posted on Sep, 22 2006 @ 01:45 PM
Yes, I agree that diversification is needed, though I think that aside from powering portable electronics in the field(for say military/scientific
usage), it won't see many positive applications for consumers.
I'd rather have a fuel-cell battery being powered by ethanol. Yes I know, lower output but still can hypothetically get 24 hours on a single
"charge". They are not disposable either. These are. You cannot easily(possibly?) repair MEMs based engines.
There is also the efficiency of the thing to take into consideration. You wouldn't want to power a whole Command post with a stack of these things,
the amount of fuel they would consume together would vastly outstrip even a simple two-stroke jurry rigged to output electricity on the fly outputting
the same amount. And talk about the IR bloom it would cause. It would draw heat-seeking missiles like flys to the flame.
Like wind-turbines, the larger the engine, the more efficient it is. On large tankers, the efficiency of their combustion engines is like 95%+. (They
are also freaking huge as well)
Still though, if they manage to make a portable mass-spectrometer that could only be powered by one of these things, I'd buy it.
I'd still want
it to be powered by Biofuels only though, heh.
[edit on 22-9-2006 by sardion2000]