Chip with simple program for Toy

[Michael Coburn]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:57:16 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:

On 2/23/2010 9:38 AM, Robert Cohen wrote:
On Feb 22, 9:58 pm, John Stafford<n...@droffats.ten> wrote:
Glaring shortcoming of the video - "Carbon Footprint"

For all we know it is sucking up oxygen and spewing out CO2 like
friggin crazy.

Nothing is for nothing.

re: speculation about harmful carbon compound(s)

Sophisticated hype: but:

The experienced venture capitalist, plus Google, Fedex, Ebay, etal
aren't going to be
conned and ridiculed knowingly at their country club lemonade socials

At least, we hope they're not kidding themselves

I am cynical& agnostic too

May the by-products be made harmless by the relevant reigning god and
goddess

Granted, secretive "ink" does sound like blue sky fantasy and/ or it
catalyzes a
lovely "fool cell cancer"

If it consumes any fossil fuel and makes energy and doesn't emit CO2
then it works by magic.

If they can make cheap methane-air cells then they're going to laugh all
the way to the bank, but they'll still be emitting CO2.

If the process is 50% more efficient than gas powered electrical power
generation then there is a large reduction in emitted carbon. You are
making the perfect the enemy of the good.

--
"Senate rules don't trump the Constitution" -- http://GreaterVoice.org/60

 

[George Herold]

On Feb 23, 12:35 pm, pamela <bicycleguy...@gmail.com> wrote:

George Herold wrote:
On Feb 22, 11:03 pm, pamela <bicycleguy...@gmail.com> wrote:
George Herold wrote:
On Feb 22, 8:15 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:01:17 -0800 (PST), Bret Cahill
BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
This looks like a real working solution to the cheap, clean energy
conundra challenge
It's almost certainly not real, and not working.
This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.
John
This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.
Yeah, mostly from Bret Cahill,  If we stop responding will he go
away?
George H.
You keep proving that you can't stop yourselves from responding.
Somehow, for some reason, somebody will evidently almost always be
inprired to respo0nd, and then somebody else, and then you are
speculating on BloomBoxes or whatever else there is --- because it is at
least conversation.

Evidently, without someone like Brett, conversation is quite limited.

Just look at the long periods of no conversations, punctuated by loads
of conversations when Cahill stirs up the dust.

Without leadership, no matter what quality, there isn't much technical
conversation.

At least, that is what I SEE just from the postings.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yup I agree,  I've been trying to start a few...but.

So what are you designing/building/testing these days Pamela?

George H.

Good cheap shot at looking for credentials or demeaning the poster.

I retired from the technology rat race nearly 10 years ago, and haven't
missed much of it at all.

I design and build backpacking equipment and test it sometimes for trips
lasting a month or two.

Excellent, I use to backpack/ bicycle-camp all the time. Since the
wife and kids arrived that has dropped off significantly. (Though now
that the kids are 8 and 10 we might take it up again.) I partially
compensate for this by living 'out in the sticks'. I love taking the
dogs for a walk down by the creek every night after work.

I build/design and test physics 'toys' here.

http://www.teachspin.com/

Not much designing at the moment. I'm finishing up the building of
Noise Fundamentals. (Which has taken longer than it should.) Lots of
stuff to test. I've got a table full of Diode Laser controllers and
the electronic bits for Modern Interferometery waiting outside my
door.


" I retired from the technology rat race nearly 10 years ago, and
haven't

missed much of it at all."

Did you make a bundle on the dot-com boom and then leave, or was it
just time to retire? I'm not sure I'll ever want to retire. I really
enjoy building instruments and hope I can always find someone who will
pay me for it.

George H.

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:21:58 -0600, John Stafford <nhoj@droffats.ten>
wrote:

In article <7va6o5l3bedaop27gdmeaedusvgd5jok6m@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.

That is true. What worries me is that we have no idea what the Bloombox
means in terms of emissions. It's not like it just eats up oxygen and
drips out...

This is a typically idiotic response:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/190058/why_im_bullish_on_bloom_energy.html

"The units themselves still require some sort of fuel--such as natural
gas, oxygen, or solar energy--and that could be a limiting factor in
many installations."


John

 

[JeffM]

Bob Eld wrote:

JeffM wrote:
http://google.com/search?q=inurl:jain+%22+OE.doesn't.exactly.feature.the.most.intelligent.quoting.algorithm

What the fuck are you talking about????

Luckily, all users of Outlook Express aren't as clueless as you are.
Some actually configure that PoS properly:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.net/msg/fd1fce92ebff0b95?q=zz-zz+*-*-*-*-quote-properly+Outlook-Express+zz+use-a-standard.character
http://tinyurl.com/OE-SucksAtBlockquoting

 

[Yevgen Barsukov]

On Feb 22, 9:01 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

This looks like a real working solution to the cheap, clean energy
conundra challenge

www,cbs.com

this is apparently the first massive media publicity, while Federal
Express, Google,  and others
are using the initial  ("beta?")  version to help get minor kinks out
of the contraption, also
they're getting both state and federal subsidies

Apparently the raw materials consist of SAND and a cheap metal alloy,
rather than hydrogen and rare , tres cher, exotic, pecious metals, and
apparently the secret mixture of an"ink" no shit

My grandchild says: Bye bye to gold plated energy a la nuclear, a la
carbon problem, a la poison chemical in gasolene, and
if I were the head schmuck aka schmeckle, the thing would be sped up
aqs a Manhattan Project

An India Indian physicist is the inventor bring backed by 100-400
million USD venture
capital funds

they are seemingly getting ready for a stock IPO new issue, while I
hold that google could easily and should buy it, and is apparently now
strong enough so as to not allow the saboutage of it

if competition by way of the established fearful system  manages to
discourage and suppress it, then there are other sovereign countries
that would welcome such

it is my humble if not simplistic, paranoiac opinion that such a thing
scares the stuff out of
various understandable status quo establishments & interests,

wait a few moments for lesley stahl

 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n-Hidequotedtext-

- Show quoted text -

if it's difficult to get there, then please try this link (before
slamming sledge hammer onto puter hardware)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml...

A fuel cell and the fuel are 2 different things.

Yes, you can get one of these for 3K according to the guy (or maybe it
will end up 6K to be realistic). That's great, but then you have to
figure out a way to get a natural gas hookup, or a big honking propane
tank, or whatever there is in your area that will work.

Nice idea, but not the way to get off the grid---you just get tied
down to a different kind of grid.

Nevertheless it's a big enough breakthrough it could even smooth out
peak oil's disruptions to the economy.

At less than a dollar/watt and twice the efficiency of internal
combustion it makes natural gas ground transportation much much more
cost effective.

Any shade tree mechanic can rip out your old ICE and install an
electric motor.

Buy several of the fuel cells, a compressed natural gas tank and maybe
a small battery to scoot through intersections and all you need is
that CNG filling station bill supported by that NJ senator . . .

Honda already sells a CNG compressor so you can fill up at your house.

The phenomenal power density even makes commercial aviation with
electric motors possible.

Batteries are/were far and away the greatest weight problem before.

Bret Cahill

Solid oxid fuel cells (that is what the bloom-box should be called)
have been in operation for over 50 years now and have gigawatts of
installed
capacitiy all over the world.
This is nothing new. Only the completely clueless journalist
could
have overlooked that. Here is a review:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_fuel_cell

Yes they have great power density because they operate at very
high temperatures (typically above 500C). Because of high temperature
they have long warm-up time, therefore not very suitable for use
in cars etc, and not even for emergency generators, but rather for
constant load generators.


Why are they not widespread despite very good efficiency?
1) Because they are too expensive to make (as the bloom box also
clearly is with
800 000$ price tag). Now, he has a pipe-dream that price can be
reduced by
order of 266 to 3000 in 2 years.
The entire industry working on the subject during last 50 years
were not able to reduce the cost, but this dude will just do it in 2
years.
How? He does not say.

2) They degrade quite quickly. There is catalyst poisoning,
decomposition
of solid electrolyte and other issues. So your very expensive toy does
not last
long enough to pay for itself through higher efficiency.

Will SOFC be used more in the future? Quite possible. Lots of people
are working on their improvement. Too bad that con artists are trying
to
take all the credit and present this product of widespread R&D efforts
and thousands
of papers published on the subject every year as their "invention".

Regards,
Yevgen

 

[George Herold]

On Feb 23, 7:47 pm, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Feb 22, 9:01 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:





This looks like a real working solution to the cheap, clean energy
conundra challenge

www,cbs.com

this is apparently the first massive media publicity, while Federal
Express, Google,  and others
are using the initial  ("beta?")  version to help get minor kinks out
of the contraption, also
they're getting both state and federal subsidies

Apparently the raw materials consist of SAND and a cheap metal alloy,
rather than hydrogen and rare , tres cher, exotic, pecious metals, and
apparently the secret mixture of an"ink" no shit

My grandchild says: Bye bye to gold plated energy a la nuclear, a la
carbon problem, a la poison chemical in gasolene, and
if I were the head schmuck aka schmeckle, the thing would be sped up
aqs a Manhattan Project

An India Indian physicist is the inventor bring backed by 100-400
million USD venture
capital funds

they are seemingly getting ready for a stock IPO new issue, while I
hold that google could easily and should buy it, and is apparently now
strong enough so as to not allow the saboutage of it

if competition by way of the established fearful system  manages to
discourage and suppress it, then there are other sovereign countries
that would welcome such

it is my humble if not simplistic, paranoiac opinion that such a thing
scares the stuff out of
various understandable status quo establishments & interests,

wait a few moments for lesley stahl

 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n-Hidequotedtext-

- Show quoted text -

if it's difficult to get there, then please try this link (before
slamming sledge hammer onto puter hardware)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml...

A fuel cell and the fuel are 2 different things.

Yes, you can get one of these for 3K according to the guy (or maybe it
will end up 6K to be realistic). That's great, but then you have to
figure out a way to get a natural gas hookup, or a big honking propane
tank, or whatever there is in your area that will work.

Nice idea, but not the way to get off the grid---you just get tied
down to a different kind of grid.

Nevertheless it's a big enough breakthrough it could even smooth out
peak oil's disruptions to the economy.

At less than a dollar/watt and twice the efficiency of internal
combustion it makes natural gas ground transportation much much more
cost effective.

Any shade tree mechanic can rip out your old ICE and install an
electric motor.

Buy several of the fuel cells, a compressed natural gas tank and maybe
a small battery to scoot through intersections and all you need is
that CNG filling station bill supported by that NJ senator . . .

Honda already sells a CNG compressor so you can fill up at your house.

The phenomenal power density even makes commercial aviation with
electric motors possible.

Batteries are/were far and away the greatest weight problem before.

Bret Cahill

Solid oxid fuel cells (that is what the bloom-box should be called)
have been in operation for over 50 years now and have gigawatts of
installed
capacitiy all over the world.
    This is nothing new. Only the completely clueless journalist
could
have overlooked that. Here is a review:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_fuel_cell

Yes they have great power density because they operate at very
high temperatures (typically above 500C). Because of high temperature
they have long warm-up time, therefore not very suitable for use
in cars etc, and not even for emergency generators, but rather for
constant load generators.

Why are they not widespread despite very good efficiency?
1) Because they are too expensive to make (as the bloom box also
clearly is with
800 000$ price tag). Now, he has a pipe-dream that price can be
reduced by
order of 266 to 3000 in 2 years.
The entire industry working on the subject during last 50 years
were not able to reduce the cost, but this dude will just do it in 2
years.
How? He does not say.

2) They degrade quite quickly. There is catalyst poisoning,
decomposition
of solid electrolyte and other issues. So your very expensive toy does
not last
long enough to pay for itself through higher efficiency.

Will SOFC be used more in the future? Quite possible. Lots of people
are working on their improvement. Too bad that con artists are trying
to
take all the credit and present this product of widespread R&D efforts
and thousands
of papers published on the subject every year as their "invention".

Regards,
Yevgen- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Wow, Excellent. Thanks Yevgen.

 

[Bob Eld]

"JeffM" <jeff.marguglio@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:30409d55-9f41-410e-8c99-5046155e80fb@o30g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...

Bob Eld wrote:
JeffM wrote:

http://google.com/search?q=inurl:jain+%22+OE.doesn't.exactly.feature.the.m
ost.intelligent.quoting.algorithm

What the fuck are you talking about????

Luckily, all users of Outlook Express aren't as clueless as you are.
Some actually configure that PoS properly:

I still have no idea what the fuck you are complaining about nor do I have
an idea why you care as if there is something meaningful in what you said.
Furthermore, you clearly haven't the ability to explain yourself nor the
ability to present a coherent reason for your complaint. So, if you don't
like what I write or the way I write it,...don't' read it, simple!

 

[Bob Eld]

"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> wrote in message
news:hm153h02him@news5.newsguy.com...

On 2/23/2010 9:38 AM, Robert Cohen wrote:
On Feb 22, 9:58 pm, John Stafford<n...@droffats.ten> wrote:
Glaring shortcoming of the video - "Carbon Footprint"

For all we know it is sucking up oxygen and spewing out CO2 like
friggin
crazy.

Nothing is for nothing.

re: speculation about harmful carbon compound(s)

Sophisticated hype: but:

The experienced venture capitalist, plus Google, Fedex, Ebay, etal
aren't going to be
conned and ridiculed knowingly at their country club lemonade socials

At least, we hope they're not kidding themselves

I am cynical& agnostic too

May the by-products be made harmless by the relevant reigning god and
goddess

Granted, secretive "ink" does sound like blue sky fantasy and/ or it
catalyzes a
lovely "fool cell cancer"

If it consumes any fossil fuel and makes energy and doesn't emit CO2
then it works by magic.

If they can make cheap methane-air cells then they're going to laugh all
the way to the bank, but they'll still be emitting CO2.

For sure. But if they really have something, expect a biggy like GE to buy
them up to gain the technology. Of course, cost of production remains to be
seen. We need more information.

 

[Bret Cahill]

This looks like a real working solution to the cheap, clean energy
conundra challenge
It's almost certainly not real, and not working.

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.

John

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.
Yeah, mostly from Bret Cahill,  If we stop responding will he go
away?

George H.

You keep proving that you can't stop yourselves from responding.
Somehow, for some reason, somebody will evidently almost always be
inprired to respo0nd, and then somebody else, and then you are
speculating on BloomBoxes or whatever else there is --- because it is at
least conversation.

Evidently, without someone like Brett, conversation is quite limited.

Just look at the long periods of no conversations, punctuated by loads
of conversations when Cahill stirs up the dust.

Without leadership, no matter what quality, there isn't much technical
conversation.

At least, that is what I SEE just from the postings.

I'm western civilization's first tech incendiary.

I guess that's one way of phrasing "flaming asshole".

Don't blame others because you say stoopid things like "Reynolds No.
is irrelevant to aerodynamics."

That is a lie; I never said that.

First you said that aerodynamics would prevent the magnet from
aligning the fiber.

When questioned about the Reynolds No. you tried to claim that the
Reynolds No. was irrelevant to fibers at terminal velocity.

What I said was Reynolds number is irrelevant to your magic pixie dust
laser reflectors.

Are you suggesting Reynolds number is irrelevant to dust and small
diameter particles at terminal velocity?

You just keep digging yourself in deeper and deeper.

It's time for you to stop digging.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Yes they have great power density because they operate at very
high temperatures (typically above 500C).

Not sure what this means but it fits into one admittedly half baked
theory on thermo:

There is no fundamental difference between fuel cells and heat
engines.

Carnot and material property limits on both converge to the same sorry
prime mover.

Because of high temperature
they have long warm-up time, therefore not very suitable for use
in cars etc, and not even for emergency generators, but rather for
constant load generators.

They would be really great for longer range / lower speed cruise
missiles.

It's not like Iran could build a good 300 kW gas turbine.

Why are they not widespread despite very good efficiency?
1) Because they are too expensive to make (as the bloom box also
clearly is with
800 000$ price tag). Now, he has a pipe-dream that price can be
reduced by
order of 266 to 3000 in 2 years.
The entire industry working on the subject during last 50 years
were not able to reduce the cost, but this dude will just do it in 2
years.
How? He does not say.

_60 Minutes_ doesn't know how to ask the right questions.

2) They degrade quite quickly. There is catalyst poisoning,
decomposition
of solid electrolyte and other issues. So your very expensive toy does
not last
long enough to pay for itself through higher efficiency.

Will SOFC be used more in the future? Quite possible. Lots of people
are working on their improvement. Too bad that con artists are trying
to
take all the credit and present this product of widespread R&D efforts
and thousands
of papers published on the subject every year as their "invention".

Regards,
Yevgen-

Check out what they are paying at the _Wall Street Journal_. It's
100% certain they are short a few science writers.


Bret Cahill

 

In sci.physics Bret Cahill <BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

This looks like a real working solution to the cheap, clean energy
conundra challenge
It's almost certainly not real, and not working.

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.

John

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.
Yeah, mostly from Bret Cahill,  If we stop responding will he go
away?

George H.

You keep proving that you can't stop yourselves from responding.
Somehow, for some reason, somebody will evidently almost always be
inprired to respo0nd, and then somebody else, and then you are
speculating on BloomBoxes or whatever else there is --- because it is at
least conversation.

Evidently, without someone like Brett, conversation is quite limited.

Just look at the long periods of no conversations, punctuated by loads
of conversations when Cahill stirs up the dust.

Without leadership, no matter what quality, there isn't much technical
conversation.

At least, that is what I SEE just from the postings.

I'm western civilization's first tech incendiary.

I guess that's one way of phrasing "flaming asshole".

Don't blame others because you say stoopid things like "Reynolds No.
is irrelevant to aerodynamics."

That is a lie; I never said that.

First you said that aerodynamics would prevent the magnet from
aligning the fiber.

What I said was that aerodynamics was irrelevant to the end alignment
of your pixie dust laser reflectors, which would be too small to be easily
seen by the naked eye, flutter to earth through random winds, and magically
align themselves upon landing on rough ground.



--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

 

[pamela]

Bret Cahill wrote:

Not sure what this means but it fits into one admittedly half baked
theory on thermo:

There is no fundamental difference between fuel cells and heat
engines.

Carnot and material property limits on both converge to the same sorry
prime mover.

Bret Cahill



Ignoramus in Thermodynamics.

The Carnot cycle limitations are entropy driven... the fundamental
irreversible nature of heat dissipation. Fuel cells are basically a
chemical reaction with a conducting loop for charges thrown in. More
like a battery (with mass exchange) than a heat engine.

Slog through "Entropy Analysius" by Norman C Craig or some of the newer
more modern treatments of Thermodynamics (using basic quantum concepts).

The behavior of materials at high temperatures are thermally activated
processes of several types.

 

In sci.physics Bret Cahill <BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Don't blame others because you say stoopid things like "Reynolds No.
is irrelevant to aerodynamics."

That is a lie; I never said that.

First you said that aerodynamics would prevent the magnet from
aligning the fiber.

What I said was that aerodynamics was irrelevant to the end alignment
of your pixie dust laser reflectors,

_You_ and the one who introduced aerodynamics as a reason on why it
wouldn't work.

_Then_ you claimed the Reynolds No. was "irrelevant."


Bret Cahill

Of course Reynolds number (note the spelling as I'm guessing that's what
you mean by "Reynolds No.") is irrelevant to what you posted.

You posted that your pixie dust laser reflelectors would land on rough
ground with some particular orientation.

The Reynolds number of your pixie dust laser reflelectors would influence
the SPEED with which they would fall and has absolutely nothing to do
with the ORIENTATION of their landing.

You were just using some big words you heard somewhere without knowing
what those big words meant in a attempt to "prove" your latest comic book
wet dream was workable.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

 

[Bret Cahill]

This looks like a real working solution to the cheap, clean energy
conundra challenge
It's almost certainly not real, and not working.

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.

John

This sort of nonsense gets announced every day or so.
Yeah, mostly from Bret Cahill,  If we stop responding will he go
away?

George H.

You keep proving that you can't stop yourselves from responding.
Somehow, for some reason, somebody will evidently almost always be
inprired to respo0nd, and then somebody else, and then you are
speculating on BloomBoxes or whatever else there is --- because it is at
least conversation.

Evidently, without someone like Brett, conversation is quite limited.

Just look at the long periods of no conversations, punctuated by loads
of conversations when Cahill stirs up the dust.

Without leadership, no matter what quality, there isn't much technical
conversation.

At least, that is what I SEE just from the postings.

I'm western civilization's first tech incendiary.

I guess that's one way of phrasing "flaming asshole".

Don't blame others because you say stoopid things like "Reynolds No.
is irrelevant to aerodynamics."

That is a lie; I never said that.

First you said that aerodynamics would prevent the magnet from
aligning the fiber.

What I said was that aerodynamics was irrelevant to the end alignment
of your pixie dust laser reflectors,

_You_ and the one who introduced aerodynamics as a reason on why it
wouldn't work.

_Then_ you claimed the Reynolds No. was "irrelevant."


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Not sure what this means but it fits into one admittedly half baked
theory on thermo:

There is no fundamental difference between fuel cells and heat
engines.

Carnot and material property limits on both converge to the same sorry
prime mover.

Bret Cahill

Ignoramus in Thermodynamics.

The Carnot cycle limitations are entropy driven...

Some of the limitations on fuel cells also result from the 2nd Law.
There's no controversy about that.

The question here is could both start to become indistinguishable from
each other in cost, performance and even design?

Say, for example, that a fuel cell - heat engine hybrid only had a
rotating field for the output -- no solid moving parts. All you had
to add was a rotor similar to those in electric motors for mechanical
work.

In other words, say part or all of the electric motor somehow got
absorbed into the rest of the system.

Would you call that a heat engine or a fuel cell?


Bret Cahill

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:26:00 -0800 (PST), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Not sure what this means but it fits into one admittedly half baked
theory on thermo:

There is no fundamental difference between fuel cells and heat
engines.

Carnot and material property limits on both converge to the same sorry
prime mover.

Bret Cahill

Ignoramus in Thermodynamics.

The Carnot cycle limitations are entropy driven...

Some of the limitations on fuel cells also result from the 2nd Law.
There's no controversy about that.

The question here is could both start to become indistinguishable from
each other in cost, performance and even design?

Say, for example, that a fuel cell - heat engine hybrid only had a
rotating field for the output -- no solid moving parts. All you had
to add was a rotor similar to those in electric motors for mechanical
work.

In other words, say part or all of the electric motor somehow got
absorbed into the rest of the system.

Would you call that a heat engine or a fuel cell?

A fuel cell doesn't use heat as a power transfer mechanism, so it's
not a heat engine. It's a battery with replentished chemistry; as
such, it can have much higher efficiency than a heat engine.

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Efficiency


John

 

[Bret Cahill]

Not sure what this means but it fits into one admittedly half baked
theory on thermo:

There is no fundamental difference between fuel cells and heat
engines.

Carnot and material property limits on both converge to the same sorry
prime mover.

Bret Cahill

Ignoramus in Thermodynamics.

The Carnot cycle limitations are entropy driven...

Some of the limitations on fuel cells also result from the 2nd Law.
There's no controversy about that.

The question here is could both start to become indistinguishable from
each other in cost, performance and even design?

Say, for example, that a fuel cell - heat engine hybrid only had a
rotating field for the output -- no solid moving parts.  All you had
to add was a rotor similar to those in electric motors for mechanical
work.

In other words, say part or all of the electric motor somehow got
absorbed into the rest of the system.

Would you call that a heat engine or a fuel cell?

A fuel cell doesn't use heat as a power transfer mechanism, so it's
not a heat engine.

Going from fuel to mechanical work heat engines have the additional
intermediate step of the addition of heat while fuel cells have the
additional intermediate step of an electric motor.

It looks like the heat step is more lossy than the electric motor.

It's a battery with replentished chemistry; as
such, it can have much higher efficiency than a heat engine.

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Efficiency

We need more comparisons.

Some fuel cells use superchargers and for the same reason as
reciprocating engines.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Efficiency

The high theoretical or real efficiencies of fuel cells are analogous
to the high theoretical or real efficiencies of low pressure ratio
highly recuperated gas turbine engines, over 80% below a 2:1 pressure
ratio.

Regenerate / recuperate enough and the thermo cycle approaches
isothermal addition and rejection of heat -- Carnot efficient. You
just need to spend a whole lot of money on a really big heat
exchanger.

Alternatively you can use ceramic turbine blading in an external rotor
gas turbine to increase inlet temperatures but ceramics degrade just
like fuel cell materials degrade.

Sooner or later you start thinking, if it is high maintenance like a
duck, if it has the same high cost as a duck, if it has all the same
sorry limitations as a duck . . .

The distinction between heat vs charge / electric power starts to seem
rather superficial from a results oriented POV.

Bret Cahill

 

[pamela]

Bret Cahill wrote:

There is no fundamental difference between fuel cells and heat
engines.

Fuel cells explicitly involve chemistry and chemical reactions.

Heat engines explicitly involve temperature differences, which do not
necessarily involve chemical reactions .... nuclear will do quite readily.



From :Entropy Analysis: an introduction to chemical thermodynamics" by
Normal C Craig ISBN 1-56081-593-6

Page 3, Near the bottom

"When thermal energy is involved, however, we find a one-wayness in
energy conversions. Electrical and mechanical energies can be
transformed completely into thermal energy, but the inverse
transformations are not possible from thermal energy at any given
temperature.

The limitations of the conversion of thermal energy into other forms of
energy are central to the second law of thermodynamics."


This specialness of thermal energy conversin is the reason for the
specific focus upon the Carnot cycle for thermal energy as it defines
specifically the theoretical limits of such conversions.

There is no such major issue with the conversion of other forms of
energy into thermal energy -- that can be essentially a perfect conversion.

The issues of the different behaviors of other forms of energy have been
taken care of in thermodynamics for probably a century.

Beginning Chapter 4 "Entropy Principle : The Second Law"

"The first law of thermodynamics places no limits on energy exchanges
provided energy is conserved. Experience teaches us that the
weight-lifted energy of a raised book can be completely converted into
thermal energy of a table top and the book when the book land on the
table.The reverse process in which energy is conserved [the thermal
energy flowing cohesively back to the point of book impact and then
impulsively throwing the book back into the air]is, however, impossible.
Similarly, there are limitations on the transfer of thermal energy from
a cold body to a hot body. A chemical reaction has a favored direction
even though energy is conserved in both directs. Thus, where thermal
energy is involved, we find a one-wayness in first law possible energy
transactions."

"This chapter introduces the second law of thermodynmics and the entropy
function that is the heart of this law. The entropy function is the
index of change for all processes. It confirms the one-wayness of
dropped books interacting with tble tops. The entropy function tells
whether a chemical reaction can occur as written and when a reaction hs
reached equilibrium......"

What can you quote on this subject from your Thermodynamics books that
you have read and understood?

You sound ignorant of the modern approach to Thermodynamics. The modern
stuff is much better than the way it was taught long ago when I was an
undergraduate. I am glad for certain internet sites which are devoted to
spreading the gospel of the modern approach, and to libraries for the
modern Thermodynamics books borrowed and subsequently bought.

I feel confident that you will run off spouting mostly buzz words and
speculations and possibly strange hypotheses that have already been
covered one way or another by those skilled in the field.

 

[Jon Kirwan]

Not sure if my email got to you, George. So just verifying
by the usual post-a-message-on-the-public-cork-board method,
sometimes called a newsgroup.

Let me know.

Jon