Dandy: That was the most wonderful post I have read on Amiga.org or anywhere.
:-)
Funnily, mel_zoom was concerned about a satellite-based energy platform when I commented about it on
another thread...
:-D
Anyway, from glorious Deutschland: home of the blinkenlights(!) I have just bought a book on how to convert old Diesel engines to run on chip oil.
Herr Diesel was a genius and rumours prevail that he or someone inspired by him 100 years ago tried peanut oil succesfully in a Diesel engine.
The guy I bought the book from reccommends old Volkswagen and Mercedes vans before TDI came into being. They have whirlchambers ideal for the burning of chip oil.
People are doing this near me and have informed the government so they can pay excise duty. It works out at 40p/Litre instead of 98p/Litre for mineral diesel (40p = 70 Euro cents?)
There is also a Diesel SMART car coming with 75MPG (30Km/Litre) and still the old SMART cars do 50-60MPG.
Here's a good link:
http://www.gogreenfuel.com/This details how trucks can use a water-based system to extract hydrogen+oxygen to improve the combustion in their engines to increase fuel effiency and reduce monoxide.
by GadgetMaster:
Hmm.... if only I could afford a Tesla
Yeah, that thing was on Top Gear. James Bond (Roger Moore) drove one in Monte Carlo and it was silent and got off traffic lights almost instantaneously! The Mitsubishi though is not as impressive as the 6-Wheel electric Honda thing that hit 200MPH!
The advantages of electric cars are:
· Quiet - no noise pollution, no lack of concentration, greater awareness of hazards like children or trucks
· No immediate emissions - a power station's fuel effiency with flywheels is far greater than a single car.
· The lack of a ½-tonne engine block means you could survive a crash as a result of better breaking and less impact energy
· The advent of magnetic bearings could soon mean even better energy transfer - hey you could even brake by reversing (negative as opposed to neutral inertia?)
· Electric as seen in GadgetMaster's 'Tesla' link means no more brain power wasted on gears, clutch etc.