Tenn. professor cruises cross-country on 2.15 gallons of gas

reply to post by getreadyalready


I definitely think this is a substantial feat. If I modified my vehicle to only cost me $3 per month on gas compared with the hundreds that most people spend, I would tell everyone. Are you implying that I shouldn't because it's not much of a feat?

This story is mostly hot air. The professor was just using the electricity he'd "banked" from a huge solar panel array to re-charge the car on the road. It was indirect solar energy from this array at MTSU



Try sticking that on your car.

They used the same system to crack water to hydrogen (over quite a long time), and store it in huge tanks. The hydrogen car did not get very far.

metabunk.org...(or-2-5)-gallons-of-gas

Originally posted by FelixFelicis
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

I definitely think this is a substantial feat. If I modified my vehicle to only cost me $3 per month on gas compared with the hundreds that most people spend, I would tell everyone. Are you implying that I shouldn't because it's not much of a feat?

But it didn't only cost him $3 per month. It cost him the cost of the E-95, which is similar to the cost of gasoline. It cost him the electrical costs of recharging each night. It cost him the upfront costs of the modifications.

If this were your daily driver, it would cost you the added insurance premiums. (Just traded my Camry Hybrid, it was junk, and the insurance was higher, the trunk was smaller, the takeoff and power was lethargic, and the gas mileage was less than my mother-in-laws non-hybrid!).

What the professor did was take a whole lot of credit for only a tiny bit of innovation. Sure, it is interesting, sure a little bit of the experience and knowledge will be useful for his next project, but he didn't accomplish any great feat, he just made it look like he did.

reply to post by getreadyalready

He used E-95 which is just another fuel source,

using food as a source of fuel is how smart in a starving world?

lets just use the damned oil, that's what its there for.

reply to post by rebellender


i couldnt agree more

people are going to rip that statement apart though, everyone talks about how we have hit peak oil and everything i disagree i don't think we will run out of oil anytime soon, governments keep finding new oil reserves

The oil companies are buying up mines & mineral rights with their oil profits so they can control the materials used to make the batteries which puts us back to square one.

The batteries cost thousands and have a relatively short life span before they must be replaced - meaning you would be constantly paying for your fuel in the form of however you pay for your car initially (loan etc.) and the ongoing cost of battery replacements - not much different than filling your tank with gas except that there will be a period between battery changes that it will appear to be cheap to travel which will lead to governments exploiting the short term savings by introducing gps or mileage taxes rivaling the current fuel cost per mile being paid by consumers today.

The only real benefit I see is quiet smog less cars which is an improvement.

reply to post by getreadyalready


This was sponsored by MTSU. They funded some estimated $62,000( with ~$250,000 in place). Your saying that they would agree to sponsor and fund a project with insufficient benefit. And he is not suggesting everyone go spend 300,000 so they can do it too. I realize now that he does have a mass production stance on this. And to simplify the process the way all manufacturers do to make it an affordable and beneficial alternative.
MTSU Proposal

reply to post by FelixFelicis


You, too, can drive your alternative fuel vehicle on 95% ethanol. This is a publicity stunt and the "innovation" consists of smoke, mirrors, and existing technology. This guy may turn out to be a drama professor.

nothing to see here... My car (and 57% of light vehicles in my country) can run without using gasoline/diesel as fuel as long they want And if we wanted we could use 100% gasoline too

Originally posted by Aim64C

 

What people don't generally understand is what goes into these horse-and-pony shows of technology.

Originally posted by Uncinus

 

This story is mostly hot air. The professor was just using the electricity he'd "banked" from a huge solar panel array to re-charge the car on the road. It was indirect solar energy from this array at MTSU

Originally posted by getreadyalready

 

What the professor did was take a whole lot of credit for only a tiny bit of innovation. Sure, it is interesting, sure a little bit of the experience and knowledge will be useful for his next project, but he didn't accomplish any great feat, he just made it look like he did.

It appears the good Professor also has a business stake in an alternative energy company hoping to develop and market a type of hydrogen fuel cell. Their website is full of fluff with little substance and obviously designed primarily to fish for investment capitol.

VISION & MISSION

It is our vision that HyPower will be a world leader in reducing the world's dependence on crude oil and gas supplies. Our mission drives us to develop alternative fuel technologies that reduce fuel consumption and toxic emissions while at the same time increasing value to our shareholders and empowering our research staff to think outside of the box....

....Prototypes of the Hydro Power Pak (HPP) were built and tested on various engines and steps were taken to perfect and verify the reductions attained by injecting hydrogen into gasoline and diesel engines. In 2001, a patent for the HPP was attained giving the company a foundation on which to build its hydrogen production and injection technologies. The company's research and development facility has expanded to include two engine test cells, an electronics lab, a fabrication shop, and various test benches with testing apparatus.

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORS

Dr. Cliff Ricketts

PhD

Dr. Cliff Ricketts has been a Professor at Middle Tennessee State University for 30 years. He received his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Tennessee and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Dr. Ricketts has been involved with alternative fuel research since 1978. He has run engines off ethanol from corn, methane from cow manure, soybean oil, hydrogen from water, and has a solar/electric truck....

....Dr. Ricketts is presently working on a plug-in flex-fuel hybrid system using a solar unit to generate electricity which he banks and from which he then generates hydrogen from water through electrolysis to run his internal combustion engine car. Therefore, the only two energy sources to run his vehicles are sun and water.

HyPower Fuel Inc

Take it for what you will, personally, I know better. This is a publicity stunt to dupe the media into giving Dr. Cliff Ricketts national exposure with the hope that the headline "Tenn. professor cruises cross-country on 2.15 gallons of gas" garners the interest of some poor idealistic sucker with deep pockets and little understanding of the engineering involved.

"2,582 miles on 2.15 gallons of gas" however the quantity of ethanol used is absent. The solar array, hydrogen still, vehicle modifications combined are conservatively a $50k USD expense.

It easily cost $50,000 in infrastructure investment to save the $500 in gasoline that the trip would have required in a typical 20 mpg gas-burner,the modified prototypes will be lumps of rust in a wreaking yard before they can break even.

Who knows, maybe they can partner with Andrea Rossi's LENR E-Cat

Time out. I am NOT impressed. He used solar AND electric, implying he charged batteries from the grid. How many megawatts did that use? An how was the hydrogen generated, solar, from grid or prefilled tanks. Great publicity stunt!

Was all solar used onboard?

Originally posted by boncho

Purdue student engineers have designed a street-legal solar-powered commuter car that needs no gas. It can be plugged in to charge, but the solar panels generate so much electricity the car has enough juice to power an air conditioner and additional accessories.

Solar cars have been around for ages now, actually getting someone to drive one is another story.

The OP article is a lot of hot air because it gives absolutely no specifics to what was actually done to the car used in the trip.

$90,000 for a solar car is too much for most people. Now if they could get that price down.
Does it have a back-up system for cloudy days & nights? Does it store electricity? And for how many miles?

As I said before, we know the technologies exist. Now we have to find a way to make those technologies accessible to average people.

And I agree with others here that if an affordable gas-free vehicle were available now, the oil companies would find a way to hide it. Suddenly being free from gasoline fueled cars affects international oil companies and geo-politics. The shock wave would be interesting and probably very unpleasant -- entire national economies are dependent on the oil industry.

Originally posted by caf1550
reply to post by rebellender

 

i couldnt agree more

people are going to rip that statement apart though, everyone talks about how we have hit peak oil and everything i disagree i don't think we will run out of oil anytime soon, governments keep finding new oil reserves

show me empty oil wells. I was in Saudi in 2000. They told us there was 8 yrs oil left in the gulf. What a load of crap. All of it propaganda to drive up speculation.

now they want to shut down Fracking. lets look at it. they are 5000 feet below the surface. Fracking issues not buying it not with all the subsurface tunneling going on. Load of Crap to drive up spec price.

All this and lets use food to create Fuel. Wrong answer

Originally posted by caf1550
reply to post by rebellender

 

i couldnt agree more

people are going to rip that statement apart though, everyone talks about how we have hit peak oil and everything i disagree i don't think we will run out of oil anytime soon, governments keep finding new oil reserves

Not only that but the reservoirs of oil replenish themselves if they lay off extraction for a period of a few years or even a season.
But the high priests of peak oil and biotic oil theory won't listen to that...

Since this has been debunked, or deflated for a better word, I would be willing to attempt to contact Ricketts and invite him to reply to your comments if enough people want me to. I know it would be a long shot, but who knows, he may be willing.

Originally posted by AuranVector
And I agree with others here that if an affordable gas-free vehicle were available now, the oil companies would find a way to hide it. Suddenly being free from gasoline fueled cars affects international oil companies and geo-politics. The shock wave would be interesting and probably very unpleasant -- entire national economies are dependent on the oil industry.

I disagree, if an practical alternative technology to internal combustion was available the big oil companies would co-opt it.

They would buy the patent rights, invest the billions of dollars necessary to refine the design and create the production infrastructure on a scale that would allow competitive pricing and continue to record yearly profits .

That is the mechanics of capitalism in the real world, "build a better mousetrap" and all that fluff.

Regardless, gasoline and diesel combined only account for 60% of crude production. If every car,truck,ship,tractor in the world converted at once there would still be a massive global demand for petroleum. Even an electric car is dependent on petroleum for everything from the plastic interior to the bearing grease.

I freely admit that I would embrace the day the world is weaned off the oil teat and the geo-political and economic situation allows the U.S. to abandon the middle east to their own devices. I honestly don't think we will see that happen in our lifetimes, perhaps our grandchildren will.

Products Made from a Barrel of Crude Oil, 2007
(Gallons)

This graphic illustration of a barrel shows the percentage of products that are made from 44 gallons of crude oil for 2007: 19.15% gasoline; 9.21 % diesel fuel; 1.75% other distillates (heating oil); 1.76% heavy fuel oil (residual); 3.82% jet fuel; 1.72% liquefied petroleum gas (LPG); and 7.27% other products. For more information, contact the National Energy Information Center at 202-586-8800.

Note: A 42-U.S. gallon barrel of crude oil yields between
44 and 45 gallons of petroleum products. These totals
are greater than 42 gallons due to processing gain.
Source: Energy Information Administration

U.S. Energy Information Administration

I wonder if it was a modification using a system similar to this.

www.econokit.fr...

Hmmm.

Originally posted by FelixFelicis
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

This was sponsored by MTSU. They funded some estimated $62,000( with ~$250,000 in place). Your saying that they would agree to sponsor and fund a project with insufficient benefit. And he is not suggesting everyone go spend 300,000 so they can do it too. I realize now that he does have a mass production stance on this. And to simplify the process the way all manufacturers do to make it an affordable and beneficial alternative.
MTSU Proposal

Yes. I don't have the exact number readily available, but something like 90% of all research goes nowhere, is unprofitable, and ends up with worthless results. Here at FSU, they hit it big when a researcher discovered an innovative way to synthetically produce Taxol, but for that one huge project there were a 1000 others that spent millions of dollars and accomplished nothing.

reply to post by boncho


Ah yes, solar powered cars. You are absolutely correct they have bean around a long time. From what I have read, the Australians have done wonderful work in this field. I know because my company paid for some of it. But I have heard, kind of threw the grapevine that the big problem of energy storage with todays batteries may be less of an issue in the near future. I guess we will all find out in time...

reply to post by getreadyalready


It seems silly to sponsor and fund something if it doesn't AT LEAST have a theoretically positive yield on paper.