Are you talking pure electric cars or Hybrids? If you are talking hybrids or any car for that matter, braking turns already burned fuel into waste heat and brake dust.

I think that Hybrids have there place, like putting around town running on mostly the electric motor however I will stick with my 50 mpg diesel.

 

Well, both actually- In a pure electric vehicle you would most likely use the electric motor as a brake supplemented by traditional wheel brakes. By using the motor, you will help to regenerate the batteries.

In a hybrid, you use engine braking to recharge the batteries, as well as running the engine as a generator. You also use regular brakes, which do waste some energy, but I haven't seen a hybrid that requires you to plug it in, so the technology must work.

I'd love a diesel Jetta as a DD...

Andy

 

Thanks for clarifying that. I know nothing about Hybrids or electric car operation.

 

Hybrids are a good stop-gap, the best part is what we're learning about conserving energy on the road. In the end, an electric motor is the only way to go because we can store energy for it on the road, in time we'll learn of new ways to produce that energy while driving.

I'm not an electric fan, I think far too many people consider the energy for charging their electric car is free somehow.. it just means more people on the grid, higher electricity costs, just as much waste, etc. However, ALL of the power we produce in cars is gained by fossile fuels, some of the energy from electric plants come from natural resources, so in the end it is definitely better. I'm in Indiana, I don't get **** from an electric car, but areas by a dam? solar powered plants? wind powered? that's all basically 'free' energy.. we're tapping into a natural resource that we can't use up, that's a good thing.

The electric motor is the way to go though.. most of the "in the distant future" Hydrogen cars you see run off of electric motors, with hydrogen engines charging the batteries to run these motors. Electric energy is far more efficient than gasoline, we just need to find more reliable and less wasteful ways to produce the energy(or to be accurate, 'conserve' the energy we use) on the road.

 

You missed the part where I was focusing in specifically on internal combustion engines. Which would be the most probable retrofit scenario.


Now why would that be? Are you saying that gasoline has more nitrogen in it than hydrogen gas would? If not, then why would hydrogen burning in an internal combustion engine, making similar power to that of a gasoline engine, make less NOx?

 

What about CNG? "Compressed Natural Gas" aka "Methane". We already have vehicles running on that. They produce plenty of power, have very low emissions, is cheaper than gasoline, is safer than hydrogen and the retrofit is farly simple. There are even power plants running off the methane produced by cow farts. Seriously!

 

METHANE!!! WELL HELL, somebody pass the pot of beans and ham, and the cornbread, meal gravy, and fried potatos too while your at it. Beans Beans the musical fruit the more you eat the cheaper your ride, hell yes. I don't care if it smells like fart as long as it's mine hahahaha, hey I'm only 22 years old potty humor is still funny.

 

Hey all,
Here is someone you should look up on the hybrid engines using steam. His name is Bruce Crower and here is a link to an award he received. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technol...cbccdrcrd.html

Now thats using steam and its workable right now. No new infrastructure needed, no new cars, still have the great sound of a v8. No by-product, and it won't stink. Whats not to like. I know I know its only a stop gap, but hydrogen, electric engines, batteries can't be the solution for the masses. Batteries are bad to the environment to make, to throw away, expensive and always fail when you need them the most. Solar energy is great the storage of the suns power is not. Have any of you ridden in a Stanley Steamer. Man their cool.

JIM

 

I didn't miss anything, nor was I saying you were completely wrong- I was just saying there are different ways of doing it that will result in no NOx emissions.

The emperical formula for gasoline is C8H18. (It can be different depending on the grade of gasoline and what is put in it, but it consists of carbon and hydrogen, as you stated earlier, and this formula is the commonly accepted formula for regular gas)

Now, in an incomplete combustion reaction, which is what happens when gasoline is ignited it yields the following C8H18+O2=> CO2+H2O+CO+C. (This equation is not balanced, so the actual proportions of the results of the reaction are not accurate) Now the oxygen is atmosphere, not pure O2, so this accompanied by whatever nitrogen percentage is in the lower part of the troposphere, and various Nitrogen dioxides are produced with it, like you stated earlier. However, some of these will join with the carbon, leading to other emmissions other NOx emissions that are detrimental to the atmosphere, and that have a long atmospheric residence life.

A hydrogen combustion reaction produces a complete combustion reaction. 2H2+O2=>2H2O+heat This will of course have nitrogen from the atmosphere in it, but no more so than rain has nitrogen in it. Also, Since it is a complete combustion reaction, it is not NO2 (Nitrogen dioxide) that is being produced, which is the main culprit of "smog" and other environmental threats.

The other thing to look at is the removal of the carbon oxides from the atmosphere, which have a signifigant impact on the "global climate change" (If you believe in such things) Even though Nitrogen Dioxide has a greater effect, it is much less abundant, and a hydrogen powered vehicle would produce nearly no NO2, which can not be said for even the cleanest gasoline powered car of today.

The short answer is that sure, it will probably produce some NOx, but it won't be near what gas powered cars are, and it most likely will not have an impact on the environment.

 

Hydrogen Retrofit to our motors..... HUGE PROBLEM

a little thing called Hydrogen Embrittlement.

Our motors wouldn't last 5k miles running on hydrogen. Hardened valve seats would shatter like glass. Most of the pistons, heads, and blocks would crack apart in no time.

 

When done properly with a good tune and whatnot, you can see power increases with E85 due to the ability to run more timing and only a 15% or so drop in fuel economy. This varies from vehicle to vehicle of course. Also, I am not talking about factory flex fuel tunes.

 

Yup- I don't know what the actual percentage drop in economy is, but 15% seems a bit low- Either way...

Another benefit from it in a performance application is that since you are running more fuel through, your fuel charge will be cooler, which will make it denser.

 

Do you gain a lot of efficiency from raising compression ratio? With the 400 for example, you can raise the compression ratio really high pretty easily (pistons, aussie heads, milling, etc) and I just wonder if being on the upper side of Ethanol's CR while running Ethanol might at least even out the efficiency loss from the fuel?

 

You would be using the fuel more efficiently because you are using it to its fullest potential, but you won't gain economy of any sort.

It would be like running 110 octane race fuel in an 8:1 engine, then bumping the CR to 11:1- The fuel is being used to its potential, but the engine isn't using any less fuel.

 

but you're getting more energy out of the same amount of fuel, right? doesn't that bascially define 'improved efficiency'?

just not sure it would improve it the 15%-20% for E85 (that's 15% gasoline, 85% alcohol).. I think pure alcohol is quite a bit higher, I think I'll go find out for sure what the number is.

edit: i was way off, 25% less efficient for E85, it will be closer to 35 or 40 for straight Ethanol. That's pretty significiant..

edit2: and Wikipedia answered my question, sort of..

"Under high load and high manifold boost pressures, such as accelerating to pass or merge onto a highway, it makes full use of the higher octane of E85. It appears that due to the better ignition timing and better engine performance on a fuel of 100 octane, the driver spends less time at high throttle openings, and can cruise in a higher gear and at lower throttle openings than is possible on 100% premium gasoline. In daily commute driving, mostly highway, 100% E85 in a turbocharged car can hit fuel mileages of over 90% of the normal gasoline fuel economy. Tests indicate approximately a 5% increase in engine performance is possible by switching to E85 fuel in high performance cars."