Unless you’re the current president, you’ve probably heard of the latest craze in environmental circles, namely “carbon neutral” and “carbon off-sets.” The idea being that by taking certain measures, you’ll be able to reduce the amount of global warming you’re responsible for. In about a decade, or less, I’m willing to bet, “carbon neutral” will be replaced by “carbon negative.” Why?
Because we’ve already crossed the first “carbon threshold” and even if all carbon emissions were stopped today, it’d be years before global warming begins to slow down. Given that it’s physically impossible for us to switch to a carbon-free lifestyle anytime soon, our only hope is to transition to a carbon negative system as quickly as possible. It is my belief that steam powered cars are the only practical way to do it any time soon.
Many environmentalists will argue that we should just get rid of cars altogether and force everyone to use mass transit. That’s both absurd and impossible. First of all, certain businesses require the use of automobiles. There’s no way a service tech tote all the gear he/she might need on a mass transit system. Even if they could, the delays caused by having to wait for the bus, subway, etc., would be intolerable for their customers. Salespoeple would have a difficult time making sales calls if they had to carry their wares on mass transit. They’d also have a hard time making the same amount of calls per day if they were restricted to it. Emergency workers couldn’t respond to a disaster if they had to wait for mass transit to get them to work in an emergency.
Consultants adn realitors would probably have a hard time as well. Plus, in order for mass transit to be cost efficient it needs a minimum number of riders per mile. Given that in some places the population’s too sparse, they’d have to relocate to some place more densely populated. Not practical for farmers.
Still, nutters will argue, if we only allowed those people to have cars, we’d all be better off, and to an extent, they’re right. Sure we could adapt to the minor inconviences of mass transit, like having to catch the bus, carrying packages on the subway, taking a cab on a date (we’re still going to allow cabs, right?), etc., etc. etc.
All of this, again, won’t cut our carbon emissions to a negative, but will help those responsible individuals who buy carbon off-sets, and think of all the added freedom we’ll have: No car payments, no insurance, no inspections to worry about or other expenses. Kind of balances things out, I’d say. Until there’s a natural disaster, that is. (Or the exceedingly unlikely massive terrorist attack.)
While we all hope that the next Administration fixes the problems at FEMA, even a well-run FEMA is going to require time to respond to a natural disaster. In the meantime, you’re going to have to fend for yourself. If you need to get to a hospital or some place where there’s power, water, or some other basic necessity and the only mean’s of getting around that you have is mass transit, you could very well be SOL.
Mind you, I’m not saying everyone should own a car, only that the banning of cars is absurdly stupid. Most of us do not live in areas where we have ample warning to clear out before disaster strikes. You never hear the weather man saying, “A tornado is going to strike here next week, so everyone needs to start evacuating now.” Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and the like, often strike with little to no warning. Having access to a car, at least during the immediate aftermath can mean the difference between life and death.
Okay, so we’ve hopefully agreed, now, that cars can stay. So we need to make them more environmentally friendly. Let’s look at the available technology we have to do this with. No handwaving and making Mr. Fusion[sup]TM[/sup] units. Fuel cells, despite all their promises, are like cheap fusion power: It’ll happen any day now, give or take fifty or so years. Electric cars are somewhat practical, but even the fastest charging ones take several hours, battery packs are only good for a few years and are made of environmentally hazardous materials. Hybrids, plug-ins or otherwise, use some of the same hazardous materials as electrics, and unless they run on hydrogen, still spew out carbon. Flex fuel vehicles don’t have the dangerous battery packs, but still emit carbon (though at lower levels when they’re running on certain fuels).
What we need is something which combines the best features of these technologies, with few, if any of the downsides. That is where steam cars come into play. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, long warm up times, water consumption, poor fuel economy, boiler explosions, and so on. Trust me, we’ve discussed these to death and they were all solved before steam cars ceased production. You can search the board for the threads if you doubt me, but even if they hadn’t been, it’s been 70 years since there were last in production, and as well all know, 70 years ago, telephones were so big and heavy that you could kill a puma with one. Now, they’re small enough, and light enough that you can shove one up your ass (and certain models will spit out a fax if you do that ;)). So figuring out how to fix those problems wouldn’t be difficult. Even if they were, the steam car as I’m about to describe it, has such benefits that they outweigh any headaches that would be associated with their development.
I know what you’re thinking: Why does it need to be a steamer? Why not just a modified IC engine? Wouldn’t that be better? You could modify an IC engine, it’s true and you’d be able to get all the convience we’ve come to expect from IC engines, with none of the downsides of a steamer, but a steamer would be better able to take advantage of the properties of the fuel at a lower cost, greater flexibility, and with benefits to folks living in cold climates.
Let’s take a quick look at how IC engines work, no matter what fuel they might be using. Fuel and air are mixed in a cylinder, a spark is added and the whole thing explodes. The force of the explosion is what moves the piston, the heat generated by it is primarily an annoyance to be discarded. People have designed cars (and even locomotives) to run on compressed air. This solves both the heat and emissions problems, but I think that the disadvantages should be obvious. (I’ll just mention one: The air tanks have to be pressurized to 3,000 psi.)
A steam car is basically the reverse of an IC car. The more heat, the better, and explosions are a Bad Thing[sup]TM[/sup]. Of course, by now you’re probably screaming, “What exactly is it that makes a steamer so much better, asshole?” I’ll tell you: With the right fuel, zero carbon emissions (and that’s mister Asshole, to you). That now puts it on equal footing with fuel cells and electrics. I am now, with no hand waving, or miracles, going to put it ahead of both of those choices. In fact, I’m going to even give fuel cells an advantage over ones presently in existence. Let’s say that someone finally manages to produce a cheap fuel cell, so that their cost is comparable to that of a conventional IC engine. A steamer still beats 'em.
How? Well, first of all, not just any old steamer will do, but it wouldn’t be difficult to modify the steamers presently in existence to do this. Here’s the downside, as it were, to fuel cells: Nothing else comes of the energy used to produce the hydrogen, other than oxygen. That’s it. Oxygen, of course, is a good thing to be pumping in the atmosphere, and it has uses both in the medical and industrial fields.
Fuel cells also have a narrow band of fuels on which they can run. This will cause problems for the early adopters. If there’s no hydrogen stations, you can’t fill up.
A steamer, capable of using scrap aluminum to split water into hydrogen and oxygen has none of those worries. To get the aluminum to split water, you have to get it burning. In the case of aluminum powder, this isn’t all that difficult. A spark will do it. Solid aluminum can’t be lit using a spark, but a dip in nitric acid will remove the oxide coating so that aluminum spontainiously combusts upon contact with water.
The heat generated by the burning aluminum as well as that created by the burning hydrogen can be used to heat the boiler. In an IC car operating off a similar principle, the heat would only be useful in that it caused the hydrogen to explode. Once you get the delicate balancing act required to keep the mixture just right. You’d also have to have a way to remove the aluminum oxide from the cylinders so that it won’t foul them up. Finally, if you run out of aluminum in the properly prepared form, you’d be stuck, unless additional levels of complexity were added to the engine in order to make it a flex fuel vehicle (assuming this is even possible).
Steamers can run on anything flammable, so all you’d need is a burner and a fuel tank and you’d be all set. Cleaning out the aluminum oxide would be easy, too. All you’d need is a small access hatch in the boiler and cleaning it our would be as simple cleaning out a charcoal grill.
Steam cars have two winter time advantages which beat every other kind of car, hands down. The first is heat. The hotter the steam, the more power a steamer generates. Tapping into that to provide heat for the passenger cabin is easy and it wouldn’t be difficult to keep the interior balmy.
The second advantage, is that the exhaust steam from the engine is still plenty warm and it would not be difficult at all to install a mechanism to divert some of that steam with the push of a button to the wheel wells. A driver who found himself stuck on a patch of ice, instead of of trying to push the car, could at the push of a button, which would direct hot steam in front of the driving wheels, thereby melting the ice underneath them.
By now, you’re probably saying, “If this is such a good idea, why isn’t anyone building them?” The answer’s pretty simple: You can’t build something if you’ve never heard of it. Call up any automotive engineer and ask them if they’ve heard of it, they’ll tell you “nope.”
So now you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this and not building cars and getting rich. Well, if I had the money, I would be doing it. I’ve certainly got the skills necessary to do it, I just lack the resources to do it quickly. Truthfully, as much as I’d like to be worth a kajillion dollars, I’d be more than happy to just have enough to convert my Chyrsler and fully restore her (with a few pimin’ customizations to be sure ;).
Ideally, once I got the car done, I’d take her on a 49 state tour (sorry HI) to show the car off and help raise awareness that we don’t have to wait for battery technology to improve or for someone to develop a Mr. Fusion[sup]TM[/sup] unit to be able to drive a non-polluting vehicle.
My rough estimate of the cost to simply get the car up and running (if I do all the work) is $7K. That’s just to get the car up and running, fixing things like rust, bad tires and the like will cost more. My best estimate for a total restoration (including pimp out) and the cross country tour is $25K, which is out of my price range at the moment.
I keep running different ideas through my head at how I might scrape up the cash. Most of the stuff I own are books which won’t fetch much if I sell them. Selling the engine and transmission out of the car would get me a grand at most (more likely I’d only get about $500). There’s not much point in my trying to pitch the idea to the car companies as all of them have a “not invented here” attitude, or as the guy who invented the intermittant wipers found out, they’ll simply steal your idea. (He sued, had to go all the way to the Supreme Court and his award was less than his legal bills.)
The best idea I’ve been able to come up with is starting a non-profit and throwing up a webpage (as soon as I can learn to code), asking for donations, but I can’t really imagine that working. After all, who;'s going to believe me? Sure, I can provide references from reliable sources that it’ll work, but I’m no engineer. I’m just a machinist with a crazy dream. If anybody’s got any better ideas I’m open to them.
