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Originally Posted by Raptor235
I would love to see the scientific community look at things like this and tell us if it's crap or if there is any potential...
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So far as I can tell, it's crap, but I haven't seen the details. I
have done tons of research into energy issues, though, and I know of no chemical mechanism that can do what he claims. But what the heck, it just might be a case of one guy figuring out something no one else has been able to, but the odds are against that!
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Originally Posted by Raptor235
when you have the combustion engine running at 20 something percent for the last 30 years and there hasn't been any increase in performance you start thinking what else big oil companies and car manufactures are hiding.
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I don't buy the "car makers are hiding things" arguments. It's a competitive world. Even if you believe the Big Three US automakers are conspiring to hide something that would be beneficial to the consumer, don't you think someone in Tokyo, Seoul, Stuttgard, or Stockholm would have tried to grab market share by scooping their rivals?
As for the "stuck at 20% for 30 years" part, I think it's actually closer to 25%, and there are some very basic problems in getting more than that.
Another way of looking at is is that there
already is a superior technology that gets 40% efficiency already on the market, and less than 3% of Americans take advantage of it -- although a
majority of Europeans use it. It's called "diesel"!
The fact that diesel is such a superior technology, but is spurned by Americans, speaks volumes. In Canada, you can get relatively inexpensive, tiny, three-cylinder "Smart Cars" that get 60mpg+ on diesel! But nothing like that is sold in America, where gasoline costs 30% less than in Canada and less than half of what it costs in Europe.
So we got a problem. Gas is too darnn cheap for Americans to demand more efficient vehicles.
That's the problem! No one is hiding anything -- the cars are out there. In Europe, you can buy 90mpg diesel hybrids! Why not in the US? Because up until very recently, the American consumer has been more interested in horsepower than economy, as a direct result of gas being so darned cheap.
BTW:
I drive on vegetable oil that I suck out of restaurants' trash bins for free. Why doesn't everyone do this? Because it's a pain in the butt and inconvenient, and Americans won't put up with inconvenience. Thank goodness -- I wouldn't want everyone to start sucking up my fuel supply!
