Wood Powered Car ?

[Harry K]

And you somehow thought that he wasn't aware of that? I'll sstick with my opinion of why that look was on his face.

Harry K

[Harry K]

I piddle around with it about 1 trip every week during the summer/fall. If I counted only the cost of labor, it would be a losing proposition. But there are the health benefits, the enjoyment of being out there in nature, the money saved by not doing something else for recreation, etc. The cost of a club membership to get the same excercise would be considerable by itself.

Yep, I could make more money clerking a gas station for example but would be totally bored doing it and would hate every minute.

Harry K

[Michael Daly]

Cheap wood stoves are dirty. The most efficient wood stoves are quite clean. The kacheloven, properly constructed and used, will burn so hot that you can safely burn softwood with no creosote buildup and no significant pollution. Not many people will pay for them, though.

Mike

[Michael Daly]

Ahhh, the hydrogen myth again. 100 years from now, rechargable battery technology will be so much better than today that no one will waste their money on something as silly as hydrogen. Battery electric cars have already been on the streets available for ordinary consumers (albeit in small numbers - from the old Baker Electric to the EV1). How many hydrogen cars have been sold in the last 100 years?

Mike

[Dean Hoffman]

The Denver, CO area has some restrictions on stoves. Info here:

Dean

[Elmo]

We had a neighbor once who stuck an entire kitchen chair (aluminum tubes with seat and back of vinyl-covered who-knows-what) into his burn barrel.

[Rich256]

I guess we won't be around to see. I see batteries as always being more expensive to make. I don't see any other portable fuel that might compete with Hydrogen. Hydrogen powered engines have been around for over 30 or 40 years but no good source of fuel. It will take Nuclear power in great amounts to make it available. I had great hopes for Fusion but after 50 years of trying they still can't break even.

There wouldn't be many electric sold either if it were not for government subsidy.

However, I might like one of those Tesla cars when they come out!! That is, "like one" but won't be able to afford it.

[Michael Daly]

Batteries more expensive than a fuel cell + a fuel tank? Especially since the fuel tank technology still isn't ready for prime time?

Until very recently, no one could make a H2 engine that didn't produce lots of NOx pollution - more than any gasoline engine. 30-40 years of prototypes that can't be sold isn't too impressive.

Since when are electric cars subsidized? Which government subsidizes the Sparrow? How much is this subsidy? Adding bullshit to the discussion isn't going to make your point.

Mike

[Dan_Musicant]

:Has anyone ever seen any plans for a wood powered car? :I know they have been made. With the gas going up and up and up, I am :ready to start building one. I got plenty of dead trees, thus wood on :my farm. If you have some plans, please post what you got, and if :there is a way to get them in digital format. Or, is there a website? :All that Google is offering are useless blogs (as usual, that seems to :be about the only thing google finds lately). : :Thanks : :Mark

I was reading my dad's autobiography last night and there was a passage where he recounted passage by ship from the west coast of USA to CBI (China, Burma, India theater) from September to December, 1943. They stopped in Hobart, Tasmania and all the cars ran on charcoal. To quote him:

"What cars we saw were right hand drives and were powered by charcoal. Gasoline, of course, was largely unobtainable, and so every trunk was converted to charcoal burning engines. The cars were slow, and I believe low on power, but (for wartime) it sufficed for transportation."

[<ThrowAwayAddress]

In Quebec, most houses are electrically heated. But then, they&#39;re probably the biggest Hydro-electric producers in the continent.

On the other hand, when they had an ice storm in the middle of winter of few years back, some people were left in the cold until spring.

[Harry K]

?? My understanding from what reading I have done is that burning hydrogen produces only water vapor. Where would the NOx come from?

Harry K

[hallerb]

Coal CAN be burned cleanly, its just a matter of good quality coal and lots of money for clean burn technology...

[Michael Daly]

Burning H2 and O2 produces water. Burning H2 and air produces water and NOx. Unless you plan on making a vehicle with an oxygen supply as well as a H2 supply, you have to design away the nitrogen problem. Low temperature combustion will help, but that&#39;s not going to work for internal combustion and will produce a low efficiency external combustion engine. Fuel cells, of course, don&#39;t have this problem. Ford (?IIRC) and BMW recently showed prototype H2 internal combustion engines that licked the NOx problem, but I don&#39;t know what they did to do so.

H2 burns somewhat hotter than gasoline or diesel and the NOx production is related to the temperature.

Mike

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Knit picking. O2 does not burn. H2 does.

[gfretwell]

Actually it is a distinction without a difference. If you fill a vessel with combustible gas and feed the oxygen in through a burner it looks like the oxygen is burnng.

[Farm1]

Cheapness isn&#39;t really an issue. Anyone can burn a stove dirtily if they set out to do so but in my country wood burning stoves must reach certain standards and if they can&#39;t reach the standard for emissions then they aren&#39;t sold.

[Farm1]

charcoal.

That&#39;s interesting. Someone else posted yesterday that the Stanley Steamer used a petrochemical based fuel and I replied that the one I had seen certainly had a boiler like an old fashioned boat. If your Dad saw these vehciles in Australia during WWII then it would sort of support what I wrote about the Steamer. It certainly wouldn&#39;t surprise me if they used this form of furel then I know my own father talked of the problems of fuela nd he was afarmer so must have had soem sort of ration. Australia had no oil fileds until (IIRC) the

1960s, so importing ti with the Japanes subs active would have been a drama.

[Farm1]

powered

True, but I think that clean burning coal electricity plants is about as rare as rocking horse manure.

[Gil Favor]

there was a

of USA to CBI

December, 1943. They

charcoal. To

powered by

every trunk

slow, and I

transportation."

the Stanley

the one I

boat. If your

would sort of

wouldn&#39;t

own father

have had

(IIRC) the

have been a

a couple interesting links, undesirably brief, however:

[Michael Daly]

If you fill a vessel with only H2 and O2 and ignite it, the product is water and heat. If you fill a vessel with H2 and air and ignite it, the H2 and O2 will combine to form water and heat. The heat of combustion will then cause the N2 in the air to combine with the O2 to form oxides of nitrogen. That is a significant difference.

Mike