- Green Energy Rant -
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A Rant on Energy Efficiency and Greening
It is certainly a worthwhile goal to improve the relativly poor (30%-ish) thermal efficiency of the contemporary spark-ignition Internal Combustion engine that powers the vast majority of vehicles on this planet.
The emerging PC emphasis on "green" racing provides an excellent opportunity to develop new ways to increase the thermal efficiency of piston engines. One such system (currently used in Formula-1 racing) is the use of a second turbine in the exhaust stream (downstream of the turbocharger) to extract otherwise wasted thermal energy from the exhaust stream and store that energy in a number of different ways, including a KERS-like flywheel, or, as in Internal Combustion-electric hybrid vehicles, to run a generator which charges the battery system. Those systems have enabled the F-1 engine developers to achieve over 50% real thermal efficiency, a phenomenal accomplishment, given the thermodynamics of the IC process.
That type of system would increase the overall thermal efficiency of the powerplant in a REAL sense, as opposed to the imbecilic notions that (a) electric cars which recharge by plugging into wall sockets somehow get their energy for free, and (b) that the overall recharging-from-wall-socket process is an efficient use of energy.
The self-proclaimed "scientists" who promote such nonsense conveniently overlook the collective effect of the serial inefficiencies in (a) burning fossil fuels to drive the generators, (b) the generators themselves, (c) the step-up and step-down transformer conversion losses, (d) transmission losses from source (generator) to destination (wall sockets), (e) battery recharging, (f) battery discharging to drive the vehicle motors, and (g) the conversion of electrical energy into kinetic energy through the vehicle motor/transmission systems.
These heavy-thinkers also conveniently overlook the fact that that a huge percentage of available electric energy in the developed world comes from the combustion of petroleum and coal-based fuels, producing huge amounts of the carbon dioxide with which they are so obsessed. (By the way, carbon dioxide was, until recently, known as a gas essential to life. Now, however, in classical "progressive" doublespeak, it has been reclassified as a "pollutant".)
Taking the lunacy another step forward, many of the PC-Save-the-Planet types are working to destroy one of the absolute-greenest, most-efficient sources of elecricity ever devised --- hydroelectric. They actively block approval of any new hydroelectric dam construction, and are working diligently to have several of the currently-active and highly cost effective dams torn down.
And regardless of the advances made in nuclear energy and waste storage (as well as progress on a reactor that can run on radioactive WASTE), these self-appointed authorities continue to block nuclear energy, which IMHO, is the real source of the world's future energy needs.
In fact, the German government has been diligently decommissioning and dismantling their nuclear powerplants, with the complete decommissioning targeted for completion in 2022. It will be very interesting to see how many Germans freeze to death in the following winters.
So, at the same time these thinkers are heavily promoting the switch to electrical vehicles (cars, trucks, airplanes) they are at the same time working to eliminate all the efficient and productive means of producing electrical energy.
These are the same kneejerk self-anointed cognoscenti (St. Greta of Thunberg, et al) who are in favor of absurd alternative sources that provide part time power at random times during a day, which at best satisfiy only a small fraction of the nearly-constant demand. Such random sources include windmills and solar farms, which, BTW, are economically unjustifiable without government subsidies.
While on the subject of "greenery", it is interesting to note that, in addition to blatant and wholesale manipulation of the basis-data which they use to support the religion of "Anthropogenic Global Warming", coupled with widespread demonizing and extortion (both financial and professional) of "non-conforming" scientists, the worshippers at the altar of AGW have apparently missed the basic scientific fact that burning ANY hydrocarbon (Yes, Greta, Ethanol, C2-H5-OH, is a hydrocarbon) produces carbon dioxide and water.
And yet, ethanol has been decreed to be envro-friendly, thereby justifying immense subsidies from the government-delusionals to enable the production of ethanol from corn. Those subsidies persist, in the face of undeniable evidence that the net energy balance of corn-sourced ethanol IS A BIG NEGATIVE (ie, the energy extracted from ethanol by an IC engine is substantially less than the sum of the energy required to (a) plant, cultivate, grow, and harvest the corn, (b) transport it to the conversion site, (c) convert it into ethanol, and (d) transport the ethanol to the fuel blending site).
And there is also no mention of the huge economic impact on the nation's food supply that the diversion of corn crops into ethanol production is having. Further, they conveniently ignore the huge impact that the production of ethanol from corn is having on the entire water table in the nation's midwest, a major source of our food.
If the government-braintrust was actually SERIOUS about effectively using ethanol to be an efficient biofuel, they would abandon corn-sourced ethanol and allow / encourage the production of ethanol from sugar cane, a policy being followed in Brazil with great effectiveness, but outlawed in the US because of massive political corruption and massive bribery by the sugar industry.
If you are TRULY interested in factual material about this left-wing-manufactured "climate crisis", take a look at some real science such as is clearly presented and thoroughly documented and referenced in Gregory Wrightstone's book INCONVENIENT FACTS.
For further informative scientific reading, I recommend CLIMATE CHANGE - THE FACTS by Alan Moran, and UNSTOPPABLE GLOBAL WARMING by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery.
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