17
votes
This piston-less engine promises ground breaking power and efficiency
Link information
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- Title
- Can This Piston-Less Engine Save Internal Combustion And Pose A Threat To EVs?
- Published
- Sep 16 2023
- Word count
- 1324 words
This won't rival EVs. As it mentions in the article, this engine relies on hydrogen fuel to be carbon-free. Some auto manufacturers are already looking at hydrogen fuel cells, which haven't taken off due to the cost and technical issues with hydrogen fuel. Batteries are simply cheaper and easier. This engine doesn't address those challenges, although it's certainly a neat design.
If we're talking alternatives to EVs, I want to see articles about buses and trains not alternative engine architectures. Improvements in efficiency/performance don't address the climate crisis; they just enable more consumption.
Hydrogen has many issues, not the least of which is that it's locked up by patents and rent-seeking corporations who hold them. Betamax had the same problem, which is why VHS won out despite being an inferior standard.
That said, it's not hydrogen we should be hyping up for fuel cells. Let me introduce you to ammonia fuel cells which while a young technology offer a much better class of solutions than hydrogen itself does.
Sorry for the OT, but it actually wasn't. Technology Connectins has many videos about this topic.
Thanks for the correction and an interesting new channel to add to my mix. <3
Adding that many sources for ammonia leakage doesn't sound great, particularly when owned and maintained by laypeople. If they can get the energy density high enough, I'd love to see them for buses or aircraft though.
I'm pretty sure they're not talking about fuel cells here, but rather, running an IC engine directly on hydrogen gas
You won't get the 60% efficiency that you could get in the highest end industrial scale power-plants, but one could imagine shipping liquid hydrogen around to "gas" stations or the like (though, being lighter than air is a fun challenge for containing the stuff)
Not only lighter than air but, in its elemental form, highly corrosive to metal!
I understand that. I'm saying both systems rely on hydrogen fuel, which I'm claiming isn't practical for automobiles.
This would be good even for city slickers honestly. Right now everyone is buying way way waaaay more battery capacity than is reasonable for 98% of people because they think they need to buy for the 2 long trips they make a year. Imagine if you could have nimble EVs with only 150 or so mile ranges, using less power, handling better, putting less wear on the roads and requiring cheaper tires, smaller brakes, less intense bushings, and all of that. But then if you want a road trip you strap one of these on in a little trailer or into an adapter built into the frunk and off you go.
Your comment doesn't address the one you're relying to.
Do you really drive more than ~400km for personal use on a daily basis and are unable to plug in a vehicle when you park it overnight?
Having spoken with @Loire on this topic before, yes, they do. Something to do with remote infrastructure work in rural Canada iirc, and rural Canada can get very rural indeed. Not to mention cold, and my EV does pretty badly in mild UK winters, let alone the deep cold of northern North America.
There are always edge cases, of course, so finding tech for those cases is helpful.
So not personal use.
So its a commercial vehicle plain and simple; you're using it for work. I don't believe commercial/industrial vehicles should be viewed in the same category as personal vehicles. Getting rid of fossil fuels in all commercial vehicles will likely have to be a much longer term goal.
Lumping commercial vehicles in with passenger vehicles is IMO is its own issue.
I'm not really much of an EV supporter, I see your comment as being the one seeking perfection and being the enemy of good. If you can't drive an EV then whatever but I see a LOT of people who believe they couldn't possibly own an EV because they drive too much when they plainly don't.
What I would actually like is to see a massive reduction of vehicles in general in urban settings; a move towards EV's, hybrids, fuel cells (whatever) where we can; and fossil fuels where we need them. I'm also skeptical that this engine in the OP is really any better than using a regular gas/diesel engine... its also still in development.
We're not at a point where we can mass adopt EV's and in reality they're just another car on the road with their own huge carbon footprint.
In Norway 27% of passenger cars are EVs. Iceland, Denmark and Sweden are next on the list.
Battery heaters exist and do work even if they cut your range down significantly. The majority of Canada doesn't live in an area thats too cold to make EV's viable.
I expect most people in high density living situations to prioritize using public transit instead of car ownership. Beyond that, we manage to have plug ins for block heaters in apartments in Canada; level 1 chargers are a thing; problem solved (in canada).
But could easily be a personal vehicle used for work... idk
I would argue for biofuels or synthetic fuels in that case. Sure, slot in this new widget if you'd like, but it won't do much to reduce your impact. In any case, you're relying on another technology to do that: batteries, carbon negative fuel, et cetera.
Uh. Aren't most biofuels generally considered to be worse for the planet than fossil fuels? IIRC it's largely due to them using up valuable agricultural land that could otherwise be used for actually making food instead, often leading to even more deforestation, as well as the carbon emissions of their processing being just as high (or higher) than fossil fuels. See: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
Not all biofuels are the same. Yes, some are more carbon intensive than fossil fuels -- corn ethanol being a good example. I would not recommend those. Some feedstocks are carbon negative (I recall estimates of 60-80% reductions in CO2 for certain crops). Of course, traveling on green electricity (or not at all) is better, when possible.
I can share a few papers on biofuel feedstocks (albeit for aviation not automotive applications), if you're interested. Your point about land use change is also a good one, which is why I'd only recommend it for applications where electrification isn't practical: aviation, long-haul travel to remote locations (á la @Loire), heavy duty equipment, etc. Another common feedstock is waste fats and greases like beef tallow, which come with the ethical dilemma of flying/driving no longer being vegan.
If you happen to have the links handy, I would definitely appreciate seeing them, since I've been operating under the assumption that most biofuels are worse than fossil fuels. I do have an open mind about it though, and would be happy to be proven wrong so I can be better informed about the issue in the future.
Sure, here are a few! Alternative fuels is an active area of study in the aerospace community, as batteries are too heavy for most applications. While not exactly the same, these results should hold for other vehicles as aircraft engines are very efficient, as far as engines go.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X14000493?casa_token=AVgl9hkRrf4AAAAA:wgbygO2Z_BppSxFARzbvvIEg_t7Kl5i4B-N8CVNUEIsEwH3wF9FY0c9OkLF506EAM8bbxa4-Yms
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/1.46232?casa_token=kJvd0bl_B_kAAAAA:ZdzFODoeQX4gKVYLuLN8x5T8EnxcK0py2q436-EsrVVs1Vbk-jixEkNvP-KuAx9JOadJBxhUKNjMtOw
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517308224?casa_token=2jeE0ulbXToAAAAA:zaP7k2RD00z1tVXrtIUF_UJlpV6urqn5g8kJmMcbwD9f5hed2lMMl2hBJflgUWIVH3AZmFZm4PY
So I thought this looked intriguing. This is one where I have precisely zero background to verify anything, but it came from a site I usually trust for interesting news.