The mystery of 100+ mpg cars, and the disappearance & deaths of men behind it, page 4

I remember some Volkswagen Gulfs got 65 MPG back in the early '90s if my memory isn't flawed -- and we are in the 21st century and some cars are BRAGGING about 35 MPG?

While I agree that cars are not anywhere as efficient as they could be -- this "do away with the carburetor" and replacing it with a filter that turns gas into fumes sounds like a distinction without a difference -- that's what the carburetor is supposed to be doing anyway.

Maybe he had a more efficient carb -- maybe he's heating it hot enough to fire but it doesn't get oxygen until it hits the cylinder.

If he is merely doing away with a carb and substituting air from the outlet as the air the combined with fuel -- then his device can heat the fuel/air to a higher temperature. Getting it MUCH hotter means you don't need a spark plug -- but you've got something that cannot have an air leak or it will blow up in the line leading to the engine.

Most new engines have a bit of feedback from the outlet to "reburn" some of the air from the pistons in case there is unused fuel. If you starve the piston MORE and heat the air much hotter, there is a chance that you get a more efficient burn than with the spark and cooler fuel/air. This might just be re-inventing diesel yet applied to regular gas. Other than profit-taking, I'm not sure why diesel fuel costs more than regular gas.

>> I used to play around with some ideas for engines as a kid -- but I figured that we would have other fuel sources by this time.

What REALLY needs to happen is that we junk the fossil fuels because we cannot afford to use it anymore -- unless of course we have a combustion engine that re-uses ALL the carbon monoxide or has some device that traps it.

>> Another way to achieve more efficiency is with a device invented by the same "rocket scientist" who left NASA and created the "super soaker" toy water gun. He has a device that can use HEAT to create electricity if you've got a large enough thermal difference -- and a hotter running engine would be ideal. It works by having a very thin molecular membrane that allows a hydrogen ion to be forced through by heat (basically a proton or a proton with a neutron), it recombines with an electron in the "cooler" chamber -- which causes a current flow. Then this chamber is heated and the hydrogen is "burned", producing a free proton again for a moment that gets trapped in the other, now cooler but lower pressure chamber.

By rotating the chamber into and out of heat, the reaction keeps going. The efficiency is dependent on how ideal the material is at transmitting heat (and carbon nanotubes seem ideal), and how much heat concentration you can get. And of course, how thin you can make the barrier with an ideal density that it restricts hydrogen but not single protons -- which is probably a lot of work for material scientists to get thin enough without being weak.

>> I can't argue the "conspiracy" to kill people who engineer better weapons -- but I would argue to anyone that there is NOT THE WILL and the MEANS to do it. The Oil Companies met with Dick Cheney at the Energy Task Force Meeting and carved up Iraq -- they wanted to punish Saddam for kicking them out and force Iraq to stay on dollar denominated oil trades or their economic house of cards could collapse. Over 100,000 people dead, 2 million displaced, and probably another million kids will be born deformed over the decades from Depleted Uranium. Even Chiquita Banana hired mercenaries to kill Union organizers trying to help banana pickers get a fair deal.

People get killed all the time for the sake of profits and maintaining the status quo. I'm no longer under any child like illusions that Honor and competing on Better ideas has anything to do with the world we live in.