American Oil

[rehmwa 2]

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>What you really want is a variable compression engine, like the Prius Atkinson cycle engine.

nonsense, the Atkins engine runs mostly on proteins like meat, cheese and hardboiled eggs

it'll gladly take olive oil, lots of vegetables, especially raw vegetables

but do NOT feed it too many carbs, food preservatives, or diet supplements

it works best as well with multivitamins, and lots of water with the above allowed inputs


many people confuse it with the "all protein" myth for engines, but it has many aspects that are useful to a healthy engine looking to shrink it's footprint down

when I use an Atkinson engine, my car seems to be tired a lot, but gets much better mileage

I wouldn't recommend it as the sole engine, but certain areas are good sense (balance more meat and veggies with lowered carbs, avoid preservatives, dring water instead of diet stuff).

There are better engines out there though.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[shropshire 0]

That's O.K the Atkinson is fuel injected so it doesn't have a 'carb'

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[billvon 2,400]

>I think though that even in the atkinson engine, when it is set to a higher
>compression ratio, will get worse mileage on alcohol.

The testing that I've seen shows that you get about the same mileage when you compare an Atkinson cycle ethanol engine to a standard compression gasoline engine. You get greater efficiency both from the added expansion and from the higher compression.

However, comparing two Atkinson engines on the two fuels, gasoline will still come out a little (10% or so) ahead. You gain on efficiency but still lose on overall energy in the fuel.

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The hybrid engine certainly has neat aspects to it, but you still loose efficiency generating the electricity, and then using it in the motors.

Well:

1) In the powersplit device, 70% of the gas engine's torque is sent directly to the wheels rather than passing through the motor/generator system. In the 2009 THS system, that number will be closer to 90%.

2) The current system does not use RPM in that fashion. It has a simplified control scheme that still primarily uses the throttle - so there is some software work to be done.

>I would think that a turbodiesel overexpansion engine would be the
>ideal, not necessarily the atkinson, there is another design that has 2
>pistons that I have heard promising things about. One piston is the
>intake and compression, the other power and exhaust.

Either that or a "classic" Atkinson where the piston actually moves less during one half of the cycle.

[LongWayToFall 0]

10% huh? Thats really good. All of the alcohol conversions I have seen in motorcycles and hot rod v8s get super lousy mileage, even with the compression going from ~9:1 up to 15+:1.
Yeah it is definitely worth noting the different kinds of hybrid systems, if you do keep the engine connected to the wheels then you gain efficiency when cruising on the highway, thats for sure. But when you are driving around town, you loose it because you can't keep the engine at its best rpm, unless you had it in neutral and went all electric or a very complex transmission setup, similar to a continuously variable transmission. Thinking about it, when you want to go from very low power to very high power, you want to go almost to full rpm in a matter of a second, I think the CVT would be the only thing to allow that to happen with the wheels still directly connected to the road. In the near future, I think many cars will be using them, I saw a commercial the other day which advertised a car that was already out with one. The huge downside with them though, is that they have a short life, cannot handle large amounts of power without slipping, and I don't think they are very efficient compared to modern automatics or manuals. But hey, they might be a perfect match for a city-bound hybrid that is making starts and stops all the time.

[billvon 2,400]

>if you do keep the engine connected to the wheels then you gain
>efficiency when cruising on the highway, thats for sure. But when you are
> driving around town, you loose it because you can't keep the engine at its
>best rpm,

That's the beauty of the HSD - it does both, with only one planetary gear and two motors. There's no way I can explain it, but this helps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
http://prius.ecrostech.com/original/PriusFrames.htm
http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

>The huge downside with them though, is that they have a short life,
>cannot handle large amounts of power without slipping . . .

The HSD has none of those problems. No belts, clutches, chains or pumps, just one planetary gear.

[NelKel 0]

how will this keep US dollars out of mideast hands?

don't these companies all buy from the mideast? Isn't the price of gas set by the commodities markets?

there's only one way to do it: use less gasoline (& other petroleum products) overall.<<<<<


It is a list of oil companies the import no barrels of oil from Saudi or Venezuela. ie... zero, nada, zilch,

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Someone dies, someone says how stupid, someone says it was avoidable, someone says how to avoid it, someone calls them an idiot, someone proposes rule chan

[kallend 1,625]

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how will this keep US dollars out of mideast hands?

don't these companies all buy from the mideast? Isn't the price of gas set by the commodities markets?

there's only one way to do it: use less gasoline (& other petroleum products) overall.<<<<<


It is a list of oil companies the import no barrels of oil from Saudi or Venezuela. ie... zero, nada, zilch,

Of course, we could always stop pissing off the nations that provide our strategic minerals (including oil).

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[NelKel 0]

Do you think it is our foreign policy that is driving up the price for a barrel?

_________________________________________

Someone dies, someone says how stupid, someone says it was avoidable, someone says how to avoid it, someone calls them an idiot, someone proposes rule chan

[kallend 1,625]

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Do you think it is our foreign policy that is driving up the price for a barrel?

In part.

I think a larger part is due to speculators and our profligate use of energy. I still see single occupancy SUVs barreling down I80 at 90mph.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[LongWayToFall 0]

Wow that is a sweet design! I always thought that the setup only had one motor, not a second that controlled the gears. I can see something like this being used on motorcycles with very small Li-Po batteries, with great results. Learn something new everyday! Thanks for the informative and interesting conversation Bill, I will be very much looking forward to the development of engine design in the years to come. I think in 10-15 years the advancements in battery technology will provide huge dividends. Know any companies to invest in along these lines????

[kelpdiver 2]

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Quote

Do you think it is our foreign policy that is driving up the price for a barrel?

In part.

I think a larger part is due to speculators and our profligate use of energy. I still see single occupancy SUVs barreling down I80 at 90mph.

They still exist, but I was taken this weekend by the dramatic drop in the number of speeders. Going 75 (most freeways in CA are 65, some @70) now makes you stand out, whereas it used to be the norm that the #1 and 2 lanes would go 75-80 for all.

Since I live/work within city of SF, I only go out on the freeways on weekends and so the time interval can be weeks at a time, making these changes more apparent.

The much bigger improvement in consumption comes with the next car purchase, but that takes a good 3-5 years to replace most of the current SUVs.

[billvon 2,400]

> Know any companies to invest in along these lines????

I think A123 is going public soon. They might be a good one; they are doing a lot with PHEV's.