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Wow - 9x11mm YAG laser as a spark plug to reduce emissions and increase performance - sounds cool, but I can't help but think that this is like building a carbo

Wow - 9x11mm YAG laser as a spark plug to reduce emissions and increase performance - sounds cool, but I can't help but think that this is like building a carbon fiber stagecoach: cool improvement to what should be a dying technology. We can't produce a damn fuel cell cheaply, but mini YAG lasers are possible? What are you doing science?!?

srgseg 16y ago
Until we have electric aircraft this sounds like a very good idea
nantes 16y ago
I agree, but on the other hand, it sure seems like low-hanging fruit. If this could be applied to nearly all existing combustion engines simply by changing out a sparkplug, then it might not require all of us to go out and buy a new car just to meet emissions guidlines or achieve much better mileage. Whether the car companies like the idea is a whole other question.
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  Yea, I'm all for low hanging fruit, but I would've thought fuel cells using diesel (which exist now) could've been made cheaply and using existing infrastructure.
  - nantes 16y ago
    Yeah, I have always been very excited about fuel cells -- in fact I still think they could fundamentally change our notion of how energy is harvested and transferred. As for the original article, I think I must be stuck in my midwestern mindset. Living near Kansas City (which I consider something of an homage to suburban sprawl) I have a hard time believing that people will adopt new notions of energy conversion and distribution (like fuel cells) as opposed to throwing a couple new-fangled spark plugs in their SUVs.
  - nickzoic 16y ago
    Or just engines using diesel, which have existed for quite some time now, and don't use sparkplugs either.
bioh42_2 16y ago
Combustion engines have over 100 years of wast R&D and real world usage behind them. We already have the infrastructure to move their fuel all over the world in wast quantities. This means I would not be surprised if we start using solar, wind, and nuclear power to generate gasoline, and most future cars become very clean running gasoline/electric hybrids. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy): Liquefied hydrogen has lower energy density by volume than gasoline by approximately a factor of four, because of the low density of liquid hydrogen — there is actually more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline (116 grams) than there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen (71 grams).
jerf 16y ago
They aren't sexy and few people talk about them, but if you do an engineering and economic analysis, some form of carbon-neutral liquid fuel is still very much on the table as a reasonably long-term energy transport solution. The characteristics of liquid hydrocarbon fuel are pretty good in most ways, which is why we still use them. For instance, have you ever worked the math on the amount of energy being moved when you pump ten gallons of gas in one minute and converted that back to Watts? There isn't an immediately obvious replacement for them that actually works as well. If the problems of the particular way we obtain them can be solved, then it's worth it to continue to figure out how to use them more efficiently. And while 20 years ago you might have thought it would "just be easier" to switch away entirely to something like electric vehicles, research on that front has not proceeded as satisfactorily as would have been nice (batteries, oh batteries, why can't you just be an order of magnitude better?), and "fix the problems that liquid hydrocarbons have" has started to look less like a stupid idea.
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  Actually, I said fuel cell because of these reasons. H2 isn't nearly as energy dense as diesel. We've already had fuel cells that use diesel for a while: Penn State Develops Fuel Cell for Diesel (2001): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010905072008.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010905072008.ht...
  - jerf 16y ago
    Fuel cells don't seem to have quite gotten to practical yet, and large-scale usage last I knew is still problematic due to requiring more rare-earth metals than we actually have access to on planet Earth. Like pure electric, they seem stuck on "frustratingly close".
    - billswift 16y ago
      Even worse is that you need a continuing supply of them because of "poisoning" of the catalyst by contaminants in the fuel or oxidizer. Despite decades of research, they have reduced but not eliminated the problem. Also, if you use atmospheric oxygen as the oxidizer, it makes the problem worse since it is even harder to reduce its contaminants.
Vivtek 16y ago
Oh, man. Now I want to build a carbon fiber stagecoach.
- T_S_ 16y ago
  I'll ride shotgun, er, taser.
asharp 16y ago
We can produce a damn fuel cell cheaply. We can't due to Duponts patents on PEM :(

srgseg 16y ago

Until we have electric aircraft this sounds like a very good idea

nantes 16y ago

I agree, but on the other hand, it sure seems like low-hanging fruit. If this could be applied to nearly all existing combustion engines simply by changing out a sparkplug, then it might not require all of us to go out and buy a new car just to meet emissions guidlines or achieve much better mileage. Whether the car companies like the idea is a whole other question.

nickpinkston 16y ago
Yea, I'm all for low hanging fruit, but I would've thought fuel cells using diesel (which exist now) could've been made cheaply and using existing infrastructure.
- nantes 16y ago
  Yeah, I have always been very excited about fuel cells -- in fact I still think they could fundamentally change our notion of how energy is harvested and transferred. As for the original article, I think I must be stuck in my midwestern mindset. Living near Kansas City (which I consider something of an homage to suburban sprawl) I have a hard time believing that people will adopt new notions of energy conversion and distribution (like fuel cells) as opposed to throwing a couple new-fangled spark plugs in their SUVs.
- nickzoic 16y ago
  Or just engines using diesel, which have existed for quite some time now, and don't use sparkplugs either.

bioh42_2 16y ago

Combustion engines have over 100 years of wast R&D and real world usage behind them. We already have the infrastructure to move their fuel all over the world in wast quantities. This means I would not be surprised if we start using solar, wind, and nuclear power to generate gasoline, and most future cars become very clean running gasoline/electric hybrids. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy): Liquefied hydrogen has lower energy density by volume than gasoline by approximately a factor of four, because of the low density of liquid hydrogen — there is actually more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline (116 grams) than there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen (71 grams).

jerf 16y ago

They aren't sexy and few people talk about them, but if you do an engineering and economic analysis, some form of carbon-neutral liquid fuel is still very much on the table as a reasonably long-term energy transport solution. The characteristics of liquid hydrocarbon fuel are pretty good in most ways, which is why we still use them. For instance, have you ever worked the math on the amount of energy being moved when you pump ten gallons of gas in one minute and converted that back to Watts? There isn't an immediately obvious replacement for them that actually works as well. If the problems of the particular way we obtain them can be solved, then it's worth it to continue to figure out how to use them more efficiently. And while 20 years ago you might have thought it would "just be easier" to switch away entirely to something like electric vehicles, research on that front has not proceeded as satisfactorily as would have been nice (batteries, oh batteries, why can't you just be an order of magnitude better?), and "fix the problems that liquid hydrocarbons have" has started to look less like a stupid idea.

nickpinkston 16y ago
Actually, I said fuel cell because of these reasons. H2 isn't nearly as energy dense as diesel. We've already had fuel cells that use diesel for a while: Penn State Develops Fuel Cell for Diesel (2001): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010905072008.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010905072008.ht...
- jerf 16y ago
  Fuel cells don't seem to have quite gotten to practical yet, and large-scale usage last I knew is still problematic due to requiring more rare-earth metals than we actually have access to on planet Earth. Like pure electric, they seem stuck on "frustratingly close".
  - billswift 16y ago
    Even worse is that you need a continuing supply of them because of "poisoning" of the catalyst by contaminants in the fuel or oxidizer. Despite decades of research, they have reduced but not eliminated the problem. Also, if you use atmospheric oxygen as the oxidizer, it makes the problem worse since it is even harder to reduce its contaminants.

Vivtek 16y ago

Oh, man. Now I want to build a carbon fiber stagecoach.

T_S_ 16y ago
I'll ride shotgun, er, taser.

asharp 16y ago

We can produce a damn fuel cell cheaply. We can't due to Duponts patents on PEM :(