Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[inteuniso]

How would powder fuels be transported through an engine however? Is there a medium in which the iron would be suspended?

Water?

[Reelya]

Sounds like it would be hard to burn the iron powder and stop it rusting by itself if it's suspended in water.

Another article said that the only practical way to use these fuels was in a steam-engine type apparatus, i.e. a coal plant could be converted to burn metal powder. I'm just not sure how well that's going to scale down to propelling vehicles. There are modern steam engine designs which rival combustion engines for efficiency, but you still have to trap the oxides that are produced if you want this to be emission-free. So I'm predicting now that, nope, burning metal powders isn't going to be practical for a single-occupant vehicle.

Sure, there are the aluminium-based rocket boosters used on the space shuttles, but those are one-use, and they produce tons of emissions. It's the emission of the burning propellant aluminium oxide which gives the engine thrust, after all. Trying to capture the thrust so you can turn that back into aluminium. Well that's just not going to work.

[martinuzz]

Sounds like it would be hard to burn the iron powder and stop it rusting by itself if it's suspended in water.

Another article said that the only practical way to use these fuels was in a steam-engine type apparatus, i.e. a coal plant could be converted to burn metal powder. I'm just not sure how well that's going to scale down to propelling vehicles. There are modern steam engine designs which rival combustion engines for efficiency, but you still have to trap the oxides that are produced if you want this to be emission-free. So I'm predicting now that, nope, burning metal powders isn't going to be practical for a single-occupant vehicle.

Sure, there are the aluminium-based rocket boosters used on the space shuttles, but those are one-use, and they produce tons of emissions. It's the emission of the burning propellant aluminium oxide which gives the engine thrust, after all. Trying to capture the thrust so you can turn that back into aluminium. Well that's just not going to work.

My newspaper article says that the iron will be used in combination with sterling engines, with an efficiency of about 25%, which isn't much worse than gasoline and diesel combustion engines.
As for suspending, not sure if it would need to be suspended. Fine enough powder can be circulated with airflow.

[Egan_BW]

Circulate the iron powder with the power of MAGNETS!
Disclaimer: I have no idea if that would work.

[martinuzz]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were looking into that. Magnetism could be a great tool in separating iron from rust in the combustion process.

[PTTG??]

Use those new thermocouples and it's perfect.

[Max™]

Circulate the iron powder with the power of MAGNETS!
Disclaimer: I have no idea if that would work.

I was gonna say, the first thing that came to mind was using electromagnets to guide the stuff around the engine.

Put a badge on it that reads FEMI instead of HEMI, Ferrous Electro-Magnetic Injection.

[Reelya]

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/12/29/2034245/amazon-patents-floating-airship-warehouse-for-its-delivery-drones
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/12/27/2356231/amazon-patents-system-to-defend-drones-against-hackers-jammers-and-arrows

Amazon has patented floating airship warehouses with drone fleets that come out of them. They also patented drone defenses against hackers, jammers and projectiles. i.e. they're building Protoss Carriers with energy shields to deliver books.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/12/29/2348252/mining-companies-are-using-autonomous-trucks-drills-and-trains-to-boost-efficiency-reduce-employees

Also, automation moving at full speed ahead in the mining sector, with them rolling out driverless trucks all over the place. Not really a surprise there. Removing humans from mining means no need to adhere to safety regulations.

[Reelya]

Well no precise dates but I'm considering automation job losses to be a singularity type event. A trickle along for years then once the tech is mature and cheap, a much faster roll out. Another example was one of the world's top financial trading companies is building a bot that replaces all their management. The thing even automates hiring and firing of staff. For as long as "staff" is a thing.

You know, this could end up in a weird situation where the only jobs you can get are in mom and pop operations, because all the big companies are so heavily automated that there are few job openings except in customer service. At least up until the point that people would prefer to deal with automated staff at Walmart.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/12/30/2255253/self-driving-cars-will-make-organ-shortages-even-worse
EDIT: Self-driving cars predicted to lead to a shortage of organs for transplants. Seeing as car accidents are a prime source of spare healthy organs.

[Reelya]

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/17/01/02/2031244/family-sues-apple-for-not-making-thing-it-patented
Sorry for double-post, but this story was really interesting and a different angle on the tech issue

A lawsuit filed against Apple last week argues that, by not actually making a product that it patented, the company is partly responsible for an automobile accident. According to Jalopnik, James and Bethany Modisette are suing the tech company after a car crash two years ago that killed one of their daughters and injured the rest of the family. The driver of the car who hit them had been using Apple's FaceTime video chat at the time. The patent in question was first applied for in 2008, and describes "a lock-out mechanism to prevent operation of one or more functions of handheld computing devices by drivers when operating vehicles," such as texting or video chatting. The complaint cites Apple's "failure to design, manufacture, and sell the Apple iPhone 6 Plus with the patented, safer, alternative design technology" -- in other words, lack of the program's inclusion -- as a "substantial factor" in the crash.

So this is interesting. If this works, then having a patent on a life-saving technology but just sitting on it could be a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. Which is fair enough, actually. Fuck those guys who patent a life-saving medicine then never make it, while preventing anyone else making it.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Reminds me of the Remington 700 firing mechanism controversy.

[Egan_BW]

Makes sense. They're keeping other people from using it by making the patent, so if it's something lifesaving then it'd be irresponsible for them not to sell it.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Could require proof of trade in order to maintain patent rights.

[smjjames]

Well no precise dates but I'm considering automation job losses to be a singularity type event. A trickle along for years then once the tech is mature and cheap, a much faster roll out. Another example was one of the world's top financial trading companies is building a bot that replaces all their management. The thing even automates hiring and firing of staff. For as long as "staff" is a thing.

You know, this could end up in a weird situation where the only jobs you can get are in mom and pop operations, because all the big companies are so heavily automated that there are few job openings except in customer service. At least up until the point that people would prefer to deal with automated staff at Walmart.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/12/30/2255253/self-driving-cars-will-make-organ-shortages-even-worse
EDIT: Self-driving cars predicted to lead to a shortage of organs for transplants. Seeing as car accidents are a prime source of spare healthy organs.

Theres already technologies that grow organs, so, it's not an utter disaster, we just need to mature those technologies.

[Reelya]

Theres already technologies that grow organs, so, it's not an utter disaster, we just need to mature those technologies.

On the article, some commenters were using lack of spare organ supply as an argument against the safety claims of driverless cars ("See? they'll take more lives than they save!"). I was wondering if that's the moral standard, then why don't we just have a lottery of fit young people and whoever loses gets cut up for their juicy organs. Or we can redesign otherwise-safe self-driving cars with a random needle that pops out and poisons whoever is in the front seat, then emails the hospital, using the internet to decide when the organ supply is getting too low. The death rate would be the same, but the total cost to society and the environment would be lower since the car wouldn't be damaged.

Reminds me of the Remington 700 firing mechanism controversy.

Oww, it seems like the inventor of that firing mechanism alerted the company to the problem in about 1948, and proposed the same fix they're doing now, but they rejected it because it would increase the cost of each gun by 5 ˝ cents. :/