowd will abolish homelessness by forcing you to take in a homless person if you have more bedrooms than persons living in the house.
Hi George
“another idea if something could be built to generate power from wheels turning while vehicle is moving. Any comments”
Yes. It would work on an Amish buggy—lights and music—good upgrade!
I guess, at the risk of showing some of my ignorance, I will jump into a thread I should probably stay out of.
It seems like most of my life I have heard people lamenting the poor efficiency of the internal combustion engine and how much energy is wasted generating undesirable heat. I have often wondered why we can’t use some of that heat to do useful work in an automobile, especially in the age where everything is “sub miniature”.
Does anybody know of research for automobiles based on the combined cycle assembly of heat engines that work in tandem off the same source of heat? (Kind of like CHP) This is common in gas turbine electrical power generating plants using the gas turbine exhaust to make steam for a steam turbine which also generates electricity. A closed cycle condenser creates mechanical energy by heating and cooling water in a closed-loop, piston-based engine system.
Why not use a combined cycle, Rankine cycle (closed cycle) steam engine such as a Cyclone Power engine with the heat source from a smaller reciprocating IC engine’s exhaust (and / or radiator) to drive an automobile? Is it weight; size; complexity; efficiency; cost; a combination; or what? There must be some way of extracting more useful energy from the wasted heat, increasing the system’s overall efficiency. This energy is not imaginary, just wasted! We need a way to reclaim at least part of it.
For an explanation of what a Cyclone Engine is (No, it isn’t Pratt & Whitney) go to: http://www.cyclonepower.com/works.html
I made a living for a few years as a technical writer and I will admit I had great difficulty following the process explained on this site. Could it be snake oil too? It don’t have to be a Cyclone Power unit, it could be others.
Harold,
First off, we must not only recognize, but we must praise Toyota for doing an outstanding job of research. They did pick up the chalk, and did a bit of eight grade level math in order to discover who the potential buyers were for the Prius, and what people were willing to pay for. With this critical knowledge, they designed the car to have enough cargo space, and assured the car was NOT so expensive that the target audiance could not afford the car! One consideration was the diesel power plant, obviously more efficient, but ruled out BECAUSE the added expense would have placed the car outside the reach of those interested in the car even after the $7500.00 we are forced to subsidize. Toyota’s work is in sharp contrast with the approach at General Motors where our elected officials said don’t worry about the details, we’ll force the public to pick up all your expenses, party on Dudes! Toyota approached the Prius with the understanding that they must do a good job, or they would suffer the consequences. A basic truth.. you can’t force people to buy what they don’t want, nor what they can’t afford… not for long..
A trait of the free energy or free lunch crowd is to dismiss the billions of dollars of research done on exactly what you mention! During WWII, the War Department was convinced we could win or lose the war according to whether we could wring the last bit of energy out of a BTU of gasoline. This led to the development of the Turbo Compound Engines that make use of heat going out of the exhaust port, turning a turbine and then using a gear train to merge this energy with the crankshaft! This innovation allowed our bombers to strike deeper into enemy territory and return, and these engines are still a marvelof efficiency BUT very expensive. This was not magic, nor was it an example of what our tax dollars can accomplish, it is more about the blood and treasure we’ve invested, and how we totally dismiss the lessons learned.
Your question about using a CHP “combined heat and power” in an auto. This is EXACTLY what the promoters of electric Vehicles refuse to address, and why we must always remember there are two large groups of EV supporters, those who become wealthy supporting the development of same, and useful idiots like Danny Divito and Tom Hanks who allow themselves to be used as poster boys by the deniers of the basic energy requirements of EVs in order to become practical enough to attract real buyers.
We need note that our standard autos are indeed CHP vehicles at this very moment, and that the heat required to make a safe trip in low temperatures and wet weather can require more energy than what it takes to power the vehicle forward!
Of course, we have other energy demands too, and we know that it requires a serious amount of BTUs to keep temperatures inside the care low enough to assure the passengers don’t cook, and this can be near half the year in some locations.
The Chevy Volt is an excellent example of how divided our two groups are. Those who refuse to do the eight grade math see every Chevy Volt out the door as a sale. The more educated see them as a highly subsidized give away program. The $7500 we are all forced to tender is just the beginning, most who study the numbers suggest that we tax payers are funding another $250,000 in subsidies per car out the door. But perhaps even more disturbing is who are among the buyers.. General Electric for one who will likely manufacture the majority of charging stations in the home and elsewhere.
And now we’ll watch Obamacare, we learn you don’t even need to have insurance, you can just pay a small penality and have the same rights and coverage as others. Never mind the basic math, we’ll pay all those Doctors and the Army of people in pharmacies, medical labs, hospitals with manna from heaven 🙂 And to think, many of these people don’t beleive in God, we need ask them… whose left to pay the bills if it’s not God who will pay them?
But don’t we know the truth, it’s only the promise of the impossible in exchange for one more term in office for our elected officials 🙂 We just watched these idiots bring us to our knees with the promise that every man could own a big house (wether he could make the payment or not). Now we’ll duplicate that effort in cars, and medical 🙂 the Free lunchers will of course blame all but themselves when there’s no money left to lube the gears of the economy, and it all grinds to a halt 🙂
Thanks for your comments. I was not aware of the Turbo Compound Engines you wrote about, even with 26 years in the Air Force, starting in the fall of 1961. I had assumed all the turbo-assisted engines were only supercharged by turbines.
Also I would like to correct my error on the source of the Cyclone Series aircraft engines. They were manufactured by Curtis Wright not Pratt & Whitney.
I will confess to becoming somewhat misty-eyed at the rare occasion I hear the sound of either of these large old radial masterpieces. I do have a few fond memories of some leisurely (and some not so enjoyable) cross-country flights in the, for the time, monstrous C-124 (Big Shaky) C-119 (Flying Boxcar) and C-123. These much maligned old friends were shortly afterward completely replaced by the turboprops and fanjets.
I guess, though probably not the most expensive, the most irritating to me of the idiot programs the federal government has come out with in recent years was the “Cash for Clunkers” debacle.
As always I enjoy Utterpower.com
Thanks