You’d need Government involvement to make this idea any more insane than it is!
Add an engine to the EV!
In the digital media world, we see a lot of articles written to generate traffic to a WEBsite. When we give them coverage, we play into their game, but.. sometimes it’s hard not to share the insanity, and they know it!
The way the game works, is you find a boy wonder…. maybe a Guy who thinks he’s an inventor because he made up a power cord.
If you find one that doesn’t know a BTU from an IOU, all the better! The way it works, is informed people will want to read of the insanity and shake their heads. At the same time, those who want to believe in Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, and Fairy Dust will read of the new and magic idea! We just add the all important and missing component to the EV, and Engine!
Sure, we’ll click on the link, we’ll also note that about half the nuts we elected to office might actually invest >our< money in this idea if given a chance.
We can count on the free energy crowd to think that turbines of all kinds were simply overlooked.. more thoughtful people will know that they are expensive, and make a >LOT< of heat, and heating the out of doors takes a lot of fuel. Will the Peter Pan crowd even know that Chrysler had a fleet of ?500? turbine powered test vehicles in the field? Since we didn’t see more of them, perhaps an evil corporation bought the plans and hide them?
Read this carefully, there’s so much humor here, that I’m sure the writer had a hard time keeping a straight face.
Have a great Monday, and thank you Dave S for sharing a fun read.. If Utterpower had a lexicon.. we’d use this Guy’s name for something.
GB
http://www.microturbine.com/_docs/Product%20Catalog_ENGLISH_LR.pdf
But look at the numbers from capstones catalog. Their worst turbine genset has an efficiency of 25% and their best is over 30%. Back when their founder was running Rosen motors he wanted to use flywheel storage with one of their 30kw units for a car so that the feeble 30kw engine could provide decent acceleration. No takers. My brother flew in to Oshkosh airshow one year where capstone had a booth. He said their 30kw unit was a little louder than a refrigerator. But what this guy has on the back of his car trailer looks like the insides of their genset. Possibly very loud. Their genset is elegant and burns almost any fuel and has a chp option. I’d have one in a second if their cost was inline with a listeroid and if they could run efficiently at low power settings, like 1-2 kw. I especially like how the turbine shaft and alternator rotor are one piece with no belts, float on air bearings and use neither oil not coolant.
Bill,
Seems there’s a lot of investor relations going on with Capstone.. can you buy one? I’m a skeptic, most turbines I’ve been around are chock full of expensive materials, and some machined to very fine tolarances. All this generally means expensive! I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
If there was an inexpensive and reliable 30kw unit out there, they shoudl literally own the APU business by now.. exspecially for the military. I’d love to be wrong on this one..
My experience with turbine generators makes me want another column added to Capstones spec sheet—lbs of almost any fuel / kwh. I’m guessing it’s nowhere close to a listeroid.
A table shows #2 diesel having 37.95 kwhr/gallon. At Utterpower, either on the cd or the web site there is a graph where someone named Jeff(?) measured electrical power and fuel consumption showing that at 2 kw the listeroid with an st-3 would use .125 gallons diesel per kwhr produced. From the two numbers you can see that is 21% efficiency. The capstone 30kw unit is capable of 25% with diesel, kerosene or aviation fuel. Also the column with mj/kwh will almost tell you what you wanted. What would be very interesting is a lister or some large heavy engine that runs slow and scales down well running natural gas. They opened a cng gas station in Raleigh and a gge is only $1.60. I think the listeroid burns fairly clean after a few seconds but I am totally guessing that on cng it’s even more so. I also am curious if cng is a strategy for satisfying EPA restrictions. I like diesel but my loyalty is to the engine and not as much the fuel.
Bill,
This is worth following up on, where do you buy a 30kw unit that produces electricity with 25-30 percent overall efficiency? If this is true why isn’t it in a hybrid now?
A Box of Electricity may interest you along this line.
The idea is: Connect already drilled but currently unused gas wells to small generators and produce electricity on the spot.
Stranded gas wells are surprisingly common. No one knows yet their full potential as energy-producing sites, but electric utilities are eager to find out. Since Wellhead Energy’s first working model began producing electricity in June for a Jackson Energy substation in McKee, Kentucky, Dave Weddle and his business partners have received inquiries from a dozen other electric cooperatives.
Jackson Energy is a rural electric cooperative serving more than 50,000 members in 15 southeastern Kentucky counties. The project has created a viable source to supplement what Jackson Energy buys from East Kentucky Power and has proven that the technology can work. The co-op pays a little less to buy electricity from Wellhead than from East Kentucky. About 90% of Kentucky’s electricity is currently generated from coal.
What’s different about Wellhead Energy Systems’ approach is its simplicity. Instead of building gigantic new generating facilities and hundreds of miles of new transmission lines for remote renewable power sources, each GridFox ™ unit is small and can be used within existing local power systems.
The station, which is similar to a 40 foot shipping container, has three sections. The first is a unit to clean the incoming natural gas of impurities, and compress it. The impurities drain to a tank, to be picked up by a disposal service. The second section has an engine powered by the gas to drive a generator, and the third area is a control room with electronics that constantly monitor system processes and power output. Should the well fail the complete unit can be loaded on a flatbed trailer and hauled intact to another location.
The station in Jackson County produces enough electricity for an estimated 250 to 300 homes. But the plan for the next units, which will cost $1.2 million to build, will generate one megawatt of power, enough for about 800 homes.
Read the complete Kentucky Living article “A Box of Electricity” by Nancy Grant at:
http://www.kentuckyliving.com/article.asp?articleid=3412&issueid=379
Also see a related article at:
http://www.kentucky.com/2011/07/04/1798557/somerset-firm-sees-unused-natural.html
I keep thinking about getting more rural and moving a hundred and some miles up to wv. One thing I see when browsing land on Farm and Ranch is that it’s very common to have a company with a well on the property but the land comes with the rights to consume residential amounts of gas.
Capstone says they have sold 5000 units. You can see videos of them running on YouTube at sites. They aren’t all 30kw. Some are 200. But even the 30 kw units cost about 30k. I’d guess that’s why they are not everywhere. I have seen them used for 10k.
Here is a story about natural gas producers using them in the field.
http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/Article/2775184/Capstone-Turbine-receives-order-for-24-C65s-to-be-used-at-Eagle-Ford.html
There is also in article around about a hotel on the east coast using several of their turbines for chp and saving substantially compared to utility costs.
They have been around for about 15 years and seem to be real. They say they have shipped 5000 units and have tens of millions of hours. I do notice they are part of some kind of EPA advisory board along with some major engine manufacturers and that is disturbing. They also waste opportunity to talk global warming and green.
http://www.capstoneturbine.com/news/story.asp?id=499
This is neat but kind of scary too. It’s a press release that their 30kw diesel unit demonstrates compliance with EPA and carb requirements for heavy diesels. I could see someone at the EPA using it as justification for eliminating gensets based on piston engines. It’s only costs twice as much and that way they get rid of kooky individualists who want to make their own power.