remove the alternator and installing it on the front of the car

[celblazer]

That video is awesome. Why didn't Doc think of that to get his 1.2 gigawatts?

[MazdaMatt]

Do a search on this site for "No free lunch"... you should get your answers in those threads.

[GasGuage]

Boy, I've seen everything now. I vote for the sails....

[Ryland]

Is it math or the physics that you don't understand?

Originally Posted by hhometro

but isnt the winds going to be alot greater when your traveling down that road at 55, and was going to put 2 alternators on the front

[noeryan]

Hey, instead of relating you somewhere else, I'll try to explain how this video is a hoax.

In modern physics, energy is not created or destroyed. Also, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. **Remember these laws**

Also, since we are human, we can not produce many devices that work 100% efficiently... in fact, we do good to push 50% efficiency in most. Most modern, large, complex wind turbines max out around 35% efficient. This is using control systems for proper AoA (angle of attack), yawing, expensive generator systems, etc.

Since we know that energy isn't created or destroyed, how do the turbines extract energy from the wind? By converting some of the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy then to electrical energy that is useful.

What does converting the kinetic energy of the wind really mean? It means the fast air is pushing on the blades... this pushing is called dynamic pressure. **This pressure is pushing the car backwards.** Using this pressure, the blades spin and create electricity.

How do you overcome this pressure? By applying the same amount of pressure in the forward direction. This pressure is produced by the engine. Since our engine is running off of pressure pushing the car backwards and the engine is producing a pressure forwards to counteract it, if the entire system was 100% efficient it wouldn't move or it would be accelerated to a certain velocity by an outside source and then would kick in and maintain that velocity but could never accelerate faster.

HOWEVER, like I stated earlier, we are doing good to get 50% efficiency most of the time so if this were our case, we would be pushing with half of the pressure that is getting pushed on by the turbines which means we would quickly decelerate to a stop.

That might be over complicated sounding and actually a pretty poor explanation of the subject. How about just trusting that the power obtained by the turbines is a lot less than the power it takes to push them at that velocity.

Youtube.com should have a 'B/S' tag on it to help with the ridiculous videos that get posted by scam artists.

[Ryland]

It's also most efficent to cut out as many steps as possible when trying to get work done, like creating electricity, that is why the alternator runs off the engine and not the wind, air plains do the same thing and they have a 2nd alternator that can drop down that does run of the wind to power the controls when the engines start on fire and die but they hope never to have to use that.
also the wind at the front of the car is going to be very turbulent, as it is being compressed as it trys to move around the front of the car, propellers also have a speed range that they work well in if you go above or below this air speed then their ability to produce usable power drops off, so one designed for 50mph would hardly move at 20mph.

[Frank Lee]

Looks like he could use an explanation re: hho as well.

[noeryan]

Could you send me a link to the aircraft 'drop down turbine'? I've never heard of an aircraft dropping a turbine to gain power for control incase of an engine failure. I know the larger aircraft have an aux. turbine but it is run off of fuel, not air.

[i_am_socket]

If you read the post, he never said it was a secondary "turbine." Just sayin'.

[noeryan]

I'm lost...

Originally Posted by Ryland

air plains do the same thing and they have a 2nd alternator that can drop down that does run of the wind to power the controls when the engines start on fire and die but they hope never to have to use that.
also the wind at the front of the car is going to be very turbulent, as it is being compressed as it trys to move around the front of the car

This says a second alternator drops down to produce aux power from wind. When I said turbine, I meant a device with blades shaped like airfoils that convert wind energy to electrical energy. Maybe I should have said windmill

Also, the air IS compressed at the front but it is so small that it is considered incompressible. When you get to Mach 0.3 is when the compressibility of air is significant enough to include it in any mathematical calculations. It should be fairly linear though.

If you placed the turbine in front of the radiator... you would be using dynamic pressure that would be impacting the vehicle anyway. That might be worth testing.... Anywhere else would be hurting you pretty bad.