I really should say “we” because a couple of Dopers (names withheld to protect the guilty ;)) helped a great deal on the project (and will, I’m sure much to their regret, help me pitch it to Google next week). No, the proposal is not on how they can get their shit together and get me off the planet before I’m too doddering an old man to be able to enjoy zero gravity nookie (that’ll be next year ;)).
One of their categories in their Create the Future Contest is for “Transportation.” Given that the top prize is $20K, I figured that it couldn’t hurt to enter my idea for a steam car (especially since I and my “minions” are busily working on a proposal for a Google grant in vehicle-to-grid designs).
If they accept my entry and publish it on their site, I’ll post the link so you folks can point to it and laugh ;). And if anyone has any pointers after looking it over, please let me know. I’ve got a week to go before the deadline on the Google grant and I’m sweating bullets over the damn thing. Not that the NASA thing wasn’t a bitch. A limit of 500 words (and mine comes in at 500 exactly, I could have used a couple thousand to really make my case), plus a drawing (And guess who doesn’t know how to use anything more sophisticated than MS Paint?) is actually a tough nut.
Now, I’m going to pour myself a drink and get blotto’d if you don’t mind.
Wouldn’t the water turn to ice and crack the tank in the winter? Or would you get around this with some sort of continuous burn? And what would that do the fuel economy?
Good Luck, I was just reading a book by Poul Anderson where he was complaining we royally screwed up going with the ICE engine instead of continuing with steam engines.
If properly insulated, there won’t be any danger of it freezing for some time, unless it gets insanely cold. A small pilot light, or plug in electric heater (common on ICE cars in the North) would keep the water from freezing otherwise. The pilot light would have a small impact on fuel economy, but I doubt it’d be more than about a gallon per mile. If you’re getting the same kind (or better) of fuel economy as a hybrid (should be possible with the use of lightweight materials in the construction) or hydrogen generated from scrap aluminum cans (which will produce no greenhouse gases, I might add), are you really going to care if it impacts fuel economy?
2nd Law, possible, but you wouldn’t really see the kind of fuel economy gains that you get from switching from an ordinary gas engine to gas/electric/hybrid, because many of the things that hybrids do now, to save fuel (shutting off at traffic lights, smaller enginer), a steamer can already do. Plus, you’d be adding complexity, which, IMHO, is bad.
What Exit?, what book? Heinlein says something similar in one of his novels, where one of the characters complains about the design of cars and says, “External combustion is always more efficient.”
AFAIK, no one’s suggested bolted an aluminum based hydrogen generator to an automotive steam engine or building the engine and associated components out of things like carbon fiber or high temp ceramics.
