Wind/Solar/Kinetic From Breaks?

[RickinMD]

Ok first let me say compared to most of you I'm an Idiot... lol...
I understand the basic laws of physics and drag but I have a question about the use of redundant or multiple ideas. I'm sure a lot of you will poo poo the idea and that's good and bad. If people did not think outside the box we would not have the options we do today.

Ok here's an idea
1st your use the same idea as the Kinetic breaking system Toyota uses on Hybrids
2nd you have solar panels on the room and hood of the vehicle
3rd and I know this one will draw some "resistance" but wind turbines on the vehicle.
I know with the 3rd people are going to talk about drag but...

On the front of the car specifically behind the grill area. The radiator already creates drag but if you placed wind turbines in front of the radiator that already creates drag then what would you loose driving at 50 miles per hours the fans turn to create energy. Where would the loss be since you are already creating a drag with the radiator?

A vehicle is not paper thin and it can't be so it will always create drag in places and if you optimize those places and replace existing area's of drag and use the existing points of drag to create energy.

Maybe using all three together would provide enough energy to have a vehicle that does not require any fossil fuel to propel.

Solar could charge batteries during drive and at rest in parking lots and drive ways while not working...

Breaks could replenish batteries during stopping

Turbines on existing drag points could help reduce the kw's needed to operate the vehicle during electric use.

 

[russ_watters]

What you would lose with a turbine in front of your radiator is the ability to cool your engine...and you'd gain very little electrical energy. Heck, your radiator already has a fan in it! It's possible that when the car is going fast enough and it's cold outside, the fan could be run as a turbine, but I'm really not sure under what specific conditions the reduction in airflow would be acceptable.

What you really should do is look at just how much energy/power each of those is capable of producing and compare it to the energy required to propel a car.

 

[RickinMD]

The thing is the air does not disappear it travels through the turbine just as is does the grill of the car to the Radiator

If it was something like this
http://inhabitat.com/micro-wind-turbines-small-size-big-impact/

Maybe it would create energy.

I'm just asking the redundancy of all three would it create enough power to recharge batteries that run the engine.

Chevrolet just came out with a car that the first 35 miles used is all electric and after it's hybrid. It again uses fossil fuel to charge the battery from home.

The Majority of people drive about 40 or so miles a day to and from work or shorter trips around town... Could the redundancy change the need to plug in the car daily as while it's nice to have a garage with a plug in reality most people in this world park on the street and parking lots most of the time. Solar while the car is sitting could help recharge these batteries and the turbines help also...

I don't know it's just an idea but just remember that we would not be where we are today in this and other things in the world if people didn't ask questions and challenge the mind of people to think outside of a box...

If you told someone 200 years ago that we could create energy from the sun the scientists of the day would have said it's not possible to capture this energy just as people say that you can't put a turbine on a car... wind turbines and the method it generates energy as well as the drag influence has changed over the last 40 years and can continue to change who knows...

 

[russ_watters]

The thing is the air does not disappear it travels through the turbine just as is does the grill of the car to the Radiator

No, it doesn't disappear, but only some of it still travels through the radiator. And some of it is re-directed around the car. Think about it: if none were re-directed around the car, an endless series of turbines inside a duct could produce an infinite amount of energy from a small amount of airflow. Instead, each turbine you add blocks a little bit of air from entering the duct.

If it was something like this
http://inhabitat.com/micro-wind-turbines-small-size-big-impact/

According to tests, turbines arranged within a surface area of one square meter and a wind speed of 5 m/sec generate 131 kWh/yr.

Ok - at Phildadlphia electricity prices, that's about $20 a year for an array of turbines that's much bigger than a car radiator. On battery power, a car would use more than $20 a day of electricity at highway speed.

I'm just asking the redundancy of all three would it create enough power to recharge batteries that run the engine.

Certainly not. I'm guessing (I want you to do the research and calculations), but I'd bet you could recover less than 10% of the energy needed to power the car. And note, the regenerative braking and turbines only work at opposite times: when the car is going slow, the turbine has to be run as a fan and so burns energy and when the car is going fast on a highway, the regenerative braking isn't doing anything.

C'mon - you can easily google for a solar panel you could mount on the hood and roof of the car: you tell me how much power it can generate!

And for how much power a car needs to run, a good, aerodynamic gas car like the Prius gets 45 miles per gallon at moderate highway speed of, say, 60 mph. That's 1.33 gallons of gas per hour. You can google for the energy content of gas and divide by 3 (a gas car is about 33% efficient at highway speed) to get the power required to run the car. Then compare that with how much the solar panel gives you.

 

[RickinMD]

So what's the answer to the problems of fossil fuel problem if we put our hands in the air and say we can't do it.

So the Nissan Leaf needs 36kw if energy to drive 100 miles...

Could all three create a total the needed amount to drive that far?

What I was saying is the Turbines would create electricity while the car is driving

The Breaking systems would create energy during city driving and stopping

The Solar would create energy while driving and sitting in parking lots... you may be able to get an average of 7 hours of energy from solar on most days

I know with my drive from Columbia MD to Baltimore City I have about 15 miles of highway each way... another 5 miles in the city with traffic lights... The car parking on the street and in parking lots during the day...

I was thinking of a way to supplement the need to plug a car in at night and store electricity for driving use