World's smallest petrol engine

[XHILR8N!]

Xtreme Machines: SMALLEST PETROL ENGINE

[apk919]

Very cool. And once again it reinforces the fact that there aren't many ways to store energy that are more efficient per unit volume/weight than hydrocarbons.

[forkmeupscotty]

I think I remember hearing about a diesel turbine engine similar in size few years ago...
Cool stuff.

I don't buy it.

[Harix]

I want to see it running. At least making some noise..

[JLSELISE]

Neat--I wonder if Larini makes an aftermarket exhaust for it .

[Hello Kitty]

Cellphones will soon sound like chainsaws

[saffron blur]

Something seemed off about this so I Googled it. I didn't come up with anything concrete but if it was as good as they say you would think this would have been fast tracked. I found copies of the same article dating back to June 19th 2003. So where is it? Where's my high octane iPhone? Thought it was six years away. And why haven't we heard ANYTHING more about it. I smell a hoax.

New mini petrol engine | The Sun |News

[shay2nak]

awesome.

needs a turbo

[lotusforsale]

That's what Lotus is using in the next generation Elise.

[apk919]

Originally Posted by saffron blur

Something seemed off about this so I Googled it. I didn't come up with anything concrete but if it was as good as they say you would think this would have been fast tracked. I found copies of the same article dating back to June 19th 2003. So where is it? Where's my high octane iPhone? Thought it was six years away. And why haven't we heard ANYTHING more about it. I smell a hoax.

New mini petrol engine | The Sun |News

The one thing that made me wince was the statement that: "At present, charging an ordinary battery to deliver one unit of energy involves putting 2,000 units into it.". I don't think that's correct; it sounds way too inefficient.

A typical lithium-ion AA cell holds 750maH of charge... 2,000 times that would be 1,500 aH... or equivalent to charging at 100 amps for 15 hours? No way.

[XHILR8N!]

Shenanigans may well apply here, does seem too good to be real. How to remove exhaust is interesting. There would not be much but it's gotta go somewhere. Might smell good to we gearheads.
Sector and others will have mods soon. Oh yeah and carbon fiber flashy bits.

[eurosport]

Nah, bad design, piston engines go "boing, boing, boing," but cell phones should go mmmmmmmmm

[fitfan]

Originally Posted by apk919

The one thing that made me wince was the statement that: "At present, charging an ordinary battery to deliver one unit of energy involves putting 2,000 units into it.". I don't think that's correct; it sounds way too inefficient.

A typical lithium-ion AA cell holds 750maH of charge... 2,000 times that would be 1,500 aH... or equivalent to charging at 100 amps for 15 hours? No way.

depends "what" you take into consideration. lets just say the 2,000x is a valid # for random benchmark sake... consider this (for fossil fuel, as an example) you need to hire 50 engineers to site the source, hire 500 engineers to design a platform, hire 5,000 dudes, to build the darn thing, (and all the energy that goes into these things, driving to work, running offices, then constructions materials, manufacturing cost of extracting the raw material and making the construction material, shipping the construction materials) ok. so you got the thing built... but haven't extracted anything and what kind of Ratio are we already at? then you get the goo out, you ship it (and you have to engineer the ships, build the ships, operate and fuel the ships) refine it - oh, you need to engineer a refinery, build a refinery, pay all those those people and consume all those resources...) so you got refined tuff.. now you need to distribute it... build trucks, consume fuel to get it there, build distribution stations, etc.. etc... etc... and at some point you have to decommission stuff, run operations to clean up stuff, etc.. so if you take the ENTIRE lifecycle cost and impact of producing and consuming energy (weather fossil or electric) then you start to get an idea that 2,000x might not be so far off.. most studies seem to agree electric (in all its varieties of source fuel) is ahead of fossil fuel in ratio of energy consumed to use. but its not a staggering difference. the biggest benefit is distribution to point of use for electricity is waaaay more efficient. (wire, instead of shipping and storing and distributing) - hence, why electricity is "cleaner" even if your apples to apples up through production. additionally you are "cleaner" at consumption. since a electric motor doesn't have quite the service of internal combustion engine, and the related cost/fuel there.

of course trying to "store" electricity in a box is not practical as fuel, to your point. but getting fuel into the box comes at a greater cost, if you don't need to box it, or can use what's in the box more efficiently - thats all the trick...

hence why buildings are wired to electricity and not piped with fossil fuel (since they don't have move around and carry their power on board, obviously)

the most efficient way to do that - is series electric hybrid - aka, the train. ...tune the IC to its most efficient (although very narrow) limits to consume on board energy storage (fossil fuel), and use the 3x more efficient a/c poly phase motor (electric) to drive.

anyway - my point is... the 2,000x # might be reasonable.

[apk919]

Originally Posted by fitfan

depends "what" you take into consideration...
anyway - my point is... the 2,000x # might be reasonable.

Well, for single-use batteries I'm sure it takes a huge amount of energy...

I was talking about the marginal (as in after manufacturing) efficiency of rechargeable batteries... which is what I thought they were implying given the context.

[Mr.C]

That's somehow the extreme opposite of this one

[Ukhtar]

Originally Posted by Mr.C

That's somehow the extreme opposite of this one

Attachment 161147

Two cranes to lift that monster! OMG! That thing must be a feather right?

[fitfan]

Originally Posted by apk919

Well, for single-use batteries I'm sure it takes a huge amount of energy...

I was talking about the marginal (as in after manufacturing) efficiency of rechargeable batteries... which is what I thought they were implying given the context.

i took that "article" to be a bit scandalous, so assumed they were looking for the most outrageous # out of context, hence my response

never the less, the delivery of electricity to point of use, whether recharging a cell phone battery or running the elevators of sky scrapper is the same. the full lifecyle cost are the same (practically) to delivery the power. its just so marginal consumption wise. so i would say to "deliver" the re-charge, taking into consideration full lifecycle, something like 2,000x is probably not unreasonable. we just don't think in terms of full lifecycle energy use. i would say that if you had to deliver energy to re-charge a cell phone only... it would cost, oh about 25,000 dollars, just to deliver a wire to say your cottage. so somewhere in the middle, there is some degree of truth

the efficiency post delivery is pretty well known. rectifier manuf. publish it. any yes, it is of course no where even close to 2,000!! - more like anywhere from a low of 40% to a high of 97%. and the use efficiency of batteries are quite good, assuming you are not trying to store power long term.so for sake of argument, it is safe to say that when you plug in your cell phone charger in the wall, and then use your cell phone after - you are getting a reasoanble argument of ~50% efficency of the power out of the wall socket to make your call. (that of course much higher for more high quality, bigger demand rectifiers, say a car charger would be more like 95%)