Innovative Thinking

This has a lot of potential and my hat is off to some very smart guys.


MIT Undergrads Create Shock Absorber That Generates Energy
by David Chandler, MIT
Massachusetts, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smooths the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. The students hope to initially find customers among companies that operate large fleets of heavy vehicles. They have already drawn interest from the U.S. military and several truck manufacturers.

"Simply put -- we want this technology on every heavy-truck, military vehicle and consumer hybrid on the road."

-- Shakeel Avadhany, MIT Senior

They say that the average heavy truck that has six shock absorbers on it could generate enough electricity driving down a normal road with these installed,up to 1 KW, to eliminate the alternator.


The rest of this fascinating article can be found here.

I would like to thank the fabulous Phoenix Woman who originally put this up at FireDogLake earlier this morning.

Old VS. New, Motorized Bicycles

Chances are, if you are over Forty, you will vaguely remember seeing something like this and snickering;



That one is brand new, for $600.00.

Courtesy of WildFire Motors.



Say hello to the latest upgrade.



Pretty wild design.

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The first picture I found courtesy of Mother Earth News, after doing some browsing from an article on a little three wheeled truck that gets 72 MPG.

I guess my point here is, I am trying to kick myself in the butt and find a low cost, fairly simple mode of hauling groceries.


I will be the first one to admit that even for being so skinny, I am over weight and WAY out of shape. I am not into pedaling, but I could be if I hooked up a motorized bike and a little trailer like that.

I am extremely fortunate to live, virtually, in walking distance of THREE small shopping malls, complete with a Dollar store, two laundry mats, two banks, a car wash, a McDonalds and a Taco Bell, a DMV and three cocktail lounges.
If they put in a liquor store in one of those malls, I am good to go.
I am not into walking though.
I walked miles and miles and miles when I was younger. Yeah right, uphill both ways.
Seriously, I did and I am getting old and crippled up. I had my lower back fused twenty five years ago and now I am having hip and knee trouble, on top of my back killing me all the time, the fusion wasn't all that successful and I have lived in misery ever since.
Something like that set up, I waste more gas getting in the truck and getting to the street than one of those little critters would use on a round trip to the farthest point out of that circle!
I don't know yet.
I don't have the money to plop down for a motorized bike, yet. I can have the little trailer built for virtually nothing, just some parts scrounging and maybe a 20 dollar stick of tubing.
We'll see,I keep thinking about it, it would be a perfect setup for some one like me who has so many conveniences close by, at five bucks a gallon for gas.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention I am five blocks from the Columbia River, it would be perfect for a part time fisherman.

Hey OPEC, Seen This Yet?

Custom Made Oil.

Made with genetically altered microbes;


LS9 DesignerBiofuels™ products are a family of fuels produced by specially-engineered microbes created via industrial synthetic biology. Starting from raw, natural sources of sugar such as sugar cane and cellulosic biomass, these renewable fuels will fundamentally change the biofuels landscape and set the stage for widespread product adoption and petroleum displacement. LS9 hydrocarbon biofuels have higher energetic content than ethanol or butanol and have fuel properties that are essentially indistinguishable from those of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

It's a reality.
It is nowhere near ready to be produced in the astronomical amounts the world uses every day, but it is real and it is coming.
It may help with peak oil, but we still need to get it together and find alternative ways to power our insatiable use of energy.

I am still amazed.

A Diesel Powered Bike?

The Marines have one now.

The following article is from the New York Times, written by Dexter Ford.

I clipped a little more than I really wanted to but I also left quite a bit of relevant information there so please go read the whole thing.



Other American and NATO military machines, from diesel generators to stealth bombers, run on JP-8 to simplify fuel supply logistics. While JP-8, a formulation of jet fuel similar to kerosene and diesel fuel, works fine in those engines, commercially available motorcycles require gasoline.

That situation presented an opportunity for Fred Hayes, chief executive of Hayes Diversified Technologies, a military contractor in Hesperia, Calif., that has built specially adapted motorcycles for the Marines and the Army Special Forces for more than two decades. The bikes are modified to run in the harshest environments on earth with special lighting and more rugged suspensions and tires.

When the Marines requested a motorcycle that would run on JP-8, other military contractors proposed outlandish turbine-powered machines. But the Marines wanted a bike that would actually work, and soon, at a reasonable cost. Hayes won the contract.

The resulting HDT M103M1 uses the chassis, a few engine components and all the internal transmission parts of the Kawasaki KLR650, a workhorse capable of anything from daily commuting to Sahara exploring. But the Marine machine’s major engine components are all new, built for diesel service.

The difference was apparent the instant I thumbed the starter button. In place of the gasoline-powered KLR’s anxious idle, the Marine machine came to life with the low clatter of a London taxi.

In contrast to a gasoline engine, which responds instantly to the throttle, a blip of the twist grip resulted in — well, not much. It took a good three seconds for anything significant to happen.

On a half-hour test ride, the M103M1, though sluggish at first, gathered speed with dogged insistence. The footpegs and handlebars buzz as the engine revs — the counterbalancer that controls vibration in the stock KLR has been omitted to save weight and reduce complexity. Shifting through the five-speed gearbox gets the M103M1 past 90 miles an hour, a speed it will hold, apparently, until the end of time.

One of the great advantages of the M103M1’s diesel engine is its efficiency. At a steady 55 m.p.h. it gets 96 miles a gallon, according to Hayes, about twice the mileage of the gasoline engine.

This is really pretty damn cool, when the production starts keeping up with demand these things are going to be all over the world.
Looking at the size of the fuel tank I am guessing this thing will go at least 500 miles on a tank of fuel.

Hey Gord?

Fuck that 'Vette,
I want one of THESE!!

NOOOOOOOOOooooooo!!!

The V-8 is dead

According to this article

The Vette and the Caddy CTS-v are the last holdouts, both using derivatives of Chevrolet's venerable 1955 Small block.

Now everyone is focusing on Direct Fuel Injection and Turbo'd 4 bangers and V-6's.

Long Live The V-8

I Got Your Hybrid Grocery Getter...

PETERBILT TO UNVEIL ADVANCED HYBRID TECHNOLOGIES

DENTON, Texas (November 6, 2006) – Peterbilt will display a production-representative, hybrid-electric medium duty truck – outfitted with a fully integrated bucket lift body – at the Hybrid Truck Users Forum National Meeting in San Diego this month, Peterbilt Motors Company recently announced.

The Class 7 Model 335 is ideal for municipal and utility applications and features advanced technologies that provide improved fuel economy while reducing noise and emissions. The hybrid Model 335 will be in limited production in 2007.

They are already on the road.
The latest models should be out by now for 2008.
Here is some detail of how it works;

According to Peterbilt Chief Engineer Landon Sproull, the truck uses a parallel hybrid system that was developed with Eaton Corporation. A parallel hybrid system has an electric motor that assists the mechanical diesel engine with supplemental torque for improved fuel economy. The system stores energy during stopping through a process called regenerative braking, and then reuses it for acceleration. The system also stores energy during idling and uses it to power the vehicle’s PTO.

Basically the same ideas used in the smaller puddle jumper class of cars being touted, just on a much bigger scale.

The reduced maintenance requirements, Sproull says, result from less wear on the engine, as its workload is supplemented by the electric engine, and the brakes, since the charging of the batteries retards the motion of the vehicle.

The truck and body communicate through a new J1939 digital controller. This interface senses hydraulic demand from the body and automatically engages the hybrid system. Under a full charge, the PTO can operate for approximately 25 minutes at which time the vehicle will automatically start the diesel engine and recharge the hybrid’s batteries. “It takes about three minutes to fully recharge,” Sproull says. “So, during eight hours of operation, the diesel engine will run for less than an hour.”

A PTO, for those who don't know, is a Power Take Off.
It is a device usually mounted on the side or bottom of the transmission that, when engaged, powers different add on mechanisms,typically a hydraulic pump.

For more info.


I expect almost all big rigs will be going to this soon, the cost of fuel will demand it.Already, long haul tuckers are adding supplemental fuel tanks to take advantage of price differences between states that can be as much as a fifty to seventy cents a gallon for diesel.
2007 required innovative engine management strategies and new technology to use the highly de-sulphered fuel mandated.These new engines suck, to be honest. The 2006 models had been back ordered to no end from people trying to extend the life of their investment and avoid the hefty price increase that went with the new technology.