On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:03:39 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote:
"carneyke" wrote in message
oups.com...
I think my point is for everything we do there
will always be a "bad" side and its a shame it gets so political. So
please accept my appollogy for being rude and as Jim wrote "Ignorant".
Sorry Jim.....

Gee, you must be coming from an awfully polite newsgroup. g

FWIW, most of the fuel you burn in your car goes out the tailpipe. A
super-efficient spark-ignition engine turns something like 24% of its fuel
into motive power (if my memory of this number is not accurate, someone
please correct me; I haven't looked it up for years). Of that, something
like 60% makes it to the drive wheels. So a spark-ignition-engined car, on a
good day, delivers somewhere around 15% of the thermal potential of the
fuel, as motive power to the wheels.

It doesn't get a lot better with other engine types. A large, efficient,
stationary diesel is good for something like 28% at the shaft. The number is
similar for a huge, stationary, multi-stage steam turbine. And, believe it
or not, also for a Stirling, running with helium or hydrogen for a working
fluid, at very high internal gas pressure and with a high-efficiency heat
exchanger at each end.

Sucks, doesn't it? And that's on a good day. d8-)

Speaking of losing memory neurons, I seem to recall seeing a sort of
diagram, back in the '50's, when they had flat-head straight 6's, that
something like 2% of the potential power in the fuel actually got to the
wheels.

There were HUGE thermal losses, and friction, and yadda yadda yadda...

Thanks!
Rich