None of us were alive (or certainly old enough to remember - I mean you, Bill!!) to have heard of the “miracle carburetor”. In the 1930s inventor Charles Nelson Pogue filed patents for a carburetor that could enable a car to get 200 miles per gallon. However, after the announcement of the patents there was never a public test to demonstrate its abilities.
The disappearance of the carburetor led to what followed was one of the earliest urban legends: that a) the oil companies, or b) General Motors or Ford bought up the patent rights to the invention to take it off the market. In our free-market economy this makes no sense, especially for a car company to not be able to acquire a huge chunk of the market (and the gush of profits that would follow) by suppressing a technology like that.
Well, there is a technology now that is as groundbreaking as the miracle carburetor, except this technology is real. The Aquarius Engine is a gasoline-, hydrogen- or natural gas-powered “Two-Sided Free Piston Linear Engine.”
Basically, the shaft of the engine slides side-to-side and works like this:
As the shaft slides left, the right side of the combustion chamber takes in air and fuel.
At the same time, the air and fuel mixture in the left side of the combustion chamber, compressed by the movement of the shaft, is ignited, thereby forcing the shaft to the right.
As the shaft slides right, the left side of the combustion chamber takes in air and fuel.
The right side of the chamber compresses and is ignited.
The process is repeated.
Sweet!
What’s the engine look like in person? Here’s a newswoman from the Israeli network I24News holding a 25 pound engine that would propel a full-sized car:
Check out this 2019 news report from CNN. It describes the engine very well.
So, what does the Aquarius Engine do for us? Teamed with a generator, the engine replaces the large bulky and environmentally-dangerous battery used to power an electric car.
Right now, the Aquarius Engine company is testing their engine using hydrogen as a fuel. When used as an automotive fuel hydrogen emits only water vapor and warm air. If the hydrogen used is generated via electrolysis using solar or wind power, presto chango, your car is a zero-emissions vehicle! According to the U.S. Department of Energy, automotive hydrogen storage tanks can refill in about 5 minutes and generally provide roughly the same range as gasoline. Sounds like a reasonable tradeoff to a gasoline-powered car.
Hydrogen fuel solves many of the problems of battery-powered cars that make consumers hesitant to buy a battery-powered electric car.
So, what do you think? It seems to me that a radically new engine that could use alternative fuels to generate electricity to power your car is very appealing. The engine achieves the goals that battery-powered cars cannot today. And no long extension cord!
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“All you can take with you is that which you’ve given away.”
- Pa Bailey, “It’s a Wonderful Life”
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