Harnessing automobile energy

That "waste heat" is not "escaping" from the motor, it is being forcibly ejected so that the motor can have as high an efficiency as it does. Will this 1.5 conversion number be enough to make up for loss of efficiency in your engine?

Hi Dave,

I doubt that conversion number will come anywhere near recouping the eficiency loss of the current crop of ICE. It may, however, (unless it's ridiculously expensive) help. There is always a trade-off point of no return - based on the expected return on investment

When I read an efficiency of 0.71 I say wow, assuming 1 if full conversion.

But I have to rethink it and read 0.71% which is for me : stop the complete project now. even 1.5% is a joke.

Install a simple Stirling generator and the overall efficiency goes easely up to 20% with a dT of 200 to 300°.

Maybe they didn't mean that the "efficiency" was 1.5 (150%) but rather that some coefficient of something. It sounds to me like another case of a non-scientific person trying to write an article/synopsis of something that they don't understand. My guess is that if you spoke to the people in charge of the research they would tell you that the .71 and 1.5 are coefficients of thermal conductivity or something like that because you are right to say that an efficiency of 1.5 is a joke (or someone finally found the answer to that whole cold fusion thing ).

How do these so-called researchers get by with quoting temperatures in the outmoded Fahrenheit scale.

Surely the Kelvin scale, or at least the Celsius scale should be used, as these are International Standards.

Kind Regards....

As usual you are quite right but you will find out that US still uses the imperial units as they are convinced that the metric system which is "invented" by Napoleon is bad.

None of them understands why Napoleon decided to go for this system but that is of a lesser importance.

But let's keep it a secret that the fact that they drive at the right side of the road is also a decision of Napoleon. Some Rednecks migth decide to start driving left.