On Monday 15 May 2006 18:36, John Coviello wrote: > I had an idea for a hybrid car today. How about putting one of those > comact wind turbines on the roof of a car, not the big ones with blades, > the one with a rotating wind turbine that looks like a cone. Then as the > car moves along it can generate electricity from the wind to charge the > batteries. I know it would not be a net energy generator or anything like > that, but it could extend battery range pretty significantly. Has anyone > tried this?
Outside of becoming known in your area as a 'conehead', you will gain little or no benefit from your enterprise. What little energy you gained from the generator would be more than compensated for in static and kinematic fluid friction and drag losses as you travelled 'down the road', not to mention electrodynamic inefficiencies and old fashioned mechanical friction. But some of us have the dream of running down the road with propellers on our heads hoping to fly. Even this writer had the same dream. As a six year old, I imagined that I could take the family bathtub and put it into a lake and travel all over simply by connecting the tub drain to the overflow drain hole from the front with a funnel out the back for the 'thrusting water to gush out driving me forward'. The idea of water seeking its static level sometimes does'nt come natural to a six year old with dreams of perpetual motion machines. Clearly the best idea is to use nuclear power extensively, like France. Nuclear power can desalinate water, solving water supply problems. Nuclear power can separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Release the oxygen into the air and sell the hydrogen as fuel........everywhere. Just burning the hydrogen in a 'fresh air Otto cycle internal combustion engine would be a horrendous waste, but a fuel cell based on hydrogen would work beautiful as a power source for personal automobile transportation. Pteranodon
