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  #21  
Old 05-18-2009, 02:51 AM
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Combwork Combwork is offline
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Very Nice........

No electricity; listening to your tunes on a wind up phonograph while the missus cleans yer jeans with a washboard.....


Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.



Yeehaa
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  #22  
Old 05-18-2009, 03:31 AM
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hillbilly hillbilly is offline
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I think we could get by with one of these rigs .... if we had Gilligan to peddle for us.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSJ0CeBYG0s
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  #23  
Old 05-22-2009, 07:11 AM
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merrylander merrylander is offline
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They could work on the hydrogen fuel cell more, and also on a conversion kit for existing fuel injected engines.
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  #24  
Old 05-22-2009, 11:16 AM
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Grumpy Grumpy is offline
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I like the idea of Hydrogen powered cars but its a long way off not to mention whose footing the bill for converting gas stations to hydrogen ?

Before the masses could seriously consider one of these cars Hydrogen stations will need to be everywhere.
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  #25  
Old 05-22-2009, 03:11 PM
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There was talk a while ago about Shell putting in some hydrogen pumps, guess that went the way of the dodo bird.
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  #26  
Old 05-22-2009, 04:04 PM
Charles Charles is offline
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Whatever happened to T. Boondoggles plan to convert the existing fleet to LNG?

I doubt that it is a long term answer, but it does look like a short term fix which could actually be implemented without destroying the economy.

Now I may be wrong, and Boondoggle may be wrong, but I'll give him credit for one thing...at least he had a plan.

Years ago, I was watching Forbes on the stooge box. He was evaluating Regan's economic policy, which he said wouldn't work. He pointed out, "That to square a circle, you have to hammer on all four sides. Regan is not hammering on all four sides."

Well, we're sure as hell not hammering on all four sides of the energy problem, are we?

Chas
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  #27  
Old 05-23-2009, 07:04 AM
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merrylander merrylander is offline
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Sitting on 4.5 acres Vestas coulld stick one of their big wind turbines in the backyard and run it through my meter any time they want. It would probably zero our electric bill and piss off the neighbors, sort of two birds with one stone.
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  #28  
Old 05-23-2009, 07:22 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpy View Post
I like the idea of Hydrogen powered cars but its a long way off not to mention whose footing the bill for converting gas stations to hydrogen ?

Before the masses could seriously consider one of these cars Hydrogen stations will need to be everywhere.

Not sure about that. In the U.K. LPG was introduced with a much lower taxation rate than petrol or diesel. Result was a number of fleet operators plus a few privates paid the price and had their cars converted. This created demand; the result was fuel stations started to add LPG pumps. It kind of died the death when the government raised the tax level on LPG but the principle holds. Make the cars, keep the taxation rate low, go for mass production and the market will supply the fuel.
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  #29  
Old 05-23-2009, 07:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohighway View Post
Probably not a bad idea. Diesels are efficient, and they're getting "cleaner" with the proper fuels and engine development, etc.

Maybe it's even time to re-visit the turbine engine? I know they didn't pan out for use as a straight substitute for a regular engine, but maybe if used in "hybrid" mode they could be an answer. They could be used in a more efficient RPM range, and could make use of a variety of fuels.
Absolutely. Rover (UK) had experimental gas turbine cars in the 1950's. They were reliable enough to put a small number out for road testing plus as you say, they could run on virtually any liquid fuel. Problem was they were very inefficient; best mpg was about half that of petrol. They kept on with research until the early 1970's (the P6 was designed with an oversize engine bay so it could take a gas turbine engine) but they couldn't crack the problem with fuel efficiency.

The idea of a hybrid running at most efficient turbine rpm driving a generator is interesting. But there would be the complexity of a three stage drive train instead of just one.
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  #30  
Old 05-23-2009, 09:29 PM
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SAE2922 SAE2922 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpy View Post
I like the idea of Hydrogen powered cars but its a long way off not to mention whose footing the bill for converting gas stations to hydrogen ?

Before the masses could seriously consider one of these cars Hydrogen stations will need to be everywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Combwork View Post
Not sure about that. In the U.K. LPG was introduced with a much lower taxation rate than petrol or diesel. Result was a number of fleet operators plus a few privates paid the price and had their cars converted. This created demand; the result was fuel stations started to add LPG pumps. It kind of died the death when the government raised the tax level on LPG but the principle holds. Make the cars, keep the taxation rate low, go for mass production and the market will supply the fuel.
Combwork,

I see that you are talking about LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas - "Propane") in the U.K. The building of a nationwide array of hydrogen fuel stations in the United States would have to be straight from the beginning. Converting a gasoline fuel station to handle hydrogen would entail a complete top-to-bottom rebuild of the fuel handling equipment. Not cheap by any means.

In sheer number of square miles, the United States is almost as big as the whole of Europe ( ~ 3.8 million to ~ 3.9 million square miles, respectively) with less that half the population (~ 306 million to ~ 730 million).

Nationwide, there is only a literal handful of these, "Gee, look as us, we have a hydrogen fuel station in our metropolitan area and we sure are GREEN", fueling stations. Typically, the stations are found in massively populated areas such as Los Angeles, etc.

Yawn. So what. The detractors will say that we (America), as a GREEN nation, must begin somewhere. I'm just guessing that only a few dozen or so nation-wide hydrogen stations are in service today for the masses. With America's low cost gas at the pump, the puny, dangerous hybrid put-put cars that hardly anybody wants to purchase at such high prices (think the be-all-to-end-all Chevrolet Volt electric hybrid (whatever) at a projected cost of at least $40,000), and the oil companies will not fund an esoteric Hydrogen Manhattan Project to supply, deliver and sell the newly required GREEN fuel on a nationwide basis.

Run gasoline up to the $6-8 a gallon range (or higher) at the pump to stay and not fluctuate downward, then America's car buying public may slowly turn a fond eye to the gasoline hybrids. Hybrid battery technology still needs to improve and bring the replacement cost down.

With our present refining infrastructure, going with a clean-burning diesel technology may be the way to go instead of gas-hybrid technology. Turbo-charging small displacement diesel engines can easily approach the 40-50 mpg range (or better) TODAY. If you are going to have to go to a small crackerbox-size car due to ultra-high fuel prices, why not leverage the present fuel station infrastructure and go diesel. You can approach hybrid miles per gallon without worrying about finding a plug-in electrical outlet on the road away from home to recharge or panic at the thought of paying ~$6-8,000 for a replacement set of new batteries in a few years.

Besides, hydrogen typically consumes more energy to produce than the energy that is derived from it. When we ramp up the massive production machinery to create hydrogen to fuel several million "riding lawn mowers with windshields", where will we get the energy to generate the much needed extra electricity? I sure don't know.

The government won't let domestic energy companies dig, drill or prospect where the energy can be found. God forbid that a snail darter, yellow-cheeked warbler, spotted owl or a gimp-legged slumbago worm is disturbed. "Frack no, don't drill there, 44 sea otters went to crustacean heaven in the oil spill of '69"! Just where will we get the energy?

There is absolutely no way that the American oil companies are going to freely and easily put up the billions of U.S.A. dollars to fund the massive infrastructure restructuring that would be required to service an American nationwide fleet of hydrogen-powered "golf carts with roll-up windows and air conditioning".
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Last edited by SAE2922; 05-24-2009 at 01:44 AM. Reason: Syntax II & add content
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