[owly]

....... I look at fuel efficiency a bit more broadly than just gas mileage............. About 80% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline goes out as waste heat...... and we cannot improve much on that. However in my part of the world we heat our houses burning propane or natural gas..... That's fuel too!!! If I could capture my waste heat.... some % of it, and use it for home heating, I can greatly improve my fuel efficiency, but it cannot be measured by a simplistic figure like "gas mileage". If 20% of the energy in my fuel goes to propelling my car, and I can utilize even 10% of that energy to heat my house, I've achieved a 50% increase in fuel economy. If I can utilize coolant heat and exhaust heat, and lets say store it in molten salt in a tank, and actually utilize 20% of the energy in the fuel for heating, and 20% for propulsion, I've DOUBLED my fuel economy.

This would only be of value during the heating season........ but it might be possible to get my 18 mpg pickup up to an effective 36 mpg.......... better than my car.

We need to look at our overall energy consumption not just gas mileage...... In an ideal world, one would have a thermal solution in an insulated tank, and when you filled your car with gas, you would pump out the solution and replace it with cold solution, and get credited for the thermal value based on seasonal demand, and it would be used in homes and buildings..........

H.W.