Supercar Engine Part Deux

I've refined my ideas for the engines quite a bit.

After doing some thermodynamic calculations and expansion energy calculations, I have come to the conclusion that approximately 9.7% of the energy in C17H32O2 is expansion and the other 90.3% is thermal. Note that this does not include standard kinetic energy for being above 0K or nuclear energy, etc.

I chose the molecule C17H32O2 because I found that Biodiesel is composed of oils in the C12 to C22 range, with a certain percentage C, H, and O by weight. Using molar masses I coverted this mass ratio into a molar ratio and determined the molar formula for the average biodiesel molecule. (Inherent is the assumption of a linear or at least guassian distribution of molecule sizes from C12 to C22.) The particular molecule I chose was a methyl ester. I chose a methyl ester for my calculations based on the fact that biodiesel is formed from Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) by transesterification to remove sugar parts. Methanol is most often used in this process although Ethanol or propanol could also be used for (apparently) lower yields. So I used this molecule:

CH3OC(O)(CH2)5CH=CH(CH2)7CH3

C17H32O2

This is a mono-unsaturated methyl ester and I think it is representative enough of Biodiesel for my calculations.

At any rate, the thermal energy contained is important enough to worry about, as the mechanical energy of expansion is about 1/10th as much. However, the mechanical energy is enough that we don't want to throw it away either!

First we build a standard diesel engine that burns biodiesel. Most of our modification has to do with the intake, exhaust, and cooling systems that support this engine. However, one of the main modifications is that it is now a "medium speed" diesel engine which runs at a fixed rpm to produce a specific frequency of alternating current. This current is then fed into our supercapacitor stack (SCS).

Instead of a regular cooling system, we are going to cool the engine block, exhaust, and oil all through heat exchangers. This heat is then transferred to hosing which contains an organic fluid which boils at 50-60'C. This boiling fluid is used in a steam turbine arrangement to produce further power. The electrical power from the steam turbine is also funneled into the SCS.

Because we are scavenging more energy from the same amount of fuel we can spend a bit of our margin to make our system cleaner and more efficient. We can do this by installing an oxygen condenser. Our exhaust, once cooled, is run through an oxygen condenser. CO2, N2 and H2O are released to the ambient environment while O2 is recirculated into the "air intake" (which is actually an "oxygen intake." Biodiesel does not contain nitrogen yet NOx are produced by diesel engines. This is the oxidization of N2 present in the air and which enters through the air intake. By providing a 90%+ combustion atmosphere we can reduce or eliminate NOx and also provide quick and complete combustion. Higher cetane fuels ignite earlier in the timing of a diesel and thus allow more complete combustion by the time the stroke has finished. By having 90%+ oxygen instead of ~21% oxygen we can allow even fuller and more complete combustion. This type of system could well be marketed in north america as a "clean diesel." One of the reasons diesel engines are unpopular in north america is the common perception that they are dirty. Biodiesel is, in fact, quite clean and an excellent solvent. As a result the system described above would, in fact, be an extremely clean running engine, producing only CO2 and H2O with no NOx or SOx produced.

The SCS, or supercapacitor stack, is an integral part to this system. It is a decent way to get multiple sources of energy converging. Supercapacitors currently do not have the energy density required to be the energy source for a vehicle. However, unlike batteries, supercapacitors have a high power density. This allows a SCS to act as a great power source for electric motors directly attached to wheels. A SCS would actually be fairly heavy but research in this area is advancing quickly. It may be true that a SCS could be reasonably weighted... I have not yet done any calculations. I would first calculate the maximal reasonable acceleration required, then the electrical draw by the motors, then calculate what is required of the SCS. It would likely be that either a larger diesel (and hence heat) engine is required or a larger SCS is required as an energy buffer. Some equilibrium between these sizes would likely yield optimal conditions. Naturally the draw will be larger for larger vehicles, such as passenger trucks, but these vehicles also have more space and weight capacity for a SCS than a commuter vehicle. I see this design as scalable.

My Supercar Design

I've been kicking around various ideas regarding vehicular propulsion for a while now, and they've finally crystallized into some sort of order. I'm going to try to lay them out below.

Fuel Source / Power / Drivetrain / Steering

For my fuel I have selected biodiesel. This fuel takes approximately a 1/4 to 1/3 of the energy it contains to produce.

This vehicle has only one fuel but contains two engines. One engine is a small compression engine in the style of traditional internal combustion engines. I expect an engine in the 100-500 CC range in size. The difference comes in how this engine is cooled. Instead of being cooled into the environment, the heat is used to power a heat engine, such as a small steam engine or turbine. This raises various issues which I believe that I can answer.

One is that water/steam is not used in the heat engine. It uses an organic compound instead which is circulated in a closed system. There are multiple reasons for this. One is that the selected compound can have different physical characteristics than water. A boiling point of approximately 60'C is good because temperatures are almost always less than that (else we would die) yet it takes little heat to cause it to evaporate. The vapour can then be recycled through a familiar looking radiator to be condensed into a liquid, which then is recycled into the heat engine.

Each of these engines is used to turn a driveshaft. These shafts are not connected to the wheels, however, through any sort of mechanical linkage. Any mechanical attempt to integrate the two would likely result in twisted metal and failure - a good reason it has not been used previously. Instead, these two engines turn generators (an electric motor running in reverse) to convert the mechanical energy to electrical energy at a high efficiency (perhaps 98%). This electrical energy has to be stored in a buffer zone.

This buffer zone could be a bank of super-capacitors. This is an area of research that is filled with activity - and success. Even if our current super-capacitor capability is slightly lacking my proposed use, I belief that we shall soon see super-capacitors suitable to this purpose.

Energy is continually drawn from the super-capacitor bank to drive electric motors individually attached to each wheel. It is possible to build a chassis which has room for an electric motor to be attached to each wheel and to rotate with the wheel as it turns. This allows each tire to have independent suspension, turning, and drive.

My proposed method for steering this versatile vehicle is a pair of joysticks, one for each hand. Simpler methods, or ones which utilize the feet, can be implemented, especially for vehicles which limit drive or steering to two of the four wheels. (Obviously it is not required to have drive or steering on all 4 wheels.)


Discarded Ideas

I have decided against both solar panels and electro-voltaic batteries. The above mentioned vehicle should theoretically be more efficient than both the hybrid cars we have now, and also the car developed at MIT which was covered in solar panels. The reason for this mainly stems from production costs. THe production cost for a Li-ION or Li-Polymer battery can be expressed in terms of energy units. The same goes for solar panels. To my current understanding, solar panels will not return any significant gain in energy over the course of their life beyond the energy cost of making them. In regards to batteries, there is a car, called the Tesla, which currently runs on Li-ion batteries. However the batteries have to be replaced after an estimated 100,000 kms. This is because the batteries are limited to a certain number of charge-discharge cycles before they are dead. Furthermore, Li-ion batteries slowly decrease in the amount of total charge they will hold from the time they are manufactured regardless of use or storage. In contrast to a Li-ion battery 1000 charge/discharge cycles, a super-capacitor can be charged and discharged over 10,000 times, vastly exceeding its energy cost to manufacture. As an aside, Li batteries are explosive and have various problems that are more easily circumvented in capacitors. Both capacitors and electric motors have very long lives that outlast their costs of manufacture.

Fuels

Biodiesel, as mentioned, is a fuel which has a 3:1 ration for energy stored:energy production cost. Biodiesel is different from regular diesel in that it contains little to no sulphur, but contains more nitrogen from the plants. A detailed analysis of this is beyond my scope, but I will briefly remark that Sulphur produces sulphuric acid in the atmosphere and contributes to acid rain. Likewise NOxs are produced from plant sources and contribute to acid rain in the form of nitric acid - small difference. These are long chain organic oils that have a relatively high expansion ratio under combustion.

Ethanol only has a 1.5:1 ratio in regards to energy carried:energy spent. This is obviously not as good as biodiesel. However ethanol has other benefits such as the fact that its combustion products do not contribute to acid rain at all.

C2H5OH + 3O2 -> 2CO2 + 3H2O

You can see the molar ratio here is 5:4 or 1.25.

Methanol is very similar and comes from similar sources:

CH3OH + (3/2)O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

The molar ratio here is 3:2.5 or 1.2.

Pure Octane is not available as a fuel source but is expressed here for comparison only:

C8H18 + (13.5)O2 -> 8CO2 + 9H2O

The expansion ratio is 17:14.5 or 1.1724

Hydrogen is a highly researched alternative energy carrier because it has no Carbon in it and therefore does not produce carbon dioxide:

2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O

You will notice that the molar ratio is 2:3 here or 0.667... Hydrogen does not explode when combusted but actually implodes. This is not commonly understood. The mechanical expansion during combustion is totally independent of energy release or absorption. The combustion of Hydrogen produces heat and also implodes. The other fuels/energy carriers listed above all produce heat and explode. Hydrogen is an energy carrier totally unsuited to an internal combustion engine.

How to Save the World from Certain Catastrophe...

There are a number of problems present in our world today, and that is a very large number. However, we can write up a top X list of some of the worst. Some favourites may be:

i) There is too much CO2 going into the air, resulting in increased global warming, melting of the ice caps, asthma, flood and storms, and the destruction of the human species.

ii) By burning petroleum at an increased rate we are depleting our petroluem stocks rabidly. This is resulting in increased atmospheric CO2 (see i) as well as increasing the price of gas. Not only will it be unaffordable to drive a car and huff gasoline, it will also be impractical for industry to create huge amounts of non-biodegradable plastics.

iii) Yadda yadda yadda. Yaddas reproducing in triplicate is a terrible crime, and soon we will all be drowing in useless nothings representative of anythings. A fate worse than life.

At any rate, humanity can be saved easily (although not cheaply). A scheme for this is already available, devised by an insane genius with too much time on his hands (mostly due to poor time management) and too little electro-shock therapy. This scheme has several important parts, subparts, division, curricula, compartments and subtituents. The most important of which will be described below:

Part 1, section iii, division A23bravo: The Source

The majority of the problem rests entirely with petroleum, which is to say, it is entirely underground. Now, a mere literal interpretation of such a statement is likely to cause befuddlement, but an interpretation resulting in comprehension of the intrinsic meaning might be useful at some temporal location. The problem, namly, is that petroleum is the buffer from which we drag our energy. The energy stored in petroleum was dragged forcefully, kicking and screaming, which is why it was buried in the first place -- to dampen the noise, from trees and other plant vegetation. Or at least, that's how the pseudo-scientific untestable and non-predictive theory goes. Right. Now, there is the more scientific and less pseudo theory which is not really predictive but almost testable, which... describes the absorption of stuff called radiation (although it never responds to that name) by those very trees and plant vegetation which I was already discussing. As you know, have three whichs together makes a coven, and it is important to burn whichs, which is the historic process of causing our now-realized mass consumption of petroleum. Note that it is realised in Britain as opposed to North America. This so-called radiation is supplied by the Sun, which we blame entirely for its poor raising and lack of response when called.

Instead of allowing this ill-begotten and poorly behaved radiation to trickle to us through a complex array of pain, burial, and cremation, we can instead harness it directly. Harnesses are best used young, and in fact can be used to train young elephants not to leave, as well as human children in shopping malls. Harnesses, best used young, can be used on new and young radiation directly coming from the sun. Of course, entering the world distinctly ages people, and why should we expect it to be different for anyone else? Thus, we can clearly see how important it is to harness this radiation while it is still flying straight and true outside the world.

For this task I recommend a satel. Of course, in order for a satel to get off the ground, it would have to be very light, so from now on I'll refer to this specific satel as a satellite. This satellite must be able to bring young and wild radiation into order, and as we all know, spanking is the best way to do that. For that reason I recommend large paddles be attached to the satellite capable of slapping the radiation coming from the sun silly. Or at least into a good humour. All that energy is going to be tiring, so we'd best cover the paddles with solar cells so that our good little discipliner doesn't give up.

Of course, once we have harnessed all this radiation, we need to set it to some important, preferably world-saving, task. As well all know, idle hands are the devil's workshop. I don't know when the last time he got into outer space is, but I don't want him doing any woodwork above my head -- he might drop something. So, we could have our radiation do something important like wash all our cars, but we still need to direct its attention somehow. Now, when you shine a laser pointer on the wall or floor, you get the attention and activity of any nearby dog or cat or human. Indeed, many university professors use this to their advantage whenever they run out of things to say. They just point a laser at the wall and wave it back and forth and watch in amusement as all the humans (Professors aren't human, they are android computers with evil intentions and a bent for the cruel) move their heads back and forth following the laser dot. Therefore, the best way to get the radiation to get to work is to shine a big laser pointer at the Earth wherever you want it to go. So, I figure a big laser pointed at the Earth will get all the radiation going to one spot. Of course, you don't want to blow a hole in the Earth or all the water will drain out of the oceans like a big bathtub. By that illogic, we definated need a big dish to catch the laser. Why a dish? Well, we use dishes to hold just about anything, and they prevent splashing, too. Besides, they look so sci-fi.

Well, now that we're catching a huge laser at the Earth, we need to DO something with it. I figure we'll just do what we do with everything else that is useless, and mass produce it for sale. In this case, we'll just claim that it's worth a lot, and sell a piece at a time. Hopefully this would be worthwhile enough that we can make enough money to take over the world, or at least save it.

Not only that, but we can sell pieces of our laser to special plants. Some plants like to eat flies, some like to eat radiation. Hopefully we can convince a really big one to reduce our CO2(g) to C(s). I mean, graphite is really slippery, so we naturally want to make a really big graphite mountain so that we can go skiing. Ironically this will remove a lot of CO2 from our air and save us from certain death.

Of course, with all this energy we'll have we will be able to electrolyze water or reduce Boron in order to run many vehicles without having to burn any petrol. And you know what? That means we can have polymer couches with polymer beerhats and polymer dogs (no feeding!) and polymer people that are always smiling. Three cheers for plastic surgery!

Carnivores

Carnivores seem to have a set of contradictory beliefs. By Carnivores I'm referring to people that like meat.... I meant really like meat. Some people like meat so much that it is the only thing they would eat if they could afford it. The only problem with this is that eating only meat is not healthy. Typically, people that eat a lot of meat believe things like:

i) Meat tastes good
ii) It is natural and normal for humans to eat meat
iii) Humans are omnivores, capable of eating virtually anything.
iv) Innards are disgusting, intestines (and their contents) are not meant to be eaten, but the flesh is good to eat.

The only problem with a belief set like this is that it leads to other beliefs which are plain wrong. The problem is that meat does not contain all the nutrients required for health for almost any animal, including humans. If you look at Bears, you will find they are omnivores, and the North American Grizzly Bear, a close "relative" to the Bruin, or European Brown Bear, is very hungry when it comes out of hibernation. What's the first thing that these brutes eat? Grass shoots! Now, I have my own theory that they are restocking their digestive tract with lactobacteria (which are found in huge qunatities on grass, which is why they're so present in milk) so that they can digest properly again after months of not eating, but that's not the point. If you look at a true carnivore, such as a wolf, you will notice that the wolf eats the innards - all of them. That also means the "offal" which includes the intenstines and the contents. That's how wolves get the various things that they need to survive that are not contained in simply the muscle of the animal. Essentially, they piggyback their digestion onto their prey's digestive system.

So next time the carnivore in your family is hungry, recommend a good blood sausage made of out already-full intestines. No doubt they'll be thrilled at the prospect.

Be a Good Dictator

"My research for the past 30 years or so was devoted to examine whether cells have such signal integration and control center(s). The results suggest that mammalian cells, indeed, possess intelligence. "

Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, Ph.D. Fellow, European Academy of Sciences, Brussels Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin Robert Laughlin Rea Professor of Cell Biology Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago


The intelligence of individual cells is fascinating. I haven't read the above doctor's website, but I have heard of interesting experiments. For example, a living heart cell will beat, as can be seen with a microscope. Furthermore, two living heart cells in a petri dish will beat out of rythm with one another, but place them beside each other, and they quickly beat as one. Consider the fact that we are told as early as high school that when you step on a nail, it is not your brain that tells your foot to lift, but your spine. It is explained to us that our spine acts as a mini-brain or mid-body brain for "lesser" functions. Perhaps one of the weirdest anecdotes I've been told is that bacteria placed into a perfect environment, not a perfect growing environment, will actually die because they do not need to struggle to survive. How bizarre.

Suppose for a minute, though, that individual cells are intelligent. That would imply that each of our bodies is an excellent example of a perfect society. Our cells do not rebel, do not mutiny. They each do their task in perfect socialist obedience, like little smurfs.

Of course, if they are indeed intelligent, then perhaps they feel pain, and suffer, or perhaps they have a desire to survive. As a sentient moral agent, are we not responsible for the lives of these cells, devoted to us, subject to our will?

Do the rest of the philosophy on your own....

Be a Good Dictator!

How Old are Humans?

Someone recently told me that when humans are kept in isolation from a cyclic light pattern, they develop a 25 hour day pattern on their own. In other words, if they are kept indoors and away from natural light patterns, they still keep a 25 hour day cycle.

So, this causes me to propose a question, or perhaps a thought experiment. First, some additional data: The earth is slowing down in its spin. Surprise, there's a wee bit o' friction in all that space up there. Also, there are three different kinds of "day," the civic, solar, and sidereal day. The civic day is 86,400 SI seconds, or 24 hours exactly. The solar day is the time a planet takes to rotate once with respect to its star. For the Earth, that varies depending on the time of year, and the average is our fabulous 24 hour day. The sidereal day, however, is the amount of time a planet takes to rotate with respect to distant stars. For Earth, this is about 3 minutes and 56 seconds shorter than our normal 24 hour period.

So, let's do a little math, figure out how fast the Earth is slowing down, and then "calculate backwards" to figure out how long it took to slow down from 25 hours per day to our current time of 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.

Of course, I'm not actually going to do all that math in my blog. Especially seeing as I'm ill right now. Instead, I'll ask my physics Professor to explain it to me. Perhaps he will also be interested to see the order of time in which our "day" has changed from what our bodies "expect" a day to be.

Ode to Sulphur

Oh Sulphur,
how I love thee,
thou art a lure,
and smelly.

Anyway... what do these "foods" have in common:
Garlic
Leeks
Shallots
Onion
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
.
.
.
.
Answer? Sulfur!

Or more techincally, they are foods with relatively high concentrations of organic sulphur containing compounds. Why do we care? Well, we care because we looooove biology! (Admit it, you do, formaldehyde and fetal pigs aside.) I'm sure we've all been told that the human body is approximately 102% water. Well, it is. Sorta. And I'm sure we've all eaten olive oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, or fish oil at some point or another. If you're part cat, it's probably the latter. Furthermore, I'm sure we've all been told that oil and water don't mix! Hah! So what happens to the oil? Well... it goes to /dev/null. But not directly. It actually goes to a big box in the centre of your torso called your fat-box. Biologists like to call it your liver, but they're wrong. In a big sack of water (like you and I), there has to be a box to put all the oil/fat in, and it's called the fat-box. Well, in case you've never noticed, you never urinate oil. (Okay, well, at least *I* never have, so I'm assuming you haven't either) So, where does the oil go when it goes into the fat-box? Well, your fat-box likes it when you eat the above sulphur containing foods, because it rips the sulphur groups off what you eat, adds it to the oils, and voila! They're not really oils anymore because they're water-soluble, polar, and have a sulphur (and probably oxygen) containing group on the end. Then what happens? You urinate (in case you didn't get it last time, that's a fancy word for pee) them out in all that water. And NO, that's not why your urine is yellow.


A Special PostScript for Garlic
Garlic, Onion, Leeks, and so on are a bit more special. Take garlic, for example. If you cook an entire clove of garlic in the oven, and then slice it up, it won't smell at all. The chemistry of garlic is such that a chemical reaction occurs when the cells are burst and the contents freely mix. This causes the strong garlic odour. However, if the garlic is heated before the cells are burst, these reactive compounds are broken down before they meet each other, and thus no resulting smelly compound. The resultant smelly compound is the one that is super good for you, however, so you always want to chop, mince, or crush your garlic before cooking. Likewise with onion, I always chop it finely before cooking it.

Oh yeah, and you'll always smell like what you eat, it just so happens that garlic has a super strong odour and travels through tissues well.

Brown Paper

I don't see enough brown paper... all my paper is white. Why is it white? I don't know! I know that some of it is white because I write on it or print on it and want to use many different colours to do so. However, I definately am not interested in writing on facial tissue, bathroom tissue, or paper towel. (Chem lab is excluded from the last.)

So why is all this paper white? This paper makes up the bulk of my paper consumption, as most of my written material is done solely electronically, or perhaps with only the final draft printed.

Paper is definately not white by nature. If I go chop down a tree, it's mostly yellow inside with brown rings. When it is pulped to make paper, it goes that familiar tan colour that newsprint has. So why aren't all these papers used almost exclusively for body-wiping and mess cleanup their natural tan colour?

Certainly there must be some reagent involved in turning tan coloured pulp into white coloured pulp. Certainly we could save tonnes of bleach and tonnes of money by leaving them tan. Not to mention the environment.

Hot in the City, Cool in the Country

It all stems from a discussion I had with my Father. At my home, it was 17-20'C, and in the City, about 41kms away, it was 33'C. Why the drastic difference? Well, altitude plays a part, but I think most people would find it's very small.

Let's take a look, I live in the Country. I'm surrounded by green plants. Trees, Shrubs, and Grass. If you were levitating or on a magic carpet, it would look very green.

On the other hand, if you flew your magic carpet over the city, what would you see? You'd see roads and roofs. Yeah, that's about it.

So there is the key difference. Don't see it?

We get all our Energy from the Sun. If the Sun went out we'd freeze and die. The Energy coming from the Sun is all Radiation. Most of it is blocked by the Atmosphere, at various layers. UVC is just about entirely blocked, UVB is mostly blocked, and UVA is the highest energy-level radiation that gets through consistantly. UV Radiation contains enough energy to break the bond between two Carbon molecules (C-C) which is why it is considered dangerous. That is also why plastic tends to go yellow when left in the sun. It's decomposing.

So, why is this important? Well, in the City, the radiation hits the ground, be it a road or parking lot, and it's usually pavement. The energy gets altered from the various bands of light energy and becomes heat energy. The same thing happens for Roofs, which are usually Asphalt Shingle, Tar and Gravel, or Steel. So all that light energy is hitting the roof and becoming heat. So the City is a hot place. Except for the park, of course, which is cooler.

The reason the park is cooler is the same reason my home is cooler. When the radiation doesn't hit Dirt, Pavement, Tar, or Steel, then it is often hitting Green Stuff (tm). The Trees, Shrubs, and Grass don't disperse the Radiation as heat. They absorb it and use it to grow. So the energy actually becomes stored in the bodies of plants until we chop them down and burn them or what-have-you. So the next time you're walking across a grassy field barefoot and think, "This grass is nice and cool on my feet" or are sitting under an Oak tree and think, "That's a really nice cool breeze." You'll realize that the cool breeze is from the Oak tree breathing on you. Plants need to breathe in direct proportion to the amount of light they absorb. So yes, that Oak Tree is absorbing the light/heat and then exhaling cool air all over you. Don't forget to thank it.

Technogills...

You know, they say that necessity is the mother of invention. How about this...

Take regular scuba (self contained underwater breathing apparatus) gear and add a battery. Run the DC (direct current) through the water in an enclosed chamber. Collect the gas from one of the electrodes, which will be oxygen gas. Let the gas from the other electrode bubble to the surface, because it's hydrogen gas and flammable... and explosive. Then the scuba gear and re-incorporate that extracted oxygen from the water into the scuba tank to renew the amount of oxygen available. That should let anyone who wants to stay down as long as they can. Or get Nitrogen poisoning from being down too long.