Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Although just a kid, I remember being outraged at the Indy 500 committee for handicapping turbines after Parnelli Jones nearly won in 1967 with his turbine car. http://www.autopuzzles.com/Indy1967.htm On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 6:23 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:20:46 -0500: Hi, [snip] Turbines are kind of slow to respond to controls. Jet engine aircraft are less responsive than propeller-driven ones. There was a gas turbine automobile prototype in the 1970s. I do not know what it was like to drive. It made a heck of a noise, I think. There have been gas turbine powered race cars, so the response can't have been too bad. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
here it won't be burned gas turbine, but recycled vapor turbine... clearly downsizing is not evident... but maybe it is possible... noise should be much lower, and no problem with throttling if the car is hybrid. evacuation of heat is not trivial also, because on car most of the heat is evacuated by exhaust, not by radiator. have to let engineer work on that problem. 2012/1/15 mix...@bigpond.com In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:20:46 -0500: There have been gas turbine powered race cars, so the response can't have been too bad.
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Gas is the operative term. It is the expanding gas that makes internal combustion the best choice for most transportation. Steam engines and condensers for light transportation are just not feasible. - Original Message - From: mix...@bigpond.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 6:23 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:20:46 -0500: Hi, [snip] Turbines are kind of slow to respond to controls. Jet engine aircraft are less responsive than propeller-driven ones. There was a gas turbine automobile prototype in the 1970s. I do not know what it was like to drive. It made a heck of a noise, I think. There have been gas turbine powered race cars, so the response can't have been too bad. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Jay Caplan uniqueprodu...@comcast.net wrote: Gas is the operative term. It is the expanding gas that makes internal combustion the best choice for most transportation. Steam engines and condensers for light transportation are just not feasible. That is incorrect. There have been several modern prototype steam driven cars since the 1970s. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car#Saab_steam_car http://www.flickr.com/photos/25955360@N00/411521772 http://www.steamcar.co.uk/ Here is the last commercial one, from the 1920s. Rapid turn on, performance similar to a ICE. Jay Leno described it: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car/ http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/1925-doble-series-e-steam-car/213453/ - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
maybe steam engine, but seems not to be turbine. external heat engine, for light vehicle, seems to be piston engine. Stirling or steam engine. 2012/1/15 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com Jay Caplan uniqueprodu...@comcast.net wrote: Gas is the operative term. It is the expanding gas that makes internal combustion the best choice for most transportation. Steam engines and condensers for light transportation are just not feasible. That is incorrect. There have been several modern prototype steam driven cars since the 1970s. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car#Saab_steam_car http://www.flickr.com/photos/25955360@N00/411521772 http://www.steamcar.co.uk/ Here is the last commercial one, from the 1920s. Rapid turn on, performance similar to a ICE. Jay Leno described it: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car/ http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/1925-doble-series-e-steam-car/213453/ - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: maybe steam engine, but seems not to be turbine. Sure. This was 1925. ICE cars were primitive and difficult to drive back then. This car was as fast as any ICE car. Leno is shown driving at 60 mph. He says you can go all day at that speed, whereas a Stanley Steamer would lose pressure. This car as a condenser in the front. Leno says it is not effective in summer. You lose all the water after ~80 miles. Leno says this makes steam and is ready to drive after a minute or two. The Stanley Steamer sometimes took 10 minutes. Naturally, a modern version would be far better. My point is that Caplan is wrong. It is possible to make an effective small steam powered vehicle with a condenser. A thermoelectric hybrid vehicle would be better. It would be a lot more expensive at present, but I expect the cost of themoelectric chips will fall rapidly. Steam is a first-generation, interim solution, like a floppy disk. (Back in the 1980s it was clear that floppy disks would soon be replaced with writable CDs and removable hard disks. There were large cartridge-style 5 MB removable hard disks in the 1970s.) - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 9:20 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: A thermoelectric hybrid vehicle would be better. It would be a lot more expensive at present, but I expect the cost of themoelectric chips will fall rapidly. Let's use Rossi's thermo-electric chips... oh!
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Sure, possible, but not feasible due to economics. Just the lithium requirements for batteries will undo this scheme. Internal combustion will win out over steam piston generators or thermoelectric. Need to be careful not to ascribe uses for cold fusion that are too expensive - it tempts govts to use tax credits and subsidies (as in Volt/Leaf.) There is Plenty of work for cold fusion, but light transportation is not it, too expensive supporting tech. - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 11:20 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: maybe steam engine, but seems not to be turbine. Sure. This was 1925. ICE cars were primitive and difficult to drive back then. This car was as fast as any ICE car. Leno is shown driving at 60 mph. He says you can go all day at that speed, whereas a Stanley Steamer would lose pressure. This car as a condenser in the front. Leno says it is not effective in summer. You lose all the water after ~80 miles. Leno says this makes steam and is ready to drive after a minute or two. The Stanley Steamer sometimes took 10 minutes. Naturally, a modern version would be far better. My point is that Caplan is wrong. It is possible to make an effective small steam powered vehicle with a condenser. A thermoelectric hybrid vehicle would be better. It would be a lot more expensive at present, but I expect the cost of themoelectric chips will fall rapidly. Steam is a first-generation, interim solution, like a floppy disk. (Back in the 1980s it was clear that floppy disks would soon be replaced with writable CDs and removable hard disks. There were large cartridge-style 5 MB removable hard disks in the 1970s.) - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
in the discussion about cars and e-cat/defkalion I was assuming time to switch on of about 5 minute, taken from defkalion (most of my computation are from defkalion hyperion) today rossi give an answer about time to switch on/off http://faq.ecat.com/115733/will-an-e-cat-be-able-to-be-switched-on-and-off-easily-and-if-so-is-that-a-quick-process/ for his e-cat it is about 1 hour: On and off will take 1 hour, but the operation will be modulable it has a strong impact on the design of an hybrid car, meaning that it should work on battery for 1 hour. note that 5 minute is very similar to diesel time for warmup (in the old time, when Boy George was a star). 1 hour is very bad for vehicle, however maybe it is a design choice by rossi/NI linked to the use as heater. Defkalion seem (am I wrong?) to have designer a faster reactior, but we should check. 2012/1/12 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com Hi, just to add some useful data 2012/1/10 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com Right, I mean the battery need only to allow the vehicle to move on the highway, while the LENR engine is cold...
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
To ever use this tech in cars would require quick warm up - the steamers of the 1910s and 1920s could build up enough steam in a few minutes. If warm up is slow, they would have to use battery until enough steam available for elec generation in a series hybrid. Another reason (larger batteries in addition to limited lithium sources for the batteries required) that this tech is hindered compared to internal combustion for automobiles. Maybe suitable for steam ships or steam/electric of subs. Small scale steam turbines may not work in this auto size, probably would have to be piston steam generator. Ni-H's contribution to auto would be to keep oil prices down, that's plenty of help. There's no reason to hope Ni-H will do much for transportation - very efficient solutions using oil are already there. There are myriad areas using many therms where the process heat of Ni-H could quickly take over and reduce costs. No reason to try to adapt a pure heat source to take over the gas pressure to kinetic energy of internal combustion. - Original Message - From: Alain Sepeda To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 3:55 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY in the discussion about cars and e-cat/defkalion I was assuming time to switch on of about 5 minute, taken from defkalion (most of my computation are from defkalion hyperion) today rossi give an answer about time to switch on/off http://faq.ecat.com/115733/will-an-e-cat-be-able-to-be-switched-on-and-off-easily-and-if-so-is-that-a-quick-process/ for his e-cat it is about 1 hour: On and off will take 1 hour, but the operation will be modulable it has a strong impact on the design of an hybrid car, meaning that it should work on battery for 1 hour. note that 5 minute is very similar to diesel time for warmup (in the old time, when Boy George was a star). 1 hour is very bad for vehicle, however maybe it is a design choice by rossi/NI linked to the use as heater. Defkalion seem (am I wrong?) to have designer a faster reactior, but we should check. 2012/1/12 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com Hi, just to add some useful data 2012/1/10 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com Right, I mean the battery need only to allow the vehicle to move on the highway, while the LENR engine is cold...
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: I was assuming time to switch on of about 5 minute, taken from defkalion (most of my computation are from defkalion hyperion) I do not know whether we should call this switch on or ramp up but yes, this is what I was looking at as well, when I estimated that a cold fusion powered car might need about 6 minutes of battery power at maximum speed. (One-tenth hour) When I say ramp up I mean I assume the cold fusion cell will remain turned on at all times, and when the driver turns on the car and prepares to drive off, the cold fusion cell will be boosted high temperatures as quickly as possible to drive a steam turbine or thermoelectric device. If that can be done in 30 seconds or so, then you need only a small number of batteries, like today's standard Prius. You might even use direct mechanical drive from a steam turbine. Although people might object to having to wait 30 seconds before driving off. That might be dangerous. Note that a Prius takes about 3 seconds to boot up its computer controls. If you drive off before that completes, the control panel goes ape shit and you think you are about to lose control and have it accelerate into a wall. Turbines are kind of slow to respond to controls. Jet engine aircraft are less responsive than propeller-driven ones. There was a gas turbine automobile prototype in the 1970s. I do not know what it was like to drive. It made a heck of a noise, I think. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:20:46 -0500: Hi, [snip] Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: I was assuming time to switch on of about 5 minute, taken from defkalion (most of my computation are from defkalion hyperion) I do not know whether we should call this switch on or ramp up but yes, this is what I was looking at as well, when I estimated that a cold fusion powered car might need about 6 minutes of battery power at maximum speed. (One-tenth hour) When I say ramp up I mean I assume the cold fusion cell will remain turned on at all times, and when the driver turns on the car and prepares to drive off, the cold fusion cell will be boosted high temperatures as quickly as possible to drive a steam turbine or thermoelectric device. If that can be done in 30 seconds or so, then you need only a small number of batteries, like today's standard Prius. You might even use direct mechanical drive from a steam turbine. Although people might object to having to wait 30 seconds before driving off. That might be dangerous. I don't think we can make the assumption that that's what Rossi meant. I suspect he meant from a cold start. It probably hasn't occurred to him yet that someone might leave it running continuously at a low rate. I think he needs to be asked if there an 'idle' setting that will allow quick heat up to full power, and if so, how much power would be produced during 'idle' mode? Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:20:46 -0500: Hi, [snip] Turbines are kind of slow to respond to controls. Jet engine aircraft are less responsive than propeller-driven ones. There was a gas turbine automobile prototype in the 1970s. I do not know what it was like to drive. It made a heck of a noise, I think. There have been gas turbine powered race cars, so the response can't have been too bad. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Hi, just to add some useful data using some data used for electric car(french) in european small car market http://sfp.in2p3.fr/Debat/debat_energie/websfp/Livet-elect.htm for small urban cars (the kind who consume 3-4litter/100km) Cx is around 0.33 for profiled cars, ( 0.5 for SUV), front surface is about 1.8m2 (more for big suv), tires drag 1.2% at 100kph the power consumed is about 7kW for air drag and 3kW for tires drag but If I go to 130kPh (french highway) it goes to 16kW for air drag and 4kW for tires... 25kW is not far I can also add the energy to climb 5% slope, consuming 18kW more... so a small european urban car consume about 20kW on the highway, with peak at 40kW (slope or accelerations- not absolutely required in fact, because one can accepto to be slower sometime) if I add the bad shape factor of SUV, and some more weight it can explode to twice 2012/1/10 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com Right, I mean the battery need only to allow the vehicle to move on the highway, while the LENR engine is cold... I don't know well the power need of cars. I just look at current hybrid cars power to get reasonable values. 25kW when running cold is a good news. I assume this mean that when engine is cold the driver have to keep cool ? maybe this even mean that you could design the car to need only 25kW on the highway ...
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
I'm afraid that LENR will trigger opposition, not mainly because of the business that invest in 3rd revolution, but because all the others who morally have invested in punitive policy. I see a big part of 3rd revolution technology that CAN be reused : - Converting Buildings into Power Plants (but LENR CHP only. OPTIONAL) - smart grid Technology (if CHP, OPTIONAL) - Hydrogen technology (however very different, just small quantity long term storage, safety. NEEDED) - plug in, electric, hybrid vehicle (however no fuel cell, smaller battery, LENR+battery hybrid. NEEDED) big losers will be : - renewable energy, biofuel - hydrogen as secondary energy; fuel cell anyway beside 3rd revolution losers there will be incumbent losers : - non conventional oil/gas, prospection. then classic oil. - nuclear energy, modern and then old nuke. I'm not afraid of reaction of those losers because they are rational, selfish, so they will adapt (more concern about their workers who will have to change work). and above all the losers will be the Malthusian/Apocalitists, because once again, their prediction get wrong. They may become furious, and won't adapt because they behave like religious organization. normally they melt and radicalize while schrinking. 2012/1/9 Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com Some countries are investing in The Third Industrial Revolution : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Industrial_Revolution The European Union is going in big time with this ill-fated green energy strategy. LENR will not be welcome by these power centers to say the least.
RE: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Yes, the bankruptcies will be massive. However, some entities will survive based on oil/gas used as a petrochemical feedstock. For them, it ain't gonna be pretty. From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 12:04 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.netmailto:orionwo...@charter.net wrote: [Personal comment: Obviously, if Rossi related competition claims pan out in the near future, that would initiate a sustained and permanent drop in global oil prices, despite rising world demand. Granted, It may not happen immediately, but perhaps within 5 - 10 years . . . I have discussed this with some economists, including an old friend who is a professor. They say that the cost of a commodity such as oil is mainly a reflection of future expected supply and demand. They say that if it becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, and everyone agrees it is real and likely to become a practical source of energy, this will trigger an immediate and very large decline in the cost of oil and other fossil fuels. Assuming cold fusion is successfully commercialized, this decline will be permanent. The price will not recover, even if it takes 10 or 20 years for cold fusion to replace most fossil fuel consumption. The time it takes cold fusion to replace the fuel does not affect the price decline much because there is plenty of oil presently accounted for and ready to be extracted. If an oil producer knows that in 20 years there will be no market for oil, it will sell its present supply of oil as soon as possible, even at a drastically lower price. Getting some money for your inventory now is better than getting no money in the future. It is like having a warehouse full of obsolete laptop computers. They lose a few percent in value every week. You sell them now, or never. When everyone accepts cold fusion is real this will also immediately bankrupt wind turbine manufacturers, the solar cell industry, and all other alternative sources of energy that are not yet economically competitive with coal and oil. It may not kill off ethanol immediately because that is not a source of energy. It is an energy sink. It is a political plum. It is a method of ripping off consumers and wasting millions of barrels of fossil fuel to enrich big agriculture and OPEC. Because the Fukushima disaster, cold fusion cause the quick demise of conventional nuclear power, and ITER, obviously. Conventional nuclear power is a dead duck in Japan no matter what happens. I do not think they will ever build another reactor there. With one major accident, it went from being the cheapest source of energy to the most expensive. It may bankrupt TEPCO which is one of the largest power companies on earth. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Oil products still necessary for transportation/internal combustion engines. Cold fusion is a heat source only, can't efficiently be used in transportation, outside of large ships' steam plants. What, back to steam engine cars and trucks? - Original Message - From: Zell, Chris To: 'vortex-l@eskimo.com' Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 8:29 AM Subject: RE: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY Yes, the bankruptcies will be massive. However, some entities will survive based on oil/gas used as a petrochemical feedstock. For them, it ain't gonna be pretty. -- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 12:04 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: [Personal comment: Obviously, if Rossi related competition claims pan out in the near future, that would initiate a sustained and permanent drop in global oil prices, despite rising world demand. Granted, It may not happen immediately, but perhaps within 5 - 10 years . . . I have discussed this with some economists, including an old friend who is a professor. They say that the cost of a commodity such as oil is mainly a reflection of future expected supply and demand. They say that if it becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, and everyone agrees it is real and likely to become a practical source of energy, this will trigger an immediate and very large decline in the cost of oil and other fossil fuels. Assuming cold fusion is successfully commercialized, this decline will be permanent. The price will not recover, even if it takes 10 or 20 years for cold fusion to replace most fossil fuel consumption. The time it takes cold fusion to replace the fuel does not affect the price decline much because there is plenty of oil presently accounted for and ready to be extracted. If an oil producer knows that in 20 years there will be no market for oil, it will sell its present supply of oil as soon as possible, even at a drastically lower price. Getting some money for your inventory now is better than getting no money in the future. It is like having a warehouse full of obsolete laptop computers. They lose a few percent in value every week. You sell them now, or never. When everyone accepts cold fusion is real this will also immediately bankrupt wind turbine manufacturers, the solar cell industry, and all other alternative sources of energy that are not yet economically competitive with coal and oil. It may not kill off ethanol immediately because that is not a source of energy. It is an energy sink. It is a political plum. It is a method of ripping off consumers and wasting millions of barrels of fossil fuel to enrich big agriculture and OPEC. Because the Fukushima disaster, cold fusion cause the quick demise of conventional nuclear power, and ITER, obviously. Conventional nuclear power is a dead duck in Japan no matter what happens. I do not think they will ever build another reactor there. With one major accident, it went from being the cheapest source of energy to the most expensive. It may bankrupt TEPCO which is one of the largest power companies on earth. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Though you could have modern steam vehicles, it is unlikely that this would be the long-term solution for transportation. Heat to electric conversion is the most likely candidate. By using a heating medium with a large temperature range, an E-Cat/Hyperion could (in theory) efficiently feed into a thermoelectric generator (a sterling engine is only one example). That rotary force can turn a generator to constantly recharge an energy storage medium. Thus, you can take an electric car with a couple hundred miles per charge (a la Tesla Roadster) and constantly recharge the battery. The reason to use an onboard battery and avoid direct-drive is to eliminate the difficulties of trying to vary the output of the fusion engine. The onboard battery can also supply additional current during high-load acceleration, but the E-Cat/Hyperion will supply a net positive charge during cruise. If the technology cannot be sufficiently miniaturized in the near-term, then electric charging stations for automobiles can be greatly proliferated. Alternately, the inexpensive electricity could by used to produce nearly-free hydrogen through electrolysis for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. There are LOTS of opportunities for elimination of fossil fuels from our transportation system. From: uniqueprodu...@comcast.net To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:33:07 -0600 Oil products still necessary for transportation/internal combustion engines. Cold fusion is a heat source only, can't efficiently be used in transportation, outside of large ships' steam plants. What, back to steam engine cars and trucks?
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
2012/1/9 Jay Caplan uniqueprodu...@comcast.net Oil products still necessary for transportation/internal combustion engines. Cold fusion is a heat source only, can't efficiently be used in transportation, outside of large ships' steam plants. What, back to steam engine cars and trucks? yes, but with hybrid... let's imagine a Toyota Prius, with : - a smaller battery, with just 15 minute autonomy at full speed - a LENR reactor - a stirling engine, or a turbine. stirling engine can be small, yet today they are not very efficient. turbine are more efficient, but I don't know it they can be downsized to 50-80kW mechanic to challenge a prius. probably today, for 50-100kW, turbines works better. efficiency should be like with CHP, from 10 to 20%, implying ~500kW reactor, thus using defkalion hyperion numbers : 100 cores, 1kG nickel, few 100g H2. it can look hard compared to todays size of Hyperion or e-cat, but you can expect engineers to work on the size factor, like they have worked for cars. I imagine for exemple an engine with 10x10 grid of small cynlindric reactors carved in metal, with pipes (coolant, H2) and resistor like you find in diesel engines. the coolant transfer heat to a heat exchanger producing superheated steam (water or high efficiency fluid), feeding a turbine, and cooled in a classic radiator. turbine run an alternator/engine connected to the gear box then the wheels.(parallel hybrid) electronic manage energy transfer between the electric engine and the battery, sometime charging in alternator mode, sometime discharging in engine mode (I think that prius already works that way). of course, high component and thermal density will be a problem H2 sealing, and crash safety will be a problem, more complex than the ones Defkalion have treated. but it is the kind of problem that motor engineer can solve.
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
On 2012-01-09 18:24, Alain Sepeda wrote: yes, but with hybrid... let's imagine a Toyota Prius, with : - a smaller battery, with just 15 minute autonomy at full speed What do you mean for full speed? If it's full power, then you might want to reconsider that. With about 100 kW of peak power, the current Prius (or any other average mid-sized car with about the same power) would require a 25 kWh battery to run for 15 minutes at full speed in electric mode only. Cheers, S.A.
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
technically possible, but way more expensive than liquid internal combustion, so why? we'll stay with liquids for transport just because of the cost factor. there are lots of alternatives: Gas to Liquids, Coal to Liquids, Biomass to Liquids if the petroleum reserves ever quit going up, as they have been since first discovery. Usage is all price driven, and cold fusion is too costly for transport, but bound to be way way cheaper than conventional for heat sourcing. It has an enormous future, but we should be careful about muddling the waters projecting its use in transport. - Original Message - From: Robert Leguillon To: Vortex Listserve Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 10:57 AM Subject: RE: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY Though you could have modern steam vehicles, it is unlikely that this would be the long-term solution for transportation. Heat to electric conversion is the most likely candidate. By using a heating medium with a large temperature range, an E-Cat/Hyperion could (in theory) efficiently feed into a thermoelectric generator (a sterling engine is only one example). That rotary force can turn a generator to constantly recharge an energy storage medium. Thus, you can take an electric car with a couple hundred miles per charge (a la Tesla Roadster) and constantly recharge the battery. The reason to use an onboard battery and avoid direct-drive is to eliminate the difficulties of trying to vary the output of the fusion engine. The onboard battery can also supply additional current during high-load acceleration, but the E-Cat/Hyperion will supply a net positive charge during cruise. If the technology cannot be sufficiently miniaturized in the near-term, then electric charging stations for automobiles can be greatly proliferated. Alternately, the inexpensive electricity could by used to produce nearly-free hydrogen through electrolysis for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. There are LOTS of opportunities for elimination of fossil fuels from our transportation system. -- From: uniqueprodu...@comcast.net To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:33:07 -0600 Oil products still necessary for transportation/internal combustion engines. Cold fusion is a heat source only, can't efficiently be used in transportation, outside of large ships' steam plants. What, back to steam engine cars and trucks?
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Automotive engineers say they would have no trouble making a cold fusion heat engine given the temperatures and power density the best existing devices. commercial devices will be far better than the best existing experimental device today. As noted by others here, the most likely design would be a series hybrid similar to the GM volt. this could be done today with a steam turbine and condenser. In the future it will likely be made with thermoelectric devices. In the more distant future as thermoelectric devices improve, all electrical equipment will be powered directly with internal thermoelectric devices. I mean everything from a car to a laptop computer to a hearing aid battery. As I pointed out in the book, in the 1970s there were plutonium powered thermoelectric pacemakers. The Prius is a parallel hybrid. Any sort of hybrid automobile must have enough power from the primary source to run the car up a steep grade at high speed. However, it would be acceptable for a cold fusion hybrid like a GM Volt, with a large battery reservoir, to reach top power output after a delay. That the engine would continue to run recharging the batteries for a while after the car is parked. Early US steam powered automobiles took a long time for the boiler to reach operating temperature. Later models reached operating temperature very quickly. As far as I know, none of them had condensers, so the drivers had to replenish the water periodically. I doubt that would be acceptable to a modern driver, so you would have to include a condenser and a large fan. This would take a lot of space but it would not cost much. since it is a hybrid, you could put the generator and fan anywhere convenient in the car. You would not need to have it directly over the drive-shaft or in the center of the chassis. with thermoelectric batteries you could spread the components evenly across the chassis. Jay Caplan wrote: technically possible, but way more expensive than liquid internal combustion, so why? we'll stay with liquids for transport just because of the cost factor. The cost of extracting or synthesizing the liquids, then transporting, storing and pumping them would be far greater than the extra cost of a cold fusion engine. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
I wrote: The cost of extracting or synthesizing the liquids, then transporting, storing and pumping them would be far greater than the extra cost of a cold fusion engine. Let me explain what I mean by that. Liquid or gasoline fuel would presumably be either synthetic gasoline, liquid hydrogen or some synthetic hydrocarbon. This would have to be synthesized at a central location and distributed to gas stations the way gasoline is today. It might actually be ordinary gasoline derived from oil extracted from the earth. Even if the cost of oil plummets or if synthetic hydrocarbon fuel is much cheaper than the natural product, there will still be considerable expense involved in synthesizing, distributing, setting up gas stations, paying gas station employees and all the rest. A person driving a liquid fueled automobile will have to pay these costs. Perhaps they will add up to ~$0.50 a gallon for gasoline equivalent. I do not think the fuel cost can fall much more than that because that is approximately how much a gas station makes, to cover things like the location rent, maintenance, and employee pay. You have to make that much even if even if the gasoline itself is free. For example if it is synthesized on-site at a gas station from water and carbon dioxide with cold fusion energy. I do not think that would be practical in a facility as small as a gas station. Whatever the cost is, over the life of the car it will be far higher than the premium you pay for a cold fusion motor. The cold fusion motor may consist of a cold fusion cell, steam turbine, condenser, generator, batteries and electric drive motors. This equipment is not cheap but it is probably not going to be much more expensive than today's Prius engine. Prototype cold fusion vehicles will cost billions to develop. They will sell at a hefty premium at first. But, once the technology matures there is no reason to think the premium for a cold fusion car will be any greater than the premium we now pay for a Prius. If you drive long distances a Prius at 50 mpg pays for itself in a short time. If the Prius did not use any gasoline at all it would pay for itself in a few months -- as I said, even if the cost of gasoline fell to $0.50. As cold fusion continues to mature, the cost of a cold fusion car will continue to fall until it is considerably less than any gasoline powered vehicle ever was. This is because cold fusion requires fewer add-on systems such as the gas tank, gasoline safety, the catalytic converter and other pollution control, and so on. Regarding the use of oil as feedstock, for things like plastics, this is only about 20% of the market. It will soon be made obsolete by synthetic hydrocarbon production on site, on demand. This will be cheaper and safer than transporting oil over any distance. Oil companies will never synthesize oil and sell it. People who need hydrocarbons will synthesize them as needed. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Question between parallel and serial hybrid is studied, but for gas+electric. using a serial hybrid mode (Volt?), mean having 2 electric engine/generator able to sustain the full power. good point for serial is that turbine works at optimal working point, because it has no need to drive the wheel... for parallel mode(Prius), turbine works at various speed/torke and gearbox is needed to limit that range. however you save one engine, because the engine is also the generator. moreover you don't even need to have the engine/generator sustain full power , because you can accept that without LENR engine the car is less powerfull... so you save more than half of the engine weight/cost (but add cost of engine/turbine/gearbox) It is a key design choice, that should be driven by various (changing) cost... note that in the 70s, before oil crisis in 74, we have in france the turbo-train which was a train locomotive, driven by an oil turbine, driving an electric generator driving a classic motor... a serial hybrid... not very efficient, and very noisy. technology became uninteresting with oil crisis, and we move to TGV high-speed electric (=Nuclear) trains (efficient DC engine with smart power rectifier, then synchronous self-piloted, and today asynchronous self-piloted)... LENR will change all... 2012/1/9 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com As noted by others here, the most likely design would be a series hybrid similar to the GM volt. ... The Prius is a parallel hybrid...
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Right, I mean the battery need only to allow the vehicle to move on the highway, while the LENR engine is cold... I don't know well the power need of cars. I just look at current hybrid cars power to get reasonable values. 25kW when running cold is a good news. I assume this mean that when engine is cold the driver have to keep cool ? maybe this even mean that you could design the car to need only 25kW on the highway ... the battery could help to peak 50kW peak power when overtaking highway are no more formula one rings for teenagers. this mean that the parallel hybrid would need : - a good turbine with 20% efficiency, and 25kW sustain power - a LENR reactor of 125kW thermal (25 hyperion cores, 250g Ni, 160g H, about 10L 200bar bottle , if scaling like hyperion-x5 25kW) - electric engine/generator of 25kW - battery of power 25kW, and capacity 5-15 minutes : 2-6kWh. by the way high power/capacity call for super-capacitors or maybe LiFePO4 batteries battery are no more a big problem , compared to electric dominant hybrid today. if using LiFePO4, less problem with cobalt, will be good for Kivu, rwanda and Congo 2012/1/9 Akira Shirakawa shirakawa.ak...@gmail.com On 2012-01-09 18:24, Alain Sepeda wrote: - a smaller battery, with just 15 minute autonomy at full speed What do you mean for full speed? If it's full power, then you might want to reconsider that. With about 100 kW of peak power, the current Prius (or any other average mid-sized car with about the same power) would require a 25 kWh battery to run for 15 minutes at full speed in electric mode only. Cheers, S.A.
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
Some countries are investing in The Third Industrial Revolution : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Industrial_Revolution The European Union is going in big time with this ill-fated green energy strategy. LENR will not be welcome by these power centers to say the least. On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 12:04 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: [Personal comment: Obviously, if Rossi related competition claims pan out in the near future, that would initiate a sustained and permanent drop in global oil prices, despite rising world demand. Granted, It may not happen immediately, but perhaps within 5 – 10 years . . . I have discussed this with some economists, including an old friend who is a professor. They say that the cost of a commodity such as oil is mainly a reflection of future expected supply and demand. They say that if it becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, and everyone agrees it is real and likely to become a practical source of energy, this will trigger an immediate and very large decline in the cost of oil and other fossil fuels. Assuming cold fusion is successfully commercialized, this decline will be permanent. The price will not recover, even if it takes 10 or 20 years for cold fusion to replace most fossil fuel consumption. The time it takes cold fusion to replace the fuel does not affect the price decline much because there is plenty of oil presently accounted for and ready to be extracted. If an oil producer knows that in 20 years there will be no market for oil, it will sell its present supply of oil as soon as possible, even at a drastically lower price. Getting some money for your inventory now is better than getting no money in the future. It is like having a warehouse full of obsolete laptop computers. They lose a few percent in value every week. You sell them now, or never. When everyone accepts cold fusion is real this will also immediately bankrupt wind turbine manufacturers, the solar cell industry, and all other alternative sources of energy that are not yet economically competitive with coal and oil. It may not kill off ethanol immediately because that is not a source of energy. It is an energy sink. It is a political plum. It is a method of ripping off consumers and wasting millions of barrels of fossil fuel to enrich big agriculture and OPEC. Because the Fukushima disaster, cold fusion cause the quick demise of conventional nuclear power, and ITER, obviously. Conventional nuclear power is a dead duck in Japan no matter what happens. I do not think they will ever build another reactor there. With one major accident, it went from being the cheapest source of energy to the most expensive. It may bankrupt TEPCO which is one of the largest power companies on earth. - Jed
[Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
The first topic of discussion with the conservative oriented, employer friendly Kiplinger News Letter, published Jan 6, 2012, was the topic of Energy. It was fascinating and unusually lengthy discussion on energy, too. I've hi-lighted in red what I thought were some surprising observations: *** ENERGY: While global oil supplies grow shakier. most recently in light of saber rattling by Iran. U.S. and Canadian oil output is surging. Along with natural gas and biofuels. It will fill 80% of U.S. fuel needs by 2016, compared with 68% this year and just 50% in 2005. [Personal comment: Just in time for the next presidential election.] Driving the boom: Vast new oil discoveries in N.D., Texas, Colo. and Ohio, as well as Canada, and cost-effective drilling technology breakthroughs for tapping oil in hard-to-reach shale formations. Huge natural gas deposits in Ohio, Texas, La. and elsewhere, many of them near big oil plays. Though decried by environmentalists, fracking, a method for extracting gas, will unlock decades of supply, not only for fuel, but for other needs, too. Also, the continuing march of biofuels, which are becoming a larger part of the energy mix, despite the end of federal tax credits for them. All this lowers the risk of fuel shortages, should foreign oil shipments be suddenly curtailed. It won't affect gasoline prices very much. What motorists pay will continue to hinge on global supply-and-demand trends. Though fuel consumption is heading down in the U.S... China, India and many other parts of the world are soaking up more as their economies expand. They'll press prices upward even as supplies grow. New finds will make the U.S. a net exporter of natural gas by 2016 or so, a welcome U-turn from recent scenarios that had the nation poised to be a major importer. In fact, Houston-based Cheniere Energy is retrofitting its liquefied natural gas import terminals for export. Other refiners are likely to follow in its footsteps. Still, lots of natural gas to go around for domestic users... good news for utilities, producers of plastics and fertilizer plus other energy-intensive firms. They'll pay less for the stuff than their foreign rivals. What could undermine rising output? A sustained drop in global oil prices... not likely in the face of rising world demand...would lessen drilling incentives. [Personal comment: Obviously, if Rossi related competition claims pan out in the near future, that would initiate a sustained and permanent drop in global oil prices, despite rising world demand. Granted, It may not happen immediately, but perhaps within 5 - 10 years a permanent appreciable drop in fossil fuel prices would begin to be noticed world-wide. I have repeatedly attempted to contact the Kiplinger editorial staff to this possibility - warning them to have their clients keep an eye on their fossil fuel portfolios. They have consistently ignored my responses, never even acknowledging my attempts to contact them. This is unusual behavior on behalf of the Kiplinger editorial staff. Typically they are much more responsive. Historically speaking, I've received replies from the editorial staff, including replies when I told them about STEORN's zany activities years ago. I discovered they were very much aware of what STEORN was up to. and BlackLight Power as well. If the editorial staff had been aware of those folks, it seems logical for me to assume that they have to be aware of Rossi as well. Nevertheless, the fact that they continue to ignore my responses baffles me to no end.] And opposition from environmentalists, citing risks of groundwater pollution. Blocking Canada's carbon-intense oil sands projects is a particular focus for them. But in the end, economic forces will win out. Canada's 170 billion barrels of known oil reserves and the U.S.' big shale gas fields are too valuable not to exploit, giving America a surer grip on its energy future while reducing the need to import *** Final personal thoughts on the matter: As you can see, the Kiplinger letter doesn't seem to put much stock in environmental issues stopping progress. With the said, I suspect many on the staff may be sympathetic to environmental concerns, at least to a degree. This, I garnered from previous responses I received in private email. To their credit they do their best to report the news in an objective fashion as they see it, not how they wish the news would actually turn out to be. Occasionally, some of the staff hinted to me how idiotic Washington politics can be at times in the face of real facts. Still, I find it hard to believe they haven't at least acknowledged my repeated warnings of what Rossi could do to the portfolios of many who might be heavily invested in fossil fuels. The lack of a
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: [Personal comment: Obviously, if Rossi related competition claims pan out in the near future, that would initiate a sustained and permanent drop in global oil prices, despite rising world demand. Granted, It may not happen immediately, but perhaps within 5 – 10 years . . . I have discussed this with some economists, including an old friend who is a professor. They say that the cost of a commodity such as oil is mainly a reflection of future expected supply and demand. They say that if it becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, and everyone agrees it is real and likely to become a practical source of energy, this will trigger an immediate and very large decline in the cost of oil and other fossil fuels. Assuming cold fusion is successfully commercialized, this decline will be permanent. The price will not recover, even if it takes 10 or 20 years for cold fusion to replace most fossil fuel consumption. The time it takes cold fusion to replace the fuel does not affect the price decline much because there is plenty of oil presently accounted for and ready to be extracted. If an oil producer knows that in 20 years there will be no market for oil, it will sell its present supply of oil as soon as possible, even at a drastically lower price. Getting some money for your inventory now is better than getting no money in the future. It is like having a warehouse full of obsolete laptop computers. They lose a few percent in value every week. You sell them now, or never. When everyone accepts cold fusion is real this will also immediately bankrupt wind turbine manufacturers, the solar cell industry, and all other alternative sources of energy that are not yet economically competitive with coal and oil. It may not kill off ethanol immediately because that is not a source of energy. It is an energy sink. It is a political plum. It is a method of ripping off consumers and wasting millions of barrels of fossil fuel to enrich big agriculture and OPEC. Because the Fukushima disaster, cold fusion cause the quick demise of conventional nuclear power, and ITER, obviously. Conventional nuclear power is a dead duck in Japan no matter what happens. I do not think they will ever build another reactor there. With one major accident, it went from being the cheapest source of energy to the most expensive. It may bankrupt TEPCO which is one of the largest power companies on earth. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Kiplinger Letter, Jan 6 2012, Topic: ENERGY
yes, I made the same analysis. price of oil will get low, those who own reserve will sell them as fast as possible. by the way the prospection won't be affordable anymore, and we will soon forget abour shale oil/gas and deepwater drilling. it is a well known fact in geostrategy, that the cause of 1974 oil crisis is because the seven sisters wanted to increase their margin to do prospection, and thus be more independent from middle-east. so they manipulated the middle-east producers so they establish a cartel (that they were formerly preventing) and make price explode. OPEC stop the 74 crisis because they suddenly realise that the high price of oil (higher that today relative to today's income), was feeding their competitors and preparing their burial... in europe this lead to strong reduction in oil consumption, (nuclear in france, coal in germany, high efficiency engine, tax to motivate efficiency and saving ) 2012/1/7 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: [Personal comment: Obviously, if Rossi related competition claims pan out in the near future, that would initiate a sustained and permanent drop in global oil prices, despite rising world demand. Granted, It may not happen immediately, but perhaps within 5 – 10 years . . . I have discussed this with some economists, including an old friend who is a professor. They say that the cost of a commodity such as oil is mainly a reflection of future expected supply and demand.
