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High Speed Steam Powered Car 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sure-why-not dept.
CodeWanker wrote in to tell us about a story about new steam powered vehicles that are aiming to set speed records. The car is kind of goofy looking, but more eco friendly (which works for the Prius ;) Don't expect to see anything like this at your local dealer any time soon tho.
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High Speed Steam Powered Car More

High Speed Steam Powered Car

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  • It seems that... (Score:5, Funny)

    by slashdevslashtty ( 712925 ) <slashdevslashtty@yahoo.com> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:24PM (#11200344)
    Valve has done something right.

  • The Prius/hybrids actually isn't good at all (Score:5, Informative)

    by Enigma_Man ( 756516 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:26PM (#11200366) Homepage
    The gas mileage you can get with a hybrid is far less than what you can get with a good diesel engine. Hybrids are a bad idea, twice the weight (batteries, two motors), half the interior room. Diesel-engined cars have been getting 50+ MPG for years and years. Unfortunately the stigma in the US over "diesel" prevents them from being brought over here.

    -Jesse
    • Diesel = Great for gas mileage

      Diesel = Terrible for the environment

      • Re:The Prius/hybrids actually isn't good at all (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:46PM (#11200596) Homepage Journal
        "Diesel = Terrible for the environment"
        No not really if the US would adopt low sulfur diesel then it would not be much different than gas. Plus the one thing that people do not think about on electric and hybrids is the batteries. They are a nightmare to dispose or recycle.

        • Re:The Prius/hybrids actually isn't good at all (Score:5, Funny)

          by Eryq ( 313869 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:01PM (#11200723) Homepage
          Plus the one thing that people do not think about on electric and hybrids is the batteries. They are a nightmare to dispose or recycle.

          You're telling me! My car runs on 9,624 AA alkaline batteries. They only last about 30 miles, and when they conk out I have to use up the ones on my second car just to drive them to the dump...

        • You have also neglected the fact that a diesel engine can, with no modification, be run on biodiesel, which is refined vegetable oil. With mild modification, you can run a diesel engine on raw vegetable oil.

        • Re:The Prius/hybrids actually isn't good at all (Score:4, Informative)

          by ngkdc ( 810481 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:09PM (#11200800)
          You'd better check the recycling rate for lead-acid batteries before you go on about how horrible it is to dispose or recycle them. With an approximate 94% recycling rate, the lead-acid battery industry is just about as good as it gets. Most of the batteries that don't get recycled are due to ignorance, not the lack of opportunity. ANY lead-acid battery reseller will accept old lead-acid batteries for recycling, since everything in the battery is fully recyclable, and has a strong market for the materials (plastic is reground and used to make new battery cases, the sulfuric acid electrolyte is neturalized and converted to food-grade sodium sulfate (a preservative), and the lead is smelted back into the appropriate alloy(s) for making new lead-acid batteries.
          Further, the cycle of lead from smelter -> battery manufacturer -> consumer -> old battery to smelter is as tight a closed loop as you'll find (short of a cow in a pasture).

          BUT, don't just take my word on it ... do some research!
        • No not really if the US would adopt low sulfur diesel then it would not be much different than gas.

          Unfortunately, if you take a realistic look at the oil industry in the US, it doesn't look like ULSD is going to happen. You can yell at and spank a spoiled, coddled child all you want, and they'll still whine and cry, kick and scream.

          I think that the only long-term hope for Diesel technology in the US is a replacement of the current petroleum industry with a competitive supplier of Biodiesel. The technolo
      • Yes diesel is really bad, but the pollution problem is being worked on. In the US diesel fuel has sulfur added to it for engine lubrication. Sulfur is supposed to be phased down from 500 ppm to 15 ppm in 2006. With that phase down, emission control systems can be added to reduce particulate matter emissions by 90% and Nitrous Oxides by 95%.
    • Why not a diesel hybrid then?

      • You still have the excess weight and consequential lack of space problem.
      • I don't think that a hybrid system adds all that much to the vehicle... If you removed the batteries + electric motor from a Prius, you'd save a lot of weight, and I'd bet you'd probably get almost the same gas mileage as you did before, just using the 1.2 (or whatever it is) liter gas engine.

        -Jesse
        • You would probably get even better gas milage on the highways actually. The problem would be that your car would accelerate terribly and have trouble getting up to highway speeds. The advantage of the Hybrids isn't so much that it makes compact gas-sippers more efficent (it doesn't do a particularly good job of that), but rather it makes them perform like regular cars so regular people will be interested in them. People don't like taking a minute to get to highway speeds, which is one of the big reasons
    • The stigma really isn't so bad anymore, as another poster pointed out, there are emissions concerns with diesel, with nitrates, sulfates and particulates. I like the tech, but the environmental reasons do have merit.
    • the hybrid car designs (small interior) are not the result of the engine, but of the designers. In their attempts to get a new look they did a butcher job. It is almost like they wished to sabotage the chances of hybrids taking off - figuring nobody would buy such a small vehicle (it was the honda i believe that had the first one) - and if nobody buys it then they can say the tech sucks and we should remain with gas.
      Diesl, i believe is very bad for the environment, but don't quote me on that.

      The purpose
      • They Start out with a small car. I think they just started off with small hybrid cars to actually improve the sales of these cars. Any starting technology will be more expensive then the older technology so by putting hybrid in small cars it makes them more afordable then say making a $40k SUV cost $50k vs. a $12k car a $18k car. So the prices are more targets to the buyers market. Second in order to really show off the Gas milage of the technology it is easer to give a Small Car 50 Miles to the gallon l

    • Re:The Prius/hybrids actually isn't good at all (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ArsonSmith ( 13997 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:51PM (#11200643) Journal
      Twice the weight? unless you have a 50lbs car then it is far less than twice the weight.
      Half the interior room? Unless you have 1.2 cubic foot of space in your car then it takes up far less than half the space.

      Why do hybrids get such criticism? The technology is sound, it is not married to petrol engines and could easily be used on Diesel. In fact it would be ideal for diesel engines to be hybrids. It does help improve mileage. What has a hybrid car done to you, and others who criticize this way?

    • Re:The Prius/hybrids actually isn't good at all (Score:5, Informative)

      by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:52PM (#11200653)
      " The gas mileage you can get with a hybrid is far less than what you can get with a good diesel engine."

      That's because we measure mileage using miles/gallon, and *diesel has more energy per gallon than gasoline*. About 30% more, in fact. That's like saying that a P-M is better than an Athlon 64 because it gets more work done "per clock". That's not the unit you need to be evaluating.

      "Unfortunately the stigma in the US over "diesel" prevents them from being brought over here."

      It's not the stigma, it's the envrionment. Even "clean" diesel engines rank horribly on particulate, NOx, and other nasty emissions.

      The Prius *wasn't* designed to get the best gas mileage period. It was designed to reduce emissions *and* get good fuel economy. The Prius actually burns gas when it doesn't have to so that the catalytic converter stays hot (it doesn't work otherwise).

      "Hybrids are a bad idea, twice the weight (batteries, two motors), half the interior room."

      That's bullshit. The entire THSD - including the batteries and motor - is around 800lbs. This is *easily* offset by the fact that the Prius doesn't need a wasteful transmission. You might be able to save 400lbs using a vehicle with a manual transmission, but that's not really comparable to the automatic Prius, is it?

      Oh, and your precious diesel cars? They weigh more than their gasoline counterparts because diesel engines need stronger components (much higher compression).

      And, half the interior room? What kind of crap is that? The batteries in the Prius don't take up much room at all - and the engine compartment isn't any bigger than the one on any other medium-small car.

      "Diesel-engined cars have been getting 50+ MPG for years and years."

      The Prius hits 50mpg in real-world testing, too, with fuel that has 30% less energy than diesel.
      • It's not the stigma, it's the envrionment. Even "clean" diesel engines rank horribly on particulate, NOx, and other nasty emissions.

        I suggest you look into new diesel engines. They can be even cleaner than their non-diesel counterparts with recent innovations in diesel catalytic converters and filters.

        Oh, and your precious diesel cars? They weigh more than their gasoline counterparts because diesel engines need stronger components (much higher compression).

        A diesel engine may weigh slightly more
      • That's bullshit. The entire THSD - including the batteries and motor - is around 800lbs. This is *easily* offset by the fact that the Prius doesn't need a wasteful transmission. You might be able to save 400lbs using a vehicle with a manual transmission, but that's not really comparable to the automatic Prius, is it?

        I don't understand where you're getting your numbers. How much do you think an automatic transmission weighs?

        My car has a small aluminum 4 cylinder with a lightweight transaxle (front wheel d
      • First it takes less energy and material to produce a gallon of diesel. I belive the cost to make gasoline is 55 gallons of diesel.

        Second the restrictions in the US are mostly because of California. The idea of what is pollution in California is nearly the opposite of what is considered in Europe. So Europe gets more diesels and there is much more money spent to make them efficient and clean.

        There is more real air pollution in the NorthEast during winter months than in California regardless of time of y
    • Imagine everything good about your diesel cars.

      Then make them hybrid!

      If a Hybrid gas electric can make 40% better mileage then the same technologies on a 50MPG diesel should push it into the 70MPG range easy.

      Diesel is great and I would love to see Diesel hybrids. Even better would be diesel-steam-eletric hybrids!

      Diesel as a compact, efficient, renewable energy source.
      Steam turbine as the efficient electric generator.
      Electric as the efficient drivetrain and braking system.
    • What stigma? I see diesel chugging 1-ton pick-ups all over the place here!

      Ok, humor aside, you're right. The problem, I think, was the crappy attempt by US auto makers at diesel cars in the late 70's early 80's. About the only decent diesel cars I know of that are readily available here are VW and Mercedes made.

      As a matter of fact, I'm looking into a Jetta TDI now, as I'm working in downtown Houston again (40 mile commute) and currently I drive a full sized pickup myself.

      If anyone has any suggest
    • Grrr!!! Rowr!!!

      The "Bad Hybrid" trolls have been loud lately!

      As a present hybrid owner, I'm perfectly happy with my car, thank you very much. As a former Diesel owner, I was very happy with that car, too.

    • It will surely break the space constraints in a small vehicle, but what about the possibility to build a steam powered hybrid engine? That way the steam turbine can run either at optimal rpm or not at all, while the electric motor brings optimal torque for a "satisfying driving experience" and whatnot.

      Twice the weight is a serious argument against this idea, though. Harmful lead in the batteries is not, as lead recycling is pretty efficient nowadays.

      As steam turbines run on anything that can heat up
    • So how about a hybrid with a diesel engine. Low sulfur fuel plus an engine tuned to run at a set rpm would go a long way to reduce local pollution from diesel engines, as well as being very efficient.

      Anyway hybrids are a good idea, they take a very small underpowered but efficient engine and boost it's output for acceleration using an electric motor and some capacitor/battery for energy storage. Energy is recoverd by using regenerative braking instead of wasting it as heat (this is one reason hydrids do s

  • The Air Car... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kjuib ( 584451 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:26PM (#11200367) Homepage Journal
    http://www.theaircar.com/

    does not run on steam. But runs on air... And you can expect to see these at a local dealer soon. (at least Europe)

    • Finally! (Score:3, Funny)

      by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 )
      Some place I can play my air guitar without feeling silly.

    • And you can expect to see these at a local dealer soon. (at least Europe)

      What, you mean it's not vaporware?

  • Still using fossil fuels? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hexed_2050 ( 841538 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:29PM (#11200397)
    Anything that can begin to cut down on the amount of pollution that is generated in our atmosphere is a step in the right direction.

    Sure, I'm not about to give up my VW GTI VR6 just yet, but sooner or later something's gotta give. Even Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story is mocking us:

    'Do you people still use fossil fuels, or have you discovered crystallic fusion?'

  • So it's a steam turbine (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:30PM (#11200405)
    Turbines are interesting designs and have been tried in cars before IIRC (i remember seeing a documentary on History Channel about this), was it Ford? They had a car that basically ran on anything that burned; they even tried common isopropyl alcohol on it. Worked just fine.

    I wonder how efficient this engine is. Also, how quiet - that was one of the main issues with the car i mentioned before, it sounded like a small jet plane.
    • "was it Ford?"

      It was Chrysler, but the car looked quite a bit like a Ford Thunderbird. IIRC, Chrysler builds the M1 Abrams tanks which are also turbine powered.
    • And the turbine powered race cars that were the bane of Nascar in the seventies?

      That showed that you could build a FAST car that basically ran on anything.

      Nothing new here.

    • I think some of the engineering problems with turbines are:

      - how to efficiently gear down something spinning at tens of thousands of RPM
      - how to muffle them, since turbines are very sensitive to intake and exhaust restriction
      - do turbines consume their oil supply, too? I'm not sure.

      I'd love a super-efficient turbine in my car (direct fuel to rotational energy conversion!) but I'm not sure if the engineering problems have been solved, yet.
      • The problem that people keep running into with turbine powered cars is that they try to hook the turbine up the rest of the drivetrain from a gasoline powered car. If you hook the turbine instead to a generator, you can run at a constant RPM (making the turbine happy), and then power electric motors at the wheels (or a single motor driving a differential). With all the electronics on a modern car, you've got the alternator in there already, just need to go all the way.
  • Here's a question I've never had answered fully-

    Say that fuelcells start powering everything, and their exhaust is going to be water.
    BR> What is going to happen to all that water that we create? Isn't that going to have reaching enviromental implications as well?
    • Was that a joke? We don't have huge untapped reservoirs of hydrogen. the hydrogen will be created from water. Hydrogen fuel will hopefully be used to store all the energy we get from clean sources(wave, wind etc). The hydrogen itself is just a clean, non polluting battery. We don't create extra water.
    • One of the tricky things people don't always understand is that you can't create something from nothing. We can't flood the world by running fuel cells because we have to create the H2 before we can burn it in a fuel cell. One way to create H2 is to electrolize water! Other methods (usually using Hydrocarbons) may increase the amount of water not locked-up in the Earth's crust over the short run (much the same way we are currently releasing enormous amount of Carbon that was previously locked up in Old/C
    • Ever heard of something called the Pacific Ocean? It's plum full of that substance we call water. I hear there's even more oceans than just the Pacific.

      I really do hope you're joking. Any amount of water we can "create" (that wasn't water to begin with) would be completely insignificant to the amount of water we already redistribute throughout the environment by just being alive.

  • Steam Powered? (Score:3, Funny)

    by freelance cynic ( 653710 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:33PM (#11200444)
    Will the engine refuse to start if it can't connect to the internet?

  • Operation (Score:5, Funny)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 ) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:33PM (#11200448) Homepage Journal
    Does the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which the deceleratrix?

    -Peter
  • This would compliment my telegraph powered internet connection and my horse drawn dishwasher. Heh.

  • Stanley Steamer (Score:5, Informative)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:33PM (#11200456) Homepage Journal
    My father-in-law actually remembers some people who had Stanleys from back in the 30s. I imagine that they were the same kind of people I remember from my youth who kept their 2-stroke Saabs on the road: engineering afficiandos.

    According to pops, the Stanley was a terrific car in most respects, and fast as all get-out, but it had one fatal flaw. You had to heat the boiler up for a long time before you could get going. No running out the convenience store for a gallon of milk in that car.

    • Re:Stanley Steamer (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gwn ( 594936 )
      I remember one late spring in the 70's, sitting in the back seat cruising down the highway and passing a convoy of steamers. Later they caught up with us at a fuel stop and we had a good look. The driver of one steamer replied to a speed question along these lines "she can go really fast, but we drive at a reasonable speed because of the bugs...". Several of the cars, all open, had dinky windshields and the black flies and mosquitoes must have hurt. They were certainly beautiful works of engineering and
    • I heard the same things about the Stanleys Steamers from my grandfather. Looks like what was old is new again.
    • No running out the convenience store for a gallon of milk in that car.

      Sounds like that'd probably be a good thing in the long run.

  • Goofy Looking? No way! (Score:3, Funny)

    by SpaFF ( 18764 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:37PM (#11200492) Homepage
    The car is kind of goofy looking...

    Whatever man, I think it looks awesome. Fark hit the nail right on the head when they described it as the batmobile in their headline.

  • Alternative power (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Also, check out this wood powered Yugo [medijaklub.cg.yu]. It gets 145km per 35kg of wood.
    English text not available. :(

  • Nothing new but.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MajorDick ( 735308 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:39PM (#11200519)
    Steam and Electric are obviously nothing new, the first Car to break 100 mph was I belive electric.

    Steam , like electric has several DISADVANTAGES as well, The was a time, when steam engines didnt reclain their steam that steam polution caused great enviromental issues with their condensate.

    In addition high pressuer steam is DANGEROUS, and any vehicle designed would need to take that into account, think of the danger to the occupants of a vehicle whose boiler explodes.

    For a take on this take a Hot Water heater, it is actually (gas or electric) the MOST Dangerous item in you hous a blocked T&P (Temperature and Pressure relief valve) with a tank in ovverun condition can catapult a Hot water tank through a 3 story house to a height of 100 ft, yup thats right, just like those little red plastic water rockets you had as a kid.

    I was a union plumber and pipefitter, my specialty was in steam, I can tell you while the average goober might see great potential they seldom see the very real dangers of steam, steam to most seem innocent enough, just look at some of the deaths associate with steam engines recently, This even happened about 10 miles from my home an hourt after I left. Here [chiefengineer.org] and Here [newsnet5.com] , and the fellow who owned and operated this was FAMILIAR with these risks, from burns to boiler failures, its not something to screw with unless you know what youre doing, and even then it will leave you suspicious
    • Low water over the crown sheet will do it every time - epitaph for many locomotive firemen. IIRC, Strasbourg RR had an accident a few years ago just from that cause - contributing factor was problems with the sight gauge.

      It was common back in days of steam to see major parts of the locomotive a quarter-mile away from the site of the explosion.

      OTOH, most modern steam cars have been using flash boilers with a much smaller water inventory than the old style firetube boilers. Properly designed, a failure in a

    • For a take on this take a Hot Water heater, it is actually (gas or electric) the MOST Dangerous item in you hous a blocked T&P (Temperature and Pressure relief valve) with a tank in ovverun condition can catapult a Hot water tank through a 3 story house to a height of 100 ft, yup thats right, just like those little red plastic water rockets you had as a kid.

      I'm not sure if the hot water heaters where you worked are the same as the ones here, but this scenario is very doubtful here, for several reasons.

  • Now theres a name just begging for some tasteless puns.

  • Steam is not a source of energy (Score:4, Informative)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @01:40PM (#11200537)
    OK, I've RTFA. Hype! The bottom line is that steam is not a source of energy. Something has got to make that steam. And that gets us right back to the problem of supplying the energy in a form that burns clean and is clean to produce in the first place (Hydrogen for hydrogen based cars, by the way, burns clean, but is made from natural gas in a very polluting and wasteful process; overall a "clean burning" hydrogen car is a much more wasteful car and a source of more total polution tyhan one that would just use natural gas directly. Of course, if we were to produce hydrogen cleanly that would change, but there seems to be no move to do so.)
  • Anyone remember Stirling powered cars?
    They've been around for years, the Air Force used them, the USPS used them, etc...
    Not to mention, the Stanley Steamer....

    Nothing new to see here, move along...

  • Well (Score:2, Funny)

    by GasKewled ( 844168 )
    If we could make one run off flies, that would be something
  • Now that we've reached this milestone, how long before we have high-speed giant robot steam spiders? We've had the slow ones since the days of the Wild Wild West.
  • ...to vapor-ware!
  • For what it's worth, the first automobile to exceed 200 MPH was a Stanley Steamer, outfitted with an aerodynamic body (IIRC, the year was 1919, the location Daytona Beach).

    Unfortunately, they didn't understand aerodynamics as well then as we do now, and on the next run the car hit a bump and became the first automobile to fly more than 500 feet -- totalling the car and killing the driver.

  • Steam is just an energy transport mechanism, like roller chain, belt drives, gears, hydraulics or electricity.

  • Can we make whiskey while we drive? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Blimey85 ( 609949 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @02:29PM (#11200980)
    What if instead of water we put in our ingredients for whiskey and use the car as a still? Maybe have a closed system that you get paid for that you can swap at gas stations... so you pull in to fuel up and you swap tanks... you give them your tank of whiskey and an empty ingredients tank. They give you an empty whiskey tank and a full ingredients tank.

    Then you run a hose from the whiskey tank to the drivers area... and you run a hose from you windshield wiper... hook both of those into a t connector... then fill the windshield wiper resevoir with oj... and you've got instant screwdrivers while you drive!

  • Do the Math... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    30% less emissions, half the efficiency.

    Ever read about the good old days of good, clean, horse power? On big work projects, half of the horses were hauling water and food for the other half. Not to mention the tons of emissions - horse urine, road apples, and Al Gore's greenhouse gasses.
  • Although steam engines still need to burn hydrocarbon-based fuels like petrol and diesel, which in turn release carbon dioxide, external combustion engines can control the release and the production of CO2 more efficiently.

    How so? Isn't the amount of CO2 proportional the amount of fuel you burn, no matter how you burn it?

    Better to transfer the heat directly to the axles, the extra step of the steam turbine wastes enegry due to friction, not to mention the added weight of the extra crap you have to ca

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