Alternative Fuel Cars

[SupremeSpod]

Buy yourself a wind turbine and a giant fan.

Sorted.


<Slighty_Serious>
Isn't what you're proposing essentially how places like Denorwig(sp?) work? i.e. water is pumped up at cheap rates and released for peaks.
</Slighty_Serious>

Yep, just like Ben Cruachan, Tummel, Falls of Foyers.

There are tours into Ben Cruachan but I don't know about the others.

[Zippy]

<Slighty_Serious>
Isn't what you're proposing essentially how places like Denorwig(sp?) work? i.e. water is pumped up at cheap rates and released for peaks.
</Slighty_Serious>

Yes, it's not really a power station. It's there to even out the load on the Grid.

[Troll]

Does anyone ever read the spec?

Aternative Fuel Cars

HTF are you going to stick a big fan on the top of a car ?

[TimberWolf]

Does anyone ever read the spec?

Aternative Fuel Cars

HTF are you going to stick a big fan on the top of a car ?

Could use a fan for regenerative braking, or as a flywheel. Inefficient though.

Given that the Return On Investment is supposed to be far higher than for solar cells, it'd be interesting to speculate on whether a wind turbine powered car would be more cost efficient than a solar powered car. It'd have to be retracted (and therefore not charging) when moving and not collecting wind or braking though.

[kandr]

I was reading about piss energy the other day, urea actually, which is easier to handle than raw hydrogen. Piss is also a useful fertiliser, so may make a comeback for that too as oil declines. Wee was a much sought after commodity once, with the high phosphor content being useful for making e.g. matches.

Energy from piss

Damn could have done with that when I ran out of Petrol, would have saved me 160 quid. Just a quick piss and we are away. Also the amount of bedwetters on this board would mean CUK would become bigger than BP.

[Pondlife]

Damn could have done with that when I ran out of Petrol, would have saved me 160 quid. Just a quick piss and we are away. Also the amount of bedwetters on this board would mean CUK would become bigger than BP.

Just think of the environmental impact to Wilmslow's shoes if we had a spillage on BP's scale.

[VectraMan]

HTF are you going to stick a big fan on the top of a car ?

Why not fit a sail? After all before there was the internal combustion engine, man kind managed to travel to every corner of the globe without burning a single fossil.

[kandr]

Just think of the environmental impact to Wilmslow's shoes if we had a spillage on BP's scale.

[d000hg]

Probably the biggest green energy wheeze in the UK today is selling 'green energy' to the grid, heavily subsidised by the tax payer. Even Glastonberry is in on it. Even better, though illegal, would be to feed energy bought from the grid at normal prices to the grid at green energy prices.

There was an episode of Only Fools and Horses where they 'discovered' a fresh-water spring (from the mains water) and started bottling it, IIRC.

[Dearnla]

Alternative energy fuel cars are not currently a viable replacement for petrol, diesel or bio-fuel cars. As a blind alley of technology, they're interesting but ultimately pointless. They're "tied to the grid" and Fuel Cell cars are still tied by dint of the need to electrolyse water to produce highly dangerous Hydrogen.

Oil isn't running out, it's just getting harder (and therefore more costly - ask BP!) to extract.

Wind energy and wave power are all well and good, but they can't cope with the post-Corrie kettle switch on, because you cannot guarantee when the wind blows.

Nuclear is the answer, but not acceptable to the Greens. That's why British Energy was sold to EDF - the French know how to build Nuclear power stations, whilst the British patently do not.

Alternatively, Carbon Capture from the coal-fired stations - another pipe dream. "Pump CO2 into the old Gas fields - brilliant, Dr. Watson."

I don't have the answer - but then, nobody does. Alternative fuel cars are not part of it.