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| Re: [GMCnet] Put a Generator in your Muffler [message #75742 is a reply to message #75714] |
Fri, 05 March 2010 09:50   |
Rick Denney
Messages: 430
Registered: January 2004
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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> This technology and study of same is already 30yo+. It
> comes up every time there is an energy scare. This, the
> "Solar Powered Airconditioning" and the "Free Electricity"
> are regulars on the scene. I've done one rant today, so I
> won't go on about this one.
I'll do it for you, Matt.
Fundamental law of nature: You can't get something for
nothing. More formally, the energy going into a system cannot
exceed the energy coming out of it--that's called
conservation of energy.
The question is: How much energy is being stored in the noise
produced by the engine? Here's the way to apply a smell test:
A generator will easily produce the power to drive a largish
power tool that will cut your GMC in half (I know this to be
the case--I powered a Milwaukee Sawzall with a metal-cutting
blade and cut the back end off a junk coach, powered by the
small generator in Guy Peeters's coach). Is it plausible that
the noise emanating from the engine could provide that much
power? Noise wiggles air molecules back and forth such that
they bump into each other and pass their bumping along to
their neighbors. How many air molecules have to move how far
and how fast to power a Milwaukee Sawzall (especially
considering the Sawzall, when cutting the aluminum skin of
the coach, makes more noise than the engine)? Even more to
the point: How many air molecules will the compressor in the
roof AC unit move, and how far? Is that more molecules moved
farther than the noise produced by the engine? My smeller
says yes, by many orders of magnitude.
Likewise, a generator can produce much more than enough power
to boil a pot of water in a minute or so to make coffee. How
long would it take concentrated solar energy to boil a pot of
water? How much solar energy would one have to collect to do
that? It's pretty apparent that a solar panel would have to
be pretty big to concentrate enough solar energy to boil a
pot of water in a minute.
There are ways to calculate these claims with precision, but
we ought to be able to apply a common-sense understanding of
the conservation of energy to separate the silly from the
promising.
Rick "happy to help Matt out" Denney
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'73 Glacier 230 "Jaws"
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