Fantasy and Fantastic
May 28, 2009 (Wednesday)
I mentioned in Tuesday’s blog that there are several ideas, either on the drawing board or already on the road for fuel-efficient cars. Today I’d like to mention a few more.
There is the nitrogen car, which loads up liquid nitrogen, then turns it into gas by allowing it to heat up to atmospheric temperature, subsequently using the gas to power some sort of locomotion device.
There is another type of car using liquid nitrogen, described to me by a dear friend years ago. He said it had actually been tried out and was successful. The idea is to use liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant, cooling electrical parts and thereby lowering resistance in wires, components and motors. It is essentially an electric car, running on batteries, but the supercooling makes the motor more powerful with less energy. Sounds plausible to me.
Maybe we could bring back the steamer, a car that runs on steam like the old locomotives. The water could be heated with a small nuclear reactor. Don’t like that idea? Why not try some of the following?
How about a kiddie car design? I had one when I was a kid. I sat in the driver’s seat and pedaled the car down the road. Fred Flintstone and his friends had cars like that, without the pedals. It was direct drive, their feet hitting the road. Lets you exercise and drive at the same time.
While engaging in the fantastic, why not design the super rubber band? We used to do that with little boats, creating our own little river paddle boats. Just wind the paddle into the rubber band as tightly as possible, put it into the water, and watch it go. Ought to work with cars, too. Just requires a few refinements in making the theory practical.
And there’s my idea of a giant flywheel. The car would have the shape of an airboat, with a heavy flywheel instead of a propeller at the rear of the vehicle. Get the wheel turning and the momentum will keep it going while the engine is turned off. Repeat the process until the grocery store parking lot appears on the horizon.
Think none of these ideas will work? Oh, yeah? They laughed at the Wright brothers, too. Think about that the next time you fly.