10-13-2011, 04:33 PM | #26 | |||
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10-14-2011, 08:13 AM | #27 | |||
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Of course, in an actual debate where the points are being discussed, as opposed to an offhanded comment, I fully expect anyone wishing to weigh in, to support their opinions with some kind of facts or numbers that can be verified, and strive to do so myself. (Just because someone doesn't like another's sources, does don't make their point any less worthwhile, if there are numbers that can be confirmed, or proven false.) fair enough? Quote:
If you want hard proof as to the truth of my religion, I can give you that too, but make sure you're prepared for the responsibility. Otherwise, don't bring it up. Quote:
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10-14-2011, 08:41 AM | #28 |
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You don't seem to understand how cruelly unfair your ignorance is to me or to the rest of us. What takes you only one minute to type out -- "I don't believe in evolution," for example -- takes us hours of cross-linking you to papers, textbook citations, academic journals, and the like just in order to meet your declaration of what is required of us to convince you of anything. And even after we do that you just dismiss it like the troll you've been accused of being -- "Nope, not convinced" -- and there go several hours of our lives, wasted and never to return.
So you can come onto UPN and post five anti-intellectual turds on five radically different topics -- climate change, alternative fuel sources, evolution, vaccination, and paleontology, for example -- and it turns into days of us having to educate you and clean up after your mess. It's terribly, terribly unfair and the fairest solution is for you to quit disseminating misinformation. It is not fair to the other patrons of this board to adopt the plan of attack that I simply ignore you and let your misinformation slide -- lest you misinform them. It is fairer to the community if you provide the onus of proof for your claims up front. If you're wanting to boldly declare that CFCs don't contribute towards global warming or ozone depletion, then quite frankly the onus is on you, not on me, to back up those claims with evidence. And if you're too lazy or uncommitted towards doing so, then I kindly suggest you not bring the matter up.
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10-14-2011, 12:22 PM | #29 | |||
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And when I try to pick your arguments apart with logic, I don't even get a direct response to it. And there goes hours of my life wasted and never to return. If you're referring to an offhand comment I make, all those sources are completely unneeded, I just need to be pointed in the right direction, like "That's not right, how about you check wikipedia on that topic." And then you can move on Quote:
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Galileo was just as accused of disseminating misinformation when he proposed the "heretical" view that, Earth may not actually be the center of the universe. How impossible! Earth is undeniably the center of the universe, how dare you suggest otherwise! The Bible proves it! (back when the Bible was a reliable source) |
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10-21-2011, 01:39 PM | #30 |
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Well, after reminating over the topic with the last of my reduced fat Doritos, I came to a conclusion:
Going completely on one energy source is bad and you should feel bad. Really? We can be so close-minded sometimes. Why don't we make a solar-wind combination car that has a hydrogen gas backup? Three sources of energy there peoples! We should use this thread to start ideas, not argue about stupid stuff. So, my idea up front, I have a mind plan for ya.
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10-21-2011, 01:58 PM | #31 |
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Thank you for changing the tone. We should use the thread for ideas, not arguing.
I agree, using multiple energy sources is the best idea and fully support it. My favored method: Solar Thermal generator boiling water for a steam engine or steam electric generator, completely clean and efficient. Usable for practically any power plant application, easy to convert from fossil fuel power plants, and while maybe not the most aerodynamic design for cars, may work somewhat. Though I would like to burn wood in a steam engine car. ^^; |
10-21-2011, 02:00 PM | #32 | |
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My plan was to put solar panels on top of the car, wind turbines on the doors of the cars, and a hydrogen battery for emergencies or listening to the radio at night. Albiet, parking spaces and roads would have to be widened.
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10-21-2011, 02:31 PM | #33 | |
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That may work, but, I think the wind turbines would lower aerodynamics, thereby reducing efficiency. It would also require infrastructure changes, both for the wind turbines and making hydrogen available, which is one of the major reasons the hydrogen car hasn't been adopted. I'm not fond of the inefficiencies of Solar Electric energy I completely support end-user modifications to utilize those energies though, as per steampunk philosophies. Who cares what the efficiency is if it works and looks cool? Personally, I hope to (someday) modify a car to use a steam engine with a boiler and furnace. Coal, Oil, Peat, Wood, Paper, Trash, ect, burning. My favorite future clean fuel mode of transport though would be: The Aeromodeller2 Though I want it to run on sail power (Kinetic Wind Power), and steam, with the propellers as secondaries and energy generation. Last edited by unownmew; 10-21-2011 at 02:34 PM. |
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10-22-2011, 08:23 AM | #34 | |
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That hydrogen blimp looks awesome. But, it the hydrogen going to be used for fuel AND lift? A car that runs off of combustion of trash can be done, though, it would have some harmful effects, like the release of some gases that could cause problems.
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10-22-2011, 09:04 AM | #35 | |||
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Although when you seriously analyze the design, you find there's a few things he's forgotten to consider. (How are you going to anchor 50 meters up without a ground crew? Bathroom? How do you go about restocking supplies like food and water if you don't ever land? If it uses rain to form the hydrogen fuel (and I assume drinking water as well), what if it doesn't rain? Storm-survivability? 6 Hours of recharge time for just 1 hour of flight? In-flight maintenance and repair? Don't fly above the clouds, or your "outdoor cockpit and veranda" are going to be worthless due to low pressure oxygen.) Quote:
Though, burning plastics does produce noxious fumes.. But if I'm the only one using them, shouldn't be a problem for the environment. I'd mostly use bio-trash though, like food scraps and non-plastic packaging. |
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10-22-2011, 09:14 AM | #36 | |
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One thing though, how are you going to control the heat created by causing steam?
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10-22-2011, 10:03 AM | #37 | |||
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A steam car could be used anywhere and at anytime without any special considerations, even in an apocalypse, so long as the engine works, and you have access to water. Quote:
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If you're on the road though, you can easily toss your fast food leftovers, (and packaging) into the furnace and viola, more range/speed. Vegetable oil sounds like a good fuel too, but you can't get much better then wood without turning to fossil fuels (natural gas would be a good fuel too, now that I think of it). How am I going to control the heat? I probably wont. ^^; Or the same way they did it in the past, I haven't gone far into that yet. Do I need to control the heat? |
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10-22-2011, 04:39 PM | #38 |
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What exactly is heating up this magic steam car that makes it any different from a combustion engine? You're going to need an outside fuel source to heat the water into steam.
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10-22-2011, 04:50 PM | #39 | |
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In a combustion engine, a series of explosions are required to create piston movement, and all combustion engines made now are designed specifically to run on ONLY gasoline. In a steam engine, heat energy is consistently transferred into water (instead of in a series of various spikes of explosive power), which boils into steam, which has a higher base pressure then regular water and air, and forces the pistons to move. Once the steam has done it's job, it's either left to the open air, or, for maximum efficiency, condensed back into water to be boiled again into steam. The beauty of a steam engine comes from the fact that the heat energy can be created by ANYTHING that burns, not just gas or oil. (Wood, trash, coal, natural gas, hydrogen, other plant matter, cardboard, paper, anything really you can find that is flammable) And for an even cleaner operation, you can utilize Solar Thermal Energy to boil the water instead, eliminating the need for a stored fuel source entirely. Last edited by unownmew; 10-22-2011 at 04:59 PM. |
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10-22-2011, 05:10 PM | #40 |
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Steam cars are half as powerful or as energy efficient as a gas powered car due to the multiple times you would need to convert energy. Fuel => fire/heat => water => water vapor.
Add in the risks of boiler explosions due to metal fatigue or decay, improper maintenance, too low a level of water, or too high a level of water, and a whole lot of factors, I can't really imagine a steam car working too well in an apocalypse scenario. I'd rather get a horse. If you want, they still made steam cars (for public use) up until like the 1920s. I'm sure if you had the money and resources, you could probably get one IRL. |
10-23-2011, 09:16 AM | #41 | |||
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As for efficiency, a combustion engine loses a ton of energy efficiency in the way of "waste heat," during operation, as well it requires several rotations before reaching full power. With a Steam Engine, there is no waste heat, and full power is provided at engine start. Quote:
As for the problems you mentioned, those are specific to old style steam engines. It would seem you missed these two links from the OP, so I'll bring them up again. (Steam Engine 1, Steam Engine 2) Please do look into them before decrying the faults of the steam engine. Quote:
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10-23-2011, 09:41 AM | #42 |
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Never heard of that.
But your "Runs on anything in an apocalypse scenario" seems a bit stretched. By those websites, they don't run on trash, cardboard, and anything flammable. They ran off of biofuels and some other items including cooking oil and such, but not your miraculous anything. Anyway, can't expect the world to know about every prototype. I talked about old school steam engines because those are the ones I knew about. Nice find. |
10-23-2011, 12:47 PM | #43 | ||
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I am not so "uninformed," on this matter as you would believe, if anything, I am, differently informed than you. Do I believe that we moved from a more efficient steam engine to a less efficient internal combustion one? HELL YES I DO! The problems steam cars had were mostly cosmetic and user friendliness, with internal combustion making faster advances then steam was at the time. The biggest reason the combustion engine took off while the steam engine faltered, is due to Henry Ford's Model T, which was mass produced and sold for cheap, and used the combustion engine. Had Steam Power been given that chance, there's no doubt it would have soared just as well. Atm, combustion engines have a certain efficiency, because of all the time and scientific advancement given to them since then, while steam engines have be left to rust (literally). Give the steam engine that same duration and advancement, and we'll see comparable results. Of course, I'm sure there's all sorts of other petty politics that were involved at the time as well that helped the decline of the steam engine. If the Internal combustion engine is so powerful and fuel efficient, why is it that power plants utilize Steam for Electrical energy production as opposed to the "clearly" more efficient internal combustion engine? One more beauty of the Steam engine, is that, it represents energy independence, as opposed to relying on fossil fuels, it can be used with any burnable material. Raytheon seems to be pulling for new steam technology for military use.. http://www.raytheon.com/technology_t...i1/engine.html I'm more apt to trust their scientific judgement then yours. Again, have you read either of the sites I linked detailing one of two new, modern steam engines? Quote:
Old time combustion engines used to be able to be run on various fuels too, but they phased that out (I wonder why ) I don't expect everyone to know the new prototypes, but then, that's why I mentioned them specifically in the OP, which I assumed people had read thoroughly. Last edited by unownmew; 10-23-2011 at 12:57 PM. |
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10-23-2011, 01:04 PM | #44 |
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Nuclear energy cannot be harnessed directly and so is used to heat water baths. It is in effect a giant steam engine. That stated, ridiculous amounts of potential energy are lost as heat.
Steam engines are used in grounded applications (factories by rivers, nuclear power plants, etc) because of the abundance of water. In terms of portability, petroleum-based engines are far superior because the fuel used to generate the heat for thermal expansion is also the source for the expanding gas. Steam engines in cars, trains, planes, and other mobile devices just don't cut it because to make them work you have to carry both heat-fuel (e.g. coal) and expansion-fuel (e.g. water). That's extra weight, extra volume, just overall pointless. Why burn gasoline to heat up some water when you can have that gasoline be the water?
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10-23-2011, 01:45 PM | #45 | ||
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I appreciate the lack of personal attacks in this post. Thank you.
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I also disagree with the "loss of potential energy as heat," It is the "heat" that does the work for creating steam, so all heat is used to create steam and steam pressure. More heat = more pressure. Granted, it is impossible to harness every single particle of heat energy, and always will be, so, that's a non-issue. The key is using the most heat available as possible for the application, which is a HUGE limiting factor in Internal combustion. (In fact, you could design a steam engine to run off just the excess heat from an internal combustion engine.. That's got to say a lot about the energy efficiency of the contraption.) If heat efficiency is your goal, Modulating boilers around a central heat source could provide a wealth of energy at your disposal. (I'm not sure anyone's tried this though, so it's theory ATM.) Quote:
Steam may not be very small (yet), but it can be much more powerful and energy efficient for the amount of fuel used, and heat lost than the internal combustion engine. Given the opportunity, I believe it can easily rival, and even beat internal combustion engines. Last edited by unownmew; 10-23-2011 at 01:52 PM. |
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10-23-2011, 01:48 PM | #46 |
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This is becoming somewhat argumentative.
I think both sides have some good points. The heat is going to be a problem. Even if you do not use the heat for motion, it could be used for other things, such as heat in the car itself. Any more ideas?
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10-23-2011, 01:59 PM | #47 |
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Thanks Blaze, for interfering, I appreciate it.
Space heating is one benefit of Steam Engines, you'll rarely be cold in winter. I mentioned above, you could cycle the steam around water to use it's excess heat while condensing for further steam generation. You could also (possibly) add extra boiler modules to the central heat source for extra piston movement, for more efficiency, but I think that would have to be relegated to static installations, instead of vehicles. |
10-23-2011, 05:20 PM | #48 | |||
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Now, the way a steam engine works is rather clever: it takes that heat, which is nominally wasted energy, and has it transform liquid water into very hot water. And, if you're lucky!, into steam. The thermal expansion of steam performs work on the system. (In this case, the piston or pistons of the engine.) It isn't the heat doing the work: it's the work doing the work. Work is work, heat is heat, they are mutually exclusive. Now comes the problem: you claimed, disastrously erroneously >_<, that "with a Steam Engine, there is no waste heat." This is wrong. As the thermally-expanded gas performs work on the system (i.e. pushes the pistons up), it is cooled by the comparatively cooler pistons. (The engine block in turn is cooled by the other parts of the machine and by the ambient air; this in turn is cooled by the remoter ambient air and the ground; etc, etc.) This cooling makes the water less kinetically energetic, i.e. it has less "punch" by which it pushes on the pistons, and the heat is lost irreversibly: into the engine it goes and then out into the great beyond. You want the water to get hot again? You better burn more fuel. Quote:
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10-23-2011, 07:33 PM | #49 | |
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10-23-2011, 08:10 PM | #50 | |||||
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In this example, the heat is not moving anything, but it is doing work (again, maybe not the physics definition of work, but, I think (I hope) you understand what I mean here. Quote:
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Again, the heat from burning the fuel is used to make steam, which is then used for work, which then loses the heat it had which made the work possible. The heat was used in the system, and then lost, instead of being an unusable byproduct of the system. Further efficiency techniques can utilize the escaping heat to boil more water for more steam, which an internal combustion engine can not do. That is all I was referring to, otherwise, you are entirely right, and I agree with you, and apologize for the miscommunication. Quote:
For the sake of argument though, Photon = Energy? Energy = Heat? Photon = particle? Quote:
It's clear the environmentalists would want to get us to adopt electric motors, and I have nothing against having them along with steam. I would just prefer we move back down the road to steam engines as a civilization. Wood makes a perfectly good solar battery for me. Give steam engines a chance and I'm sure you'll get just as many improvements as other mass-used items have been. The only thing stopping it now, is presence and knowledge, no one thinks about using the steam engine, nor do they study it's workings, so they can only go to improving what they know instead. Obviously each engine has it's pros and cons, and portability may not be a pro for steam, ever, but I'm sure we can discover some good pros for it that haven't been found yet. And I completely believe it can be just as good as an IC engine for vehicles, if not more so. |
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