Club 80-90 Forums

Any energy it generated would actually be being driven by the motor driving the vehicle, ie. its not 'free energy'.

if the turbine generated a kilowatt, then the motor moving the vehicle would need to generate an EXTRA kilowatt and a bit extra on top just for fun.

Its just like sticking a generator straight onto a motor, and then using that generated energy to drive the motor. The extra energy generated is almost equal to the extra load you would be placing on the motor, so you are back to square 1.

The only differences are the losses in the system.

Consider the streamlining (or lack of) on a T3, or any vehicle really. Its all resistance that the main driving motor has to over come. If theres a turbine on the vehicle, thats extra resistance. If the turbine is being spun, its the motor forcing the van (& therefore turbine) against the air, and so the motor is under the extra load that the turbine creates. To overcome that load, it needs as least as much power as the turbine is generating.

What you really want to do is stick a Stirling engine+ generator on the coolant + exhaust, that would charge up the battery a treat.

Not much energy generated in an engine ends up at the wheels, a good chunk is turned into heat. Turn that heat into electricity & you can charge a fair sized battery (in theory)


Now my brain hurts, thanks a bunch

Wow!!!!!

Mr. Smith (et al):

The way to recover energy from the exhaust is (IMHO) with our good buddy TED (Thermo Electric Devices). Head to the link below and click on "Seebeck Effect" and have a quick read. I left the whole index page linked because there are so many other good things there related to energy efficiency and conservation.

http://www.freeenergynews.com/Directory ... index.html

Gas hogs are maybe 25% efficient on a good day, so around 75% of the energy is simply piddled away. At least with modern diesel technology, we can start out from a slightly higher plain.