Totally new petrol engine set to upset auto industry apple cart

[bikepete]

Sounds like it needs to be paired up with this exciting new transmission system:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXW0bx_Ooq4[/media]

 

[User482]

We never stop emitting CO[sub]2[/sub]. Not those of us who breathe, at any rate. And we're always going to be dependent on transport of some sort, mostly derived from fossil fuel. If these engines use less fuel they will consequently generate less CO[sub]2[/sub]. So worth considering.

I wonder what happened to the Stirling Engine? Far closer to the Carnot cycle ideal than the Otto or Diesel cycles, at any rate. But expensive to manufacture.

Stirling engines are used in micro combined heat & power units.

 

[Brains]

And how exactly can the oil companies make sure it never gets off the ground?

And before you say they will "ask their mates in the auto industry to bury the idea", the car companies and the oil industry are in a marriage of convenience, as soon as one can increase their profits by reducing their dependence on the other they won't hesitate.

Here's how ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal

 

[Over The Hill]

Here's how ....

http://en.wikipedia....reetcar_scandal

Interesting bit of wiki but nothing to do with and no paralell with a new type of engine.

The streetcar thing is about an new technology (a better bus) taking over from an old technology (the existing tram).

Trams are fairly useless and really offer no advantage over a bus but have lots of disadvantages (set routes, high infrastructure costs, taking up lots more space, difficulty goin around a corner) and were only an advantage over a crude early bus or horse drawn carrage.

The "new" engine seems to be a re-hash of a very old idea with no new inventive step to it. It will sink without a trace for that reason but all the conspiricy theory people will claim it to have been quashed by the car or oil producers.

 

[benb]

Trams are fairly useless and really offer no advantage over a bus but have lots of disadvantages (set routes, high infrastructure costs, taking up lots more space, difficulty goin around a corner) and were only an advantage over a crude early bus or horse drawn carrage.

I think trams have their place, and do have some advantages over buses.

- Easier to automate
- No emissions
- Quieter
- Better capacity and throughput
- Overall operating costs are, I seem to recall, lower than buses

There are of course disadvantages too, but I don't think it's true to say they offer no advantage.

Different situations call for different types of public transport.