Anthony Williams's posts

Hey Jon C.  I understand what you are saying for sure.  I am not hypthesizing to run a vehicle completely from this, that makes no sense.  Yeah and the super/turbo charger does use exhaust gases, but super chargers also cool incoming combustion air as well.  It just seems to me, since we already funnel in combustion air (passing it through an air filter to boot), then we ought to be able to do something with a car going 60 MPH down the road.  I've have not spent any time looking into the physics of it, nor more than about 20 minutes thinking about it, since I assumed (probably correctly) that if it could have been done, it already would have.

Tony

Nice job, Bruce!  I like!  Would be interested in something liek that in my backyard in Florida. 

Well, we in the US will still have an atrocious energy policy, and will so for the foreseeable future (Did not matter who was elected, both of their plans are poor at best).  Trying to incentivize to get companies and individuals to go to alternatives does not work well, and frankly, is so old school and anti-capitalistic.  I am possibly a rare breed: a conservative, a captitalist, and an evironmentalist.  No country can be fully energy independent, ever.  Even if we could totally switch off the oil spigot, have you ever heard of Hydro Quebec?  Hydro power from Canada has been feeding the US grid for decades.  That is one simple example.  Energy independence is a myth.  The better term to use should be energy self-sufficiency.

Obama can do nothing better than what has been done to date on renewables, based on his stated campaign positions.  His statements do not make sense, even if we could redirect the umpteen-billions we would need to go down his fairy tale path.  Like any good liberal, he'd have to increase taxes somewhere (like lots of somewheres!) to do what he wants.  The federal government started down the right road a couple of years back opening up hundreds of millions in grants for research to improve current alternative energy technologies.  Like the space race, we need to prime the pump.  That is not going to happen with a bunch of small companies doing a bunch of little research.  That is part of it, but we need the big companies and prominent universities into this wholesale -- and this has started.  The number of patent applications needs to increase 10-fold.  Then we'll get this thing solved, and be well on our way to "energy self-sufficiency". But it will still take 10 years just to get good things to market, and 20 to fully exploit the new inventions.

Might as well get used to having an oil-based energy system for at least another 20 years.  Peak oil was supposed to have happened by now, and has not.  Plateau oil was then the new theory after the peak thing did not go as expected, and it looks mythical as well.  No doubt, we will reach a point where supply dwindles because there is little left.  Improving usage of pretoleum, improving effiencies across the board, stretching the limited supply needs to be part of the solution.

Oh, and by the way, I do build solar powered generators. I know with current technologies things can work. We just need massive improvements in all areas, solar, wind, geo-thermal, electrical storage, etc, etc.

Hi Harold.  What is the URL of your new web site? The old one (http://www.nonfuelengine.com) is no longer up and running?

Tony

Hey John.

I spec-ed out my system with Xantrex modified-sine wave inverter/charger - the DR3624 and Sharp 208 watt panels.  I happened to have both at the time, just not enough panels (had 2).  And I had 8 Concorde or 4 Trojan batteries on hand I could have used.

Glad to see this works for you, but you have a heck of an investment there!  How much did you spend?

I figured a good average cost per month of electricity for my pool pump was:

2 kw * 8 hrs/day * 30 days/mo * $0.099/kwh or about $48/month.

The cost of the main components was about $8,500 and balance of system perhaps another $1,200 minimum.  So round it all to $10,000.  Straight return on investment is over 17 years.  Figure in inflation on electricity costs and it might drop it a year or so.

Thoughts?

Tony

Nice idea.  I had same thought about 5 years ago.  I was thinking of more of a hood scoop or ram air type of thing that fed wind as the car moved - bumping up the wind "pressure".  The turbine would have to be enclosed/encapsulated and be very small (so that it was completely mounted under the hood.  Not sure I agree with the previous post that the drag would more than offset the energy produced. Wind turbines are getting to be pretty efficient (although not small enough for this application).  Guess if the drag can't be overcome in terms of energy produced, we should take the turbo/super chargers off all of our cars!  Although I suppose the extra boost from those does more than offset any additional drag - big time!

"For it do otherwise would be considered perpetual motion."  Are you sure? I'm not, convince me.  Although I suppose there is a reason why we don't do this now.  Maybe the Japanese government can fund another Prius and test it out!  GE builds great turbines (jet engines), maybe they could do it!

Thanks, James.  I've got 2 DR1512's, 2 DR2412's, 2 DR2424's and 3 DR3624's already.  If I could find someone who had a new or used ones they needed or wanted to get rid of, I'd but them.  I bought most of what I have thru you guys.

If anyone has new or slightly used Xantrex DR inverter/chargers, I am looking for them.  We bould transportable solar generator systems and these units are what we use.  DR3624, DR2424, DR2415, DR1512.

Plus any Xantrex PWM charge controllers are good as well. 

Any Xantrex add-ons for these units are wanted as well: remote meters, remote on/off switches, battery temp sensors.

Hi Jason.

I actually looked into doing this myself.  Living in Florida, we run our pools year round and in the winter a pool motor can be over half of one's electric bill.

I spec-ed out an off-grid system with a manual transfer switch.  I did not want to deal with an inter-connection agreement, and I was planning on installing the system myself.  Having worked on a grid-tie install crew once and having built transportable solar systems, the off-grid system is much easier to install.  And I am not certified in Florida.

I did not install the system because the return on investment was way out of line with what it was costing me to use grid power to run the pool motor.  I had a 2000 watt 240 VAC motor, running on average 8 hours a day at $0.0990 / kwh.

Hope this helps.

Tony