Quote:
Originally Posted by stonebreaker
No, not necessarily. While modern batteries have poor energy density compared to gasoline, they're still way lighter and more compact than hauling a water heater tank around in your Prius. The other thing to think about is, in a hybrid car, you ALREADY have a storage mechanism - the batteries - built in. All you have to do is build the steam generator and add a heat exchanger to condense the steam back into water.
As for the efficiency of the steam generator, so what if it's not as efficient as a modern steam plant? You're recovering waste heat anyway, so anything you get back is a win. I would think that the reason they don't already have this technology on hybrid cars has more to do with weight, complexity, packaging and safety than thermal efficiency.
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Steam engines lost out to ICE because of cost and maintenance issues. Hauling a supplemental, low-efficiency one around would not pay. I'm not talking about hauling a plain water tank, but a phase-change tank.