IEEE Consultants' Network of Long Island

FUEL CELLS REVISITED--Carl Schwab

First some equivalences—1 Kwh=2,655,223 ft-lbs=3.6 megaJ. Particularly the 1 Kwh=3.6 megaJ will show up often in the following.

 For our purposes we are defining a "fuel cell",FC, as a catalytic device that allows the oxidation of carbon and hydrogen but the output is in electrical energy form.

A legitimate question is how is this different from ordinary combustion?The objective of all this is a car that processes ordinary fuels with efficiency better than an ICE. Its exhaust will be CO2 and H2O but its mpg should be on the order of 70mpg.

In the recent past a lot of interest has been expressed on a hydrogen, H2, fueled car. At the moment interest has waned because of the lack of an infrastructure to deliver H2 gas to the filling stations on a national or even a state-wide basis. However Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Chrysler and some others have built demonstrators to test public  interest.

Now H2 was pushed because the exhaust from the FC converter was water vapor and contributed no CO2 to the atmosphere. Also the theory was that the H2, if derived by electrolysis, was nearly infinite in supply. Tries at piping H2 aka CH4 weren't successful; the H2 molecule is so small in diameter that leakage through the pipe walls that contained CH4 was excessive. Hence H2 had to be locally generated. So the perfect fuel, H2 has been side-tracked for the moment. As a fuel H2 was very efficient and claimed 80% conversion to electrical energy form. The FC cars were quiet and drove well except for
the cost/availability of H2.

Go Fly a Kite (Floating Turbines 2) - Dick LaRosa

The turbines, when producing electric power, are submerged near the surface, where the maximum stream velocity is found. They are supported by a combination of static buoyancy (air tank) and hydrodynamic lift (hydrofoil surfaces). In the John H. Robson design (www.wdstudio.net/gulfstreamturbine/), a single tether holds the unit in place against the current. There are two turbines side-by-side with rotors turning in opposite directions to cancel the torque on the unit. Alternators and gear boxes are enclosed in watertight nacelles with rotors on the downstream ends. The tether attachment point is chosen such that the lifting surfaces have the correct angle of attack to keep the unit at the proper depth. The locations of the center of buoyancy, center of gravity, center of lift, center of drag, center of lateral hydrodynamic force, and tether attachment point are involved. This is the waterborne equivalent of a kite with a helium balloon attached.

The Weakening of Hurricane IDA - Dick LaRosa

During August of 2009 the Loop Current worked its way into the Gulf of Mexico, almost reaching New Orleans. Then in September, a ring separated and started drifting westward. The remaining part of the Loop made a sharp turn from the Yucatan Channel into the Florida Straits. The Loop Current intrusion into the Gulf of Mexico has stayed small, so when Hurricane Ida roared through the Yucatan Channel with 100 mph winds on November 8, it was on the verge of leaving the warm water that had energized it. It passed over cold water between the drifting ring and the shortened Loop, lost energy, and was downgraded to a tropical storm. It had battered people on its way in, but our Gulf Coast was now safe.

I believe that this happy outcome would be the rule if we had a fleet of turbines moored in the Yucatan Channel. Florida Straits, and Florida Current to absorb surplus hydraulic drive forcing water into the Gulf of Mexico. Useful electric power would be produced at times when the drive is strong. When the drive is weak, as it appears to have been during the past couple of months, we would have to feather the turbine blades to reduce drag, and fire up standby power plants to replace the power that the turbines are not producing. We might be able to leave the turbines in the stream and allow their residual drag to cause some of the Equatorial Current flow to bypass the Caribbean Sea and go directly into the Florida Current and the Gulf Stream.

It looks like the next step is to calculate the drag of the turbines.

Some Useful Comparisons For Hybrid & Electric Only Cars—by Carl Schwab

Very recently interest in hybrid and electric powered cars has greatly increased. To get to basics, the writer would like to compare "efficiencies" of energy storage required. This has "bubbled up" due to the concept of the Lithium-Air storage battery for use in hybrid and/or electric only cars.

The gasoline-powered cars have reined supreme for over a 100 years basically because it uses oxygen from our atmosphere and returns CO2 and H2O to the atmosphere. (Nominally by volume, the atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 21%oxygen and 1% inert gases)

By calculation, each gallon of gasoline, which weighs 2.84 kg, requires 10 kg of O2 from the atmosphere and returns 12.84 kg of CO2 plus water vapor, and provides 7.11Kwh of useful energy. This is providing 7.11/2.84=2.5Kwh/kg energy. based on the gasoline only.

If account is taken of the O2 then this becomes 7.11/(2.84+10)= .554Kwh/kg.

Note: If the car had to carry its oxidizer like a rocket, then the fuel load for 20 gallons of gasoline would weigh (20x(2.84+10)=256 kg x 2.2 = 565 lbs!!

Is It Fisher Karma Or Tesla S Or What?--Carl Schwab

The writer has always had a liking of the GM VOLT. BUT like the perpetual Christmas, "It is still coming<frown>". Recall that the VOLT is a PHEV with a range-extender mode to bring the range up to 600 miles on 12 gallons of gas.

But the Tesla has been around for a few years always as an Electric Only, very expensive, Sports Car. Just within the last month the owner of the company where my son works, just took delivery on the new 2010 Tesla Model S. This is no Gee-Whiz car but an actual 4-door, 5-passenger sedan.

Before exploring more about the Model S, I want to introduce the existence of the Fisher Karma (or is it Nina?). Point is that CEO, Elon Musk for Tesla and Henrik Fisher for Fisher are both pitching the US Government for STIMULUS money to acquire plants in Delaware and/or also in California to manufacturer electric cars. Just this past week VP Joe Biden blurted out that Fisher will get an unused GM plant in Delaware for it's use to produce the Nina. This action is heavily backed by the UAW Local 435 and that brings some squinting of the eyes<G>. The Nina term was a gaffe, he should have said Karma but didn't follow the script I guess. (Nina is guessed by the writer is to try to leap-frog the
Tesla Model S)

But back to the facts-although still emerging.

Drought in India - Dick LaRosa

National Geographic , November 2009, has an article about efforts being made to retain moisture in agricultural soil by terracing, digging ditches, planting vegetation, restricting grazing, and preventing wood cutting. A good part of the Indian subcontinent is a triangular peninsula intruding southward into the Indian Ocean, forming the Arabian Sea on the west side and the Bay of Bengal on the eastern side. Both coasts are rimmed with mountain ranges: the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, respectively. The Western Ghats are very narrow, and just across the mountains from the coastal city of Mumbai (Bombay) is a group of small villages whose farmer residents are heavily dependent on monsoon rains to irrigate their crops.

The word monsoon refers to winds which change direction seasonally and sometimes bring rain. Sometimes the rain itself is referred to as the monsoon. Land has low heat capacity and conductivity compared to water, so in summer, the land attains a higher temperature than the neighboring sea surface, and air is heated over the land. This air rises and air is drawn in from over the sea along with water vapor. If the moist air must cross a mountain range to reach the interior of a land mass, the rising air will encounter lower pressure, expand, and may condense liquid water on condensation nuclei. The farmers hope that the particles will coalesce and precipitate. Sometimes they just watch the clouds float over them while seeds that they have planted dry out in the ground. A lot of wells have gone dry, so there may be no water for irrigation. They must seek other employment to repay the money that they have borrowed, and then try again next year.