Termyn8or
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Joined: 11/12/2005
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I have considered bicycling to work. It is 7.6 miles each way on the freeway, and about the same on the streets. However I work on the east side and live on the west side. That means downtown every day. People drive like nuts so I don't think it's the best idea. Some areas are much more conducive to bicycle riding than others. The way people drive around here I wouldn't even want to ride a motorcycle in town.
bipolar brought up something, his central AC. Remember about finding answers in the past ? There used to be an absorption type of refrigeration which had no compressor. Now I can't claim to know exactly how it works in toto, the most comprehensive thing I've read on the subject was an Audel's. Heat is used to boil a small reservior of water with a gas dissolved in it, and somehow this pumps the refrigerant. The system is complex, but it worked, and continues to work in propane run refrigerators used in campers and mobile homes.
The technology is unbelievably old. However, this is a sealed system that requires only a heat source to operate. It uses heat to pump heat and is just about maintainence free. If one were to build an AC condensing unit of this type, there should be no problem powering it with the sun. What's more, when the demand would be the highest, most likely the available sunlight would be there. The only problem after that is the blower. You can heat a house with a gravity furnace, but you simply can't cool it the same way. Well perhaps a way could be found, but to my knowledge it has not.
Thing is heat is something we can usually get plenty of one way or another. One cheap way would be bigscreen TVs. In a rear projection TV there is a fresnel lens behind the screen you actually see when you watch it. When seperated from the lenticular it is pretty much a huge magnifying glass. That is not it's purpose in the TV, but it still works. This screen/lens from a 46" can easily burn asphalt, I have done it.
Another thing that probably should be looked into is further delevopment of the Stirling cycle engine, which uses only heat to produce kinetic energy, that is turning a shaft. Also a sealed system, it requires no periodic refreshment of the internal substances. It is technically an external combustion engine, but that is assuming your heat source is driven by combustion. If all it needs is heat, why not solar ?
Originally one might think this thread is only about gasoline, and basically about powering vehicles, but that is not the whole story. We use fuel in more ways than just that.
Let's take the example of AC, last central AC unit I installed I had my buddy come and fine tune it. He is certified for these things. With the clamp on ammeter the refrigerant charge is adjusted so that the unit actually meets it's EER rating. With three temperature probes on the freon lines he got it down from almost 9 amps to less than 8, and this is at 220V. But still, 8 amps at 200V is alot, and you are lucky that the thing does not have to run constantly. But still that says nothing about the blower.
Now just consider this as an off the wall idea, but with some development it is clear that it would work. A solar powered condensing unit using the absorption method, and a Stirling cycle engine to run the blower. Voila, an AC unit that uses no electricity.
I doubt it would be cheap, but what bipolar said, if for the cost of a new car he could go solar ad hoc AC only, it would eventually pay for itself. Thing is, with the current state of technology just how "not cheap" is it ? The compressor of an average central AC sstem draws say 1600 watts. When you add that up in solar cells the numbers get scary. Directly converting the sunlight to the work you need done should prove much more efficient.
For example say you want to distill some water. Would you go out and buy solar panels and use them to power heating elements in the vessels you use for this purpose ? No, that would be foolish, almost to the Rube Goldberg standard.
But that's what we do. Think about it, over here we got Perry nuclear power plant. With controlled fission they produce heat, which is used to heat water to steam and drive the shaft(s) of generator(s). They put electricity on the wires and then people use it to run electric furnaces to heat their houses. Indeed Rube Goldberg would be in awe.
But then we have a university that buys steam. This is not that uncommon. Easy to figure,it is much more efficient, but still falls short of future goals. And I think future goals are worthy of discussion.
If the population continues to explode as it is, there will eventually be no solution, but to prolong our misery we can find new, more efficient ways. But the fact still remains that this planet was not meant to sustain this many people, and they won't stop fucking. The fact is that usually the poorest countries are the most overpopulated. And we are headed in that direction.
And what about fuel for the human body ? We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in that respect. It doesn't matter what kind of "fuel" you talk about, the one resounding fact that cannot be ignored is that there are too many people, period. And as long as people breed like cockroaches there is no solution in the long run. In fact any stopgap measure would just exaserbate the situation.
Let's put it this way, if someone would come up with a way to feed everyone on the planet and supply them with free energy for all their needs, the problem would be back in a few short years. No solution is inexhaustible, even solar.
So that's the nutshell, anything we do is only temporary, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. As far as the US goes, we have been out of money for a long time, and it is looking like we are going to run out of credit in the near future. One thing is for sure, we can't keep doing what we are doing now.
Let's also discuss another factor, big business has no interest in solving these problems. As long as demand is there, their money will roll in. New ideas are more likely to come out of someone's basement. Television was invented by a kid in school, Eli Whitney did not have a government grant. Neither did Henry Ford. People who innovate take their own direction, and big business discourages this. Schools discourage this. The government discourages this. So don't expect any help.
T
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RE: Alternative Fuels Roundtable - 
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