Hey Timbo,
Patrick Green goes to Wave Regattas with a VW van he converted to burn vegetable oil.
We kid him a lot about stopping for fuel at McDonalds.

I thought a bio fuel (plant oil) hybrid could be a good option (to get off foriegn oil, and reduce fosil fuel consumption)... My friend wants an atomic reactor car... (i am not convinced)

I also think the answer to all our problems (or many) is to create a carbon dioxide engine.. it burns c02, and its only "waste" is pure carbon powder, which we can use to build buildings, cars, and most importantly... .cheap masts for the I20's

Jake, can't you build these in your shop?

Timbo,
You think the diesel scenario is bad look at the batteries in the hybrids. Huge cost increase upfront and a battery life of 7 years. Then you have to shell out another 5-7k for new batteries or scrap the car. The batteries also have to be disposed of or recycled. The green thing is a greed driven cash cow, if it makes anyone feel better about themselves then by all means keep writing checks, just like their leader.
Todd

Todd, electric cars is highly probably the future. With more research, things will improve but it will indeed be different.

Of course people try to make money on the current hot topic, climate change. No surprise there. We "consumers" (something I hate being labeled as) can only vote with our money.

I had a friend back in the 60s that invented a sailboat that could sail straight into the wind. The sails were sort of a windmill affair that turned a propeller. Talk about saving fuel.
Rick

WOW... sounds unreal!

Did the sails turn a propeller?

The windmill powered boat is older than that. Marchaj had a picture of a contraption like that in one of his books. Boat was dog slow on the downwinds and not really fast upwind. An idea that did not work out in real life.
I am not certain of the relevance to my post though. Are you saying that electric cars are a technological dead end?

I suspect that a boat with windmill sails will not go straight upwind. I can't imagine how the windmills would produce enough excess energy to overcome the various frictions involved (air resistance, gearing, water resistance, etc.) Might be able to go upwind, but not straight upwind...

And look up hydrnol. It seems like a good alternative because:

- it handles like current petrochemicals (can use existing fuel distribution infrastructre)
- can be used in conventional internal combustion engines, tubojet/turbofan engines for generators, or hydrogen cells
- hydrogen can be sourced from renewable and/or green energy systems (solar, nuke, wind)
- product is recycled after use (depleted hydrogen is added back to mix)

It does go straight to windward. Consider that you can angle / feather the blades on the windmill so they are at the same type of angles of attack that we typically sail to weather at.

how about faster than the wind downwind?

Liar, Liar, Pants on FIre!!!! LOL

VERY COOL~

I LOVE THE END Beep Beep

Err, they made it go faster than the wind downwind.. Interesting! The boats I read about did not pull that one off, but there is less drag from the wheels compared to a hull or two.

So Jake, what is the explanation? Or do we need to call inn Wouter?

Heck if I know. I haven't had much time to ponder the treadmill trick, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out the physics of it. It would seem to be a perpetual motion machine if it can climb a hill without any external source of energy...I suspect that there was some airflow behind the cart on the treadmill helping to push it forward...but I don't doubt that it can move faster than the wind downwind.

You absorb energy from the wind by redirecting (slowing down) the molecules of wind as they go by. You can absorb a fixed amount of energy this way. If you're resistance to motion is less than the energy that can be extracted from the wind, then the craft can move faster than the wind that's powering it. Sailing craft have demonstrated (easily) the ability to sail faster than the wind at certain angles...the blades of the prop help maintain those beneficial angles while the vehicle can be moving in any direction.

hrmf. now I'm baffled. I don't get it or understand how these guys are demonstrating this. I (think) I understand something moving faster than the wind dead downwind in that the prop would be powered from the wheels and once moving in the opposite direction from the wind, will push wind against the wind providing the propulsion needed...but in a static air situation, I just can't figure out how the cart is constantly pushing forward faster than the treadmill is powering it.

The wheels start moving.
The wheels start moving the blades in the rear.
There is no air, but the propeller creates forward momentum.

Obviously they cannot accomplish without moving the wheels, the wheels provide the movement to the props, then the props provide forward momentum to the wheels.

Its a cycle.

There must be some friction in the system and therefore some "loss" of energy. Why dont it stop but rather speeds up? Very interesting situation. I'll pop off an e-mail to Wouter

I'm no Jake type engineer,I put nails in boards, but it seems that if the gearing between the wheels and the prop made the prop spin faster to provide more thrust than the speed the wheels were experiencing at that moment it would gain speed.I'm sure there's a stop point for that, but at lower speeds I would think it would work.

Tawd

Yes, sure...but you can't create more energy than there was to begin with. The treadmill is providing the power (a fixed amount of power) to the prop through the wheels. Somehow, the cart outruns the treadmill and maintains that constant state ability (shown by the strings pulling forward). Once the strings pull forward, the cart shouldn't be drawing any more energy from the treadmill because it is now pushing against the belt underneath. The treadmill is effectively not putting any more power in the cart since the cart is now pulling forward.

If you consider this example on an open road instead of the treadmill, this video seems to show that once you got that little cart up to a certain speed that it would accelerate and maintain some set speed on it's own without any energy input...which should be impossible.

Maybe, if there is a little angle between the tied/fixed direction of the cart and the treadmill, the wheels could turn faster than the treadmill is moving under it and some additional energy could be derived from that - but it looks pretty straight.

It is obvious to me.... its voodoo

OK, I understand it now....no time to explain in detail but it has to do with apparent wind.