Electric Motors All The Way?

Discussion in 'Architecture & Engineering' started by ricardonest, Jan 31, 2012.

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  1. ricardonest Registered Senior Member

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    Just wondering what other people's feelings are in terms of going full force with electric motor technology? Supposedly, there are so many electric motors in use in a variety of industries, including power plants and wind turbines, even a slight improvement of only 5% could result in a significant overall energy savings across all industries.

    What are your thoughts? If you need a thought provoking article, here goes an opinion piece on this subject.

    Redesigning the electrical engine for energy efficiency
     
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  3. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    internal combustion engines can be almost pollution free, right now, with the right fuel.
    propane for example.

    it's theoretically impossible to get efficiencies much above 50% with an internal combustion engine.

    i believe the best "motor" will be an organic one.
    we could easily create a stand alone "heart muscle" that could be used to pump a working fluid.
    the major drawback would be interfacing such a organic motor to metal.
     
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    A device that would make fuel for any engine like making hydrogen in your own vehicle as you drive along using only what you need. Using hydrogen to power any engine would be the best idea for there's plenty of sea water to use to extract the hydrogen from and when you burn it , it returns to water vapor, few pollutants at all.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=vzLTeQeI8tY
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2012
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  7. michael_taylor Registered Senior Member

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    I don't think there's a hell of a lot in it. Electric motors are already very efficient, and for large sizes very close to the maximum theoretical efficiency.

    The inefficiencies mainly come from producing, transmitting and especially storing the electricity.

    Every bit helps though, so if it's a matter of making smarter designs which cost about the same to manufacture, I think people would like it.

    A motor designed to lose less energy in friction and vibration should run quieter and last longer.
     
  8. Mikemcc Registered Senior Member

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    It's less to do with motor design and more to do with how they are used and controlled. For instance the use of variable speed drives to control motors can result in big savings in some applications.
     
  9. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    You still need a battery to make them work. Most batteries won't stay charged for very long when put under a sever load. Those batteries run down and will become an environmental problem when discarded.
     
  10. michael_taylor Registered Senior Member

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    All technology wears out. Anything can become an environmental problem if discarded.

    If the steel from a worn out fossil fuel engine is worth recycling (it is), what do you think happens to materials batteries contain (that are worth many times more per kg) ?

    All current battery technologies are recyclable, so saying it's a problem to discard them no more precludes their usefulness than saying it's a problem to discard gasoline would preclude fossil fueled engines.

    It's like a fork; it's a problem if you stick it in someone's eye, but the answer to that isn't eating with your fingers.

    The only issue of engineering practicality that's a significant problem is the energy density of current battery technologies. They're currently too heavy for the longest few percent of journeys, unless you have charging or battery swap stations en route.
     
  11. michael_taylor Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, it could help in applications which don't already use those methods, such as devices from the middle of the last century.
     
  12. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Not really.

    The most recycled product in the US is the Lead Acid Battery.

    The recycle value of Lithium batteries will be much higher and so one can be reasonably assured that virtually all of them will be recycled.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=whats-the-most-recycled-product-in-10-04-18
     
  13. Cifo Day destroys the night, Registered Senior Member

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    And 5% is about all you'd get because electric motors are already about 95% efficient.

    They say bicycling is the most efficient form of transportation.

    A cyborg engine? No problem. Replace pistons and cylinders with muscles grafted onto bearings attached to the crankshafts. The muscles could be arranged in a radial design, among others. The other end of the muscles would anchor in the engine's frame, where it's supplied with oxygen and nutrients. All the muscles would have pacemakers to control their force and timing. Along with this, you'd need a cheap artificial lung and a source of glucose and nutrients. Imagine running your car on leftovers, soda that's lost it's fizz (yech!), etc. It brings the true meaning of horsepower into the 21st Century. I recommend they begin experimenting with squirrel muscles

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  14. HectorDecimal Registered Senior Member

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    This is an interesting concept. It may actually be the one I've looked for in a buoyancy/gravity powerplant I designed that effectively needs a monkey to go out once an hour and pull the ballast chain on an escapement to keep the thing going.

    The propane is good, but, as mentioned inefficient. I have developed a method that takes all the rudimentary constituents of generating propane and the end product is isopropanol. I heated my home with it a couple years back, but took the digester apart and never reassembled it with all the improvements I have in mind. It is about as clean as you can get.

    As for the electric motor? They are the best. We could burn garbage to fire a steam turbine and manufacture electric, but to take that turbine mobile is impractical.
     
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