New Device could make internal combustion 15-20% more efficient

Byoliveridley

Improving engine efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions are extremely important. Here, we report our fuel injection technology based on the new physics principle that proper application of electrorheology can reduce the viscosity of petroleum fuels. A small device is thus introduced just before the fuel injection for the engine, producing a strong electric field to reduce the fuel viscosity, resulting in much smaller fuel droplets in atomization. Because combustion starts at the droplet surface, smaller droplets lead to cleaner and more efficient combustion. Both laboratory tests and road tests confirm our theory and indicate that such a device improves fuel mileage significantly. The technology is expected to have broad applications, applicable to current internal combustion engines and future engines as well.

Electrorheology Leads to Efficient Combustion.

According to the press release, this is a very simple device. It has one small advantage over the usual snake oil, it is academic research and has been peer reviewed.

Good stuff, hope this is an easy after market addition to any vehicle with fuel injection. However, the press release also notes that the prototype is being developed for diesel engines only, and that the research was based mainly on diesel, wonder why…

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    CMA condemns Asbestos

    Byoliveridley

    The Canadian Medical Association Journal is denouncing the federal government for what it expects will be Canada's continued efforts to block international controls on asbestos at UN-sponsored negotiations next week.

    A strongly worded editorial, appearing in tomorrow's issue of the journal, says the government "knows what it is doing is shameful and wrong" and compared Ottawa's moral stature in continuing to promote the use of the cancer-causing material to that of arms traders.

    The negotiations, known as the Rotterdam Convention, are to start Oct. 27 in Rome. The focus of the talks will be on whether to add the chrysotile variety of asbestos to the world's list of most dangerous substances. Once a substance is listed, countries must give prior informed consent that they know they are buying a highly dangerous material before being allowed to accept any imports.

    via globeandmail.com: Medical journal blasts Ottawa for promoting asbestos abroad

    Canada’s national shame, its export of a killer product not used by Canadians to developing countries where the safeguards it insists on for the ‘safe” use of this product can’t possibly be carried out or enforced. For god’s sake, it’s 700 jobs, and people who can be retrained to do something that does not kill people.

  • Water find may end Darfur war

    Byoliveridley

    It has been posited that the Darfur crisis war genocide is a resource conflict caused by water shortage. If that is true, finding the world’s 10th largest lake (underground) will help.

    BBC NEWS | Africa | Water find may end Darfur war

    A huge underground lake has been found in Sudans Darfur region, scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the arid region.

    Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudans government, the Boston University researchers say.
    Analysts say competition for resources between Darfurs Arab nomads and black African farmers is behind the conflict.
    More than 200,000 Darfuris have died and 2m fled their homes since 2003.

    “Much of the unrest in Darfur and the misery is due to water shortages,” said geologist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, according to the AP news agency.

    “Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur,” he said.

    I am a technology sceptic sometimes, in the sense that I don’t believe technology fixes everything. But, this seems to be a promising development. If anything, all that activity, well digging, etc. will bring more people into Sudan and that could slow down the murderous Janjaweed.

  • |

    Vote Strategically for the Environment

    Byoliveridley

    via Vote For Environment / Voter Pour l’Environnement.

    This site wants you to vote strategically to avoid splitting the anti-conservative vote on the assumption that all things being equal, the conservatives are much worse for the environment than any of the other parties. This is not really how you want an election to be decided, but a party that represents the minority of Canadians should not get a parliamentary majority simply because of a flawed voting system.

    I would heartily endorse a preferential ballot system for us. How does this work?

    Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote and rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first preference rankings, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and that candidate’s votes redistributed to the voters’ next preferences among the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated. The term “instant runoff” is used because IRV is said to simulate a series of run-off elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election.

    Under this system, if you like the Green Party the best because of their environmental policies, but know they cannot win, you can still vote for them. Just have the liberals/NDP as the second choice. It is overwhelmingly likely that if you like the Green Party policies, you like the policies of the conservatives more than the policies of the liberals or the NDP. With our current system, that’s exactly what your vote will say. Your vote for a Green Party candidate in this election is essentially a vote for the Conservatives.

    In the absence of the preferential ballot, or instant runoff voting, using web 2.0 methods to vote strategically is the next best thing, and a great idea!

  • The “World Trade Center Cough”

    Byoliveridley

    Lung problems rife among WTC responders – Yahoo! News

    NEW YORK – Nearly 70 percent of recovery workers who responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center suffered lung problems during or after their work at ground zero, a new health study released Tuesday shows. Less than a week before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mount Sinai Medical Center issued the results of the largest study on related health effects. It found, among other things, that the ailments tended to be worst among those who arrived first at the site, and that high rates of lung “abnormalities” continued years later. The study focused mostly on what has been dubbed “World Trade Center cough,” which was little understood immediately after the attacks but became a chief concern of health experts and advocates.

    Not surprising at all, considering all the fine particles, asbestos, PAHs, elemental Carbon, PCBs, and numerous other nasties that were released in a couple of catastrophic explosions, and the utter unpreparedness of the first responders, who were, after all, going in to save other peoples’ lives, not looking out for the air they were breathing. Calling this major air pollution related health disaster the “World Trade Center Cough” is a little like calling World War II the “Skirmish with Germany, Part Deaux”, but what do I know about the power of language and framing!

  • Environmental Racism Strikes

    Byoliveridley

    If you had not been following this story previously, the NY Times finally mainstreams it.

    Global Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast – New York Times

    Over the next few days, the skin of his 6-month-old son, Salam, bloomed with blisters, which burst into weeping sores all over his body. The whole family suffered headaches, nosebleeds and stomach aches. How that slick, a highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda, ended up in Mr. Oudrawogol’s backyard in a suburb north of Abidjan is a dark tale of globalization. It came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Safe disposal in Europe would have cost about $300,000, or perhaps twice that, counting the cost of delays. But because of decisions and actions made not only here but also in Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world’s poorest people.

    “Dark tale of globalization”?? More like blatant disregard for non-white life, just saying…

  • Hansen Utters the M word

    Byoliveridley

    Well, I for one am glad that the world’s most famous climate scientist has called for a moratorium on coal fired power plants.
    Top scientist seeks halt on coal plants – Yahoo News

    In prepared remarks to be delivered at the National Press Club Monday afternoon, NASA scientist James Hansen, who has been one of the earliest top researchers to warn the world about global warming, will call for a moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants.

    Hansen’s call dovetails with an edict by the private equity group buying TXU, a massive Texas-based utility. The equity group, led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group, agreed to stop plans to build eight new coal-fired power plants, not to propose new coal-fired plants outside Texas and to support mandatory national caps on emissions linked to global warming.

    Hansen’s presentation to the press club says all coal-fired power plants that do not capture and bury carbon dioxide “must eventually be bulldozed (before mid-century).”

    The director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, who was speaking as a private citizen, said Congress should adopt these coal cuts and if not, “citizens must accomplish this.” He said increased efficiency can make up for the cutbacks in coal.

    Hallelujah!

One Comment

  1. The main flaw in the whole scheme is the (wrong) assumption that in diesels (and also in gasoline engines) up to 20% of the fuel escapes to exhaust without burning. This is patently wrong. And it is the starting point in all scams related to the similar “fuel saving” devices. In modern diesel and gasoline engines, built within the last decade or so, 98-99% of the fuel is burned; only 1-2% of the fuel may survive combustion and end up in the exhaust. Applying a strong electric field to the fuel line may produce finer droplets, but it will not produce 20% more energy because the margin is already 1-2%, if any. A more technical criticism pointing the main flaws in Dr. Tao’s study has just been published by the same journal Energy and Fuels: “Gulder “Comments on Electrorheology Leads Efficient Combustion by Tao et al.” Energy and Fuel s, ASAP in press (doi:10.1021/ef800829v). Prof. Gulder’s Comment can be accessed at http://arrow.utias.utoronto.ca/~ogulder/Z_Energy&Fuels2009comb_eff.pdf

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