Why I love the price of gasoline

George Huebener saw the gas turbine as the future engine for automobiles. Automobile turbines can be small, light, and durable and have 80 percent fewer moving parts than a piston engine. They can burn almost any liquid fuel and need no oil changes or radiators. However, little of the experience with aircraft jet engines can be applied to ground vehicles. Instead of operating near maximum power, an automobile engine spends most of its life at 10 to 15 percent load, and its duty cycle consists of constant accelerations and decelerations. Aerodynamic components of automobile turbine engines are extremely small, but must be proportionally as accurate as those in large jet engines and operate at much higher rotational speeds. The engine must be produced at low cost and have excellent fuel economy.

The first prototype turbine was built in 1953 and installed in a production Plymouth car. It was the first of six generations of experimental turbines. In 1963 Chrysler put fifty gas turbines in hand-built vehicles for public assessment. Thirty thousand letters were received from people who wanted to be part of the test. A marketing program selected 203 representative drivers in forty-eight states and the District of Columbia.

Better turbines are now available these days.

Meanwhile back in Detroit -

US automakers want end to hybrid credits!

But why?

A report today suggests GM and Ford are lobbying for rules that would reduce the incentive to buy hybrids.

The irony is that diesel hybrids could be far more efficient and clean than anything now on the market, without any leaps in technology. The combination of modern clean diesel engines, Prius-style serial hybrid-electric systems, and biodiesel/vegetable oil fuels could provide amazing mileage, cleaner air, and vastly reduced petroleum dependency. Comfortable, powerful sedans could get upwards of 80 miles per gallon and be carbon-neutral.

However, that misses the point. With a hybrid, the load on the turbine can be made constant, which in principle makes it appropriate for the application of basic transportation. The electrical system buffers the load.

AFS Trinity Power Corporation has filed its patent application disclosing the company's new technology for an Extreme Hybrid car capable of carrying the average American motorist more than 250 miles on a single gallon of gasoline or ethanol. The Extreme Hybrid will plug into a house's electrical current overnight to run without gasoline or ethanol for the 40 miles that the average American drives each day. For longer trips, the vehicle will operate as a conventional hybrid that efficiently burns gasoline or ethanol. The AFS Trinity patent filing discloses that Fast Energy Storage technology, including ultracapacitors, controllers and power electronics, will enable the Extreme Hybrid(TM) to overcome the limitations of the energy storage components of conventional hybrids and other plug-in designs.

SEATTLE, May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- AFS Trinity Power Corporation today filed its patent application disclosing the company's new technology for an Extreme Hybrid(TM) car capable of carrying the average American motorist more than 250 miles on a single gallon of gasoline or ethanol.

Are there any other large consumers of VO, besides restaurants and processiong plants?

The irony with hybrids right now is that the price is inflated by demand resulting from the small scale production levels. With sufficient production, the price would drop dramatically.

I had to laugh at the logic used by a reporter last night. He was trying to make the point that local stations have no incentive to engage in price gouging. The logic was that the station owners primarily make money from the mini-marts found inside most stations. If they raise their gas prices, the reporter reasoned, people wouldn't have as much money to spend inside.

Fuel efficiency is only a temporary solution to the problem, but it would help a lot and it isn't that much of a stretch to raise average fuel efficiency by 30% or so. That would be a heckuva good start.

If Congress accepts the Energy Department's proposed 2007 budget, it will cut $152 million - some 16 percent - from this year's budget for energy-efficiency programs. Adjusting for inflation, it would mean the US government would spend 30 percent less on energy efficiency next year than it did in 2002, the ACEEE says.

In any case, being a capitalist, I agree with Ivan's central premise: capitalist market forces are what is required to push the needed changes.