In my diligent search through the web to find articles of interest about energy, fuel saving measures, and efficiency I happened upon an article from the Technology Review published by MIT entitled Why Not a 40-MPG SUV. The substance of the article was that, despite the remonstrances of (particularly) the U.S. automobile industry, the technology is available now to bring relatively large and comfortable SUV's that achieve a fuel efficiency of 40 miles per gallon.
This was of particular interest to me since I drive a relatively large and comfortable SUV, the Land Rover LR3 HSE that has been the subject of many of the articles I've posted. Now, none of the technologies described in the article can be retrofitted to my vehicle, but they could be brought to market by the time I have to replace the LR3.
Some of the options reflect methods I've already incorporated into my regimen, such as engines that turn off and restart at stoplights, etc. The development is a starter /generator that has sufficient power to start the engine without noticeable lag when a driver steps on the gas after a stop. The current state of the art requires a 42 volt electrical system and is a way out into the future. As detailed previously, I simulate this at relatively long stoplights and on long downhill cruises and make up for the lack of instant starting ability with anticipation.
Some of the developments detailed are already beginning to appear, one example is the continuously variable transmission. Clearly, the ability to run in a narrow band of r.p.m.s regardless of vehicle speed will result in more efficient operation - this is one reason why modern locomotives are hybrid diesel electric propulsion systems wherein the diesel engine runs at a constant r.p.m. to operate electric motors that provide the motive force.
Some are much farther out, including engines that operate without camshafts to operate the valves. Electronic controllers can do a much more efficient job of opening and closing the valves, but are quite hard on them using current technology. Camshafts are more gentle, engineers are investigating various damping systems to reduce the electronically controlled valves impact on valve seats.
There are several more methods under development detailed in the article. Contemplating the individual financial savings as gasoline creeps seemingly inexorably toward $4/gallon and considering the impact on our need to import oil, it's high time we got down to it.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Stoplights (stop me if you've heard this before)
Never one to leave well enough alone (as an aside, this is one of the many expressions I never really understood until well into adulthood - another is "you can't have your cake and eat it too"), I've started sporadically keeping track of my stoplight experiences. I've tracked how many greens, how many reds, and approximately how much time was spent waiting. I say approximately because it's not so easy to determine when to start the timing at a light - do you start the stopwatch at first brake application? Or at a complete stop? What about slowing down but not having to stop? I'm trying to tie the timing to time not using fuel as efficiently as cruising, but there's a lot of judgment involved.
But it's looking like the earlier estimates I made (see here and here)for stoplight durations are fairly close. In the time I've been recording this data (only sporadically because it's quite distracting), I've encountered 59% green lights. I've suffered an average delay of 32 seconds. I've passed through an average of 32 lights each day. So that means that I'm losing an average of about 10:06 per day while stopped at 19 stoplights.
I try to minimize driving on weekends (though I haven't succeeded in eliminating it entirely) so I'll figure 280 days per year of losing 10:06 per day, for a total of 47.13 hours per year lost at stoplights. Burning about 0.5 gallons of fuel per hour at idle, if I don't turn the engine off at any lights, I'll burn 23.6 gallons of fuel. In my Land Rover LR3 HSE, that's a little over a single tank full and at $3.39/gallon (today) it's worth just barely less than $80.00.
This underestimates the loss, however, because it only counts idling fuel and not the fuel wasted in regaining energy lost to braking that has to be added by burning fuel. I estimated that in the second of the two posts listed above, so I'll just refine it here. I estimated stopping at 12 lights for 45 seconds each day for a loss of 9:00 per day, apparently a slight underestimation.
To finally squeeze the last blood from this turnip, I'll estimate that I slow from 35 m.p.h. to 0 on average at each of the 19 stoplights. It's not perfect, but it's as good as I know how to do. In any case, this wastes 322,150 joules of energy which takes, at 25% efficiency, 1,288,600 joules of heat energy from burning premium grade fuel to regain.
Using the figures above, and estimating 125,000,000 joules of heat energy available in a gallon of gasoline, I burn 54.84 gallons of fuel per year adding kinetic energy to my vehicle that I've wasted to heat my brakes stopping for stoplights. The total then is 78.4 gallons of fuel, or about 3.6 tanks full wasted. This number is quite close to my previous estimate, but now there's data to back it up. To me, the interesting aspect of this is the fact that well over 2/3 of the fuel wasted is due to getting back up to speed rather than to burning fuel while sitting still. Since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of speed, this stands to reason but it's still interesting to see it documented.
I'm still anticipating an experiment to determine fuel lost in restarting, but this data shows the potential savings from coasting to a stop without brakes (thus using instead of wasting kinetic energy) and turning off the engine - ideally as soon as the coasting begins. As with most of the other measures, it won't eliminate our need to import oil but it could help delay the crash.
But it's looking like the earlier estimates I made (see here and here)for stoplight durations are fairly close. In the time I've been recording this data (only sporadically because it's quite distracting), I've encountered 59% green lights. I've suffered an average delay of 32 seconds. I've passed through an average of 32 lights each day. So that means that I'm losing an average of about 10:06 per day while stopped at 19 stoplights.
I try to minimize driving on weekends (though I haven't succeeded in eliminating it entirely) so I'll figure 280 days per year of losing 10:06 per day, for a total of 47.13 hours per year lost at stoplights. Burning about 0.5 gallons of fuel per hour at idle, if I don't turn the engine off at any lights, I'll burn 23.6 gallons of fuel. In my Land Rover LR3 HSE, that's a little over a single tank full and at $3.39/gallon (today) it's worth just barely less than $80.00.
This underestimates the loss, however, because it only counts idling fuel and not the fuel wasted in regaining energy lost to braking that has to be added by burning fuel. I estimated that in the second of the two posts listed above, so I'll just refine it here. I estimated stopping at 12 lights for 45 seconds each day for a loss of 9:00 per day, apparently a slight underestimation.
To finally squeeze the last blood from this turnip, I'll estimate that I slow from 35 m.p.h. to 0 on average at each of the 19 stoplights. It's not perfect, but it's as good as I know how to do. In any case, this wastes 322,150 joules of energy which takes, at 25% efficiency, 1,288,600 joules of heat energy from burning premium grade fuel to regain.
Using the figures above, and estimating 125,000,000 joules of heat energy available in a gallon of gasoline, I burn 54.84 gallons of fuel per year adding kinetic energy to my vehicle that I've wasted to heat my brakes stopping for stoplights. The total then is 78.4 gallons of fuel, or about 3.6 tanks full wasted. This number is quite close to my previous estimate, but now there's data to back it up. To me, the interesting aspect of this is the fact that well over 2/3 of the fuel wasted is due to getting back up to speed rather than to burning fuel while sitting still. Since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of speed, this stands to reason but it's still interesting to see it documented.
I'm still anticipating an experiment to determine fuel lost in restarting, but this data shows the potential savings from coasting to a stop without brakes (thus using instead of wasting kinetic energy) and turning off the engine - ideally as soon as the coasting begins. As with most of the other measures, it won't eliminate our need to import oil but it could help delay the crash.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Humans as generators
I was watching the show "Invention Nation" on the Discovery Science Channel. The hosts visited a company that, apparently, is working on a revolving door that, when operated by patrons, generates electricity by moving neodymium magnets across coils of copper wire. The mechanism is exposed, so that patrons of an establishment that has such doors will be able to see the means by which they are generating power.
I was skeptical as to the significance of such a device, the show hosts used a prototype to light a small bank of L.E.D.'s. So I performed a Google search on the terms "generating power with revolving doors." I found several sites that mentioned the use of various human activities to generate useful power, including revolving doors and other methods (e.g., piezoelectric crystals in floors). This led me to consider the possibilities (quoting Marcellus Wallace, "All I'm doing is contemplating the 'ifs'").
As best I can tell, the human body, when purposefully performing work (riding a bicycle, lifting, etc.) has an efficiency of somewhere between 11% and 14%. That counts only how many calories (actually kilocalories) of food it takes to do a given amount of "useful" work. It does not count the sun to plant to animal to slaughterhouse to processing plant to distributor to store to house to stove to mouth efficiency (leave out some of those if you're a vegetarian). So, unless someone is exercising to remain physically fit, utilizing the human body to convert sunlight to electricity is quite inefficient.
Let's run some "back of the envelope" calculations though. There are about 3*10^8 people in the U.S. Say 1*10^8 of them walk on office, factory, or school floors, walk through revolving doors, etc. Now, the average adult uses something like 2500 kilocalories per day, let's say 100 of those are used putting feet on floors, using doors, etc. (very generous in my opinion). At 14% efficiency by the human and 50% efficiency by the generator (piezoelectric, magnetic, etc.) we have: 100 kilocalories*0.14*0.5 kilocalories of useful work per day per person to be captured.
Work divided by time is power so the above can be converted to watts per person (I typically use Google's calculator). This yields 0.339 watts per person. This is the effective continuous power output per person on average. Multiply this by 1*10^8 to total 33,900,000 or 3.39*10^7 watts available nationwide calculated on a continuous basis. According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2005 we used electricity at the rate of 3.816 trillion kilowatt hours/year, or 4.353*10^11 watts. Hence, using these extremely optimistic assumptions, this scheme could generate 0.008%, or 8 one thousandths of 1% of our electricity.
As I said though, when we do this, we're converting solar power inefficiently into electricity. Better to invest the money into more efficient generation schemes, except at health clubs, etc., where people are working out into a load and it might just as well be an electrical load that serves a purpose.
I was skeptical as to the significance of such a device, the show hosts used a prototype to light a small bank of L.E.D.'s. So I performed a Google search on the terms "generating power with revolving doors." I found several sites that mentioned the use of various human activities to generate useful power, including revolving doors and other methods (e.g., piezoelectric crystals in floors). This led me to consider the possibilities (quoting Marcellus Wallace, "All I'm doing is contemplating the 'ifs'").
As best I can tell, the human body, when purposefully performing work (riding a bicycle, lifting, etc.) has an efficiency of somewhere between 11% and 14%. That counts only how many calories (actually kilocalories) of food it takes to do a given amount of "useful" work. It does not count the sun to plant to animal to slaughterhouse to processing plant to distributor to store to house to stove to mouth efficiency (leave out some of those if you're a vegetarian). So, unless someone is exercising to remain physically fit, utilizing the human body to convert sunlight to electricity is quite inefficient.
Let's run some "back of the envelope" calculations though. There are about 3*10^8 people in the U.S. Say 1*10^8 of them walk on office, factory, or school floors, walk through revolving doors, etc. Now, the average adult uses something like 2500 kilocalories per day, let's say 100 of those are used putting feet on floors, using doors, etc. (very generous in my opinion). At 14% efficiency by the human and 50% efficiency by the generator (piezoelectric, magnetic, etc.) we have: 100 kilocalories*0.14*0.5 kilocalories of useful work per day per person to be captured.
Work divided by time is power so the above can be converted to watts per person (I typically use Google's calculator). This yields 0.339 watts per person. This is the effective continuous power output per person on average. Multiply this by 1*10^8 to total 33,900,000 or 3.39*10^7 watts available nationwide calculated on a continuous basis. According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2005 we used electricity at the rate of 3.816 trillion kilowatt hours/year, or 4.353*10^11 watts. Hence, using these extremely optimistic assumptions, this scheme could generate 0.008%, or 8 one thousandths of 1% of our electricity.
As I said though, when we do this, we're converting solar power inefficiently into electricity. Better to invest the money into more efficient generation schemes, except at health clubs, etc., where people are working out into a load and it might just as well be an electrical load that serves a purpose.
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