Posted on 07/31/2008 11:54:15 AM PDT by Red Badger
No, with hydro electric power we didn't have to consume other energy sources to get the water above the dam. Consuming more energy than you produce isn't going to help.
So whats your opinion concerning turbochargers / superchargers?
So the claim is changed from “extracting excess power from the alternator” to hydrogen acting as some sort of catalyst?
In the latter case, it should be possible to experiment with a hydrogen/hydrocarbon engine regardless of the source of hydrogen. (There gotta be cheaper, safer, simplier ways to get hydrogen.) I am *highly* skeptical that such alchemy has escaped notice for over a century of experience with the internal combustion engine.
If the former (”excess power from the alternator”) the claim reduces to a perpetual motion machine and can be dismissed out of hand.
Dear crotchety old rocket scientist,
An automotive alternator produces AC voltage (DUH! thats why they’re called ALTERNATORS!) and then at the voltage regulator a diode blocks half the AC leaving behind the DC our cars electronics operate on ... Maybe you’re stuck in 1964 and believe cars still have DC generators like my Corvair did... trust me they don’t.
Go back to designing your solid state coolers (note I’m not stuck in 1964 I didn’t call them Ice Chests) for truckers... looking back at your posts all I see are snide comments and put downs over minor wording issues.
I don't think so, because (in most cases) the water used to generate hydroelectric power already exists uphill from the turbine. Taking advantage of this positional potential doesn't require the expenditure of energy.
But is does take energy to create the hydrogen, and to run the alternator off of the hydrogen, etc. If hydrogen in an energy-useful form were plentiful, this wouldn't be an efficiency issue, although the safety aspects would remain.
Just my $.02
Are you sure that the electric system doesn’t use some variant of a full-wave bridge rectifier? It would seem quite silly to only use a half-wave rectifier. With a full-wave rectifier your loss is limited to the voltage drop of the rectifier diodes, not “half the AC.”
They are not fuel saving devices, but ways to boost power.
Ok how about fuel injection, which also requires electricity to boost power? Not a fuel saving device? When you increase the efficiency with in the combustion chamber arn't you in fact using less fuel to create more power?
Opening a electronically controlled valve to let the fluid flow is hardly comparable to converting energy from chemical to mechanical to electrical back to chemical.
Im not arguing the fact that this device works. Im arguing the fact that if you enhance the horsepower of the engine beyond what is lost to turn the alternator you require less fuel to do the work.
You can never get more power out of the alternator than what you put in. If you draw more power out of the alternator with increased electrical load, it requires even greater power delivered from the engine via the shafts, belts and pulleys. Frictional losses through all these devices create additional loss. If the speed is constant, the additional power is supplied by additional torque.
Don’t AC waveforms get rectified these days rather than simply clipped by a diode? Using a rectifier would give you the entire waveform to work with, not just half.
It was my understanding that the high-pressure injection systems are designed for compression-ignition engines not spark-ignited ones like gasoline fired.
Come on, I already know your a smart guy, but your making this waaay more complicated than it is.
Comparing a valve to electrolysis is hardly comparing apples and oranges.
Were not talking apples and oranges. Were talking about one thing, fuel to horsepower, nothing more.
I’m talking about real world application of the systems used to convert fuel to mechanical energy. Ignoring how that happens does not lead to productive conversation.
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