How jet-powered garbage trucks can save the world | Ian Wright | TEDxChristchurch 

Pre recession, everyone was crazy

@Mark Rowland. Are there any turbine electric buses or trucks actually operating in New Zealand?

It's the perennial genius problem. Can he find twelve people that are smart enough to listen and also smart enough to agree with him?

By adding a recuperator, a low pressure ratio gasturbine efficiency can be greatly improved The turbocharger based designs are best suited for that improvement. Moreover the noise is muffled effectively , addressing your concern directly, C Yesso. All what I said I can prove by the thermodynamic cycle analysis and plotting the entropy-enthalpy diagram. The approach of using a recuperator is being used by Solar engines , based in San Diego. On a larger scale. No reason , not to realize it on a small version, with some small loss of efficiency .

At least share the knowledge, that's the best we can do.

Shaddap and get back to yer cooking...

@@gnsarathbabu there are billions of us we have trillions to quadrillions of dollars This is how we the people change the world 🌎 crowd fund it

Maybe because of jet noise?

I am thinking about farm eqipment. Tubines will run on biofuels.

Both of those would be amazing applications, especially farm equipment that needs to run all day without stopping. At the moment batteries aren't there yet for these types of application (although there are niche applications that would work, and do), but this could be an amazing bridge technology until they are. The only reason why I would suggest they go away eventually is that it's yet another part of the drivetrain to maintain. It has the same problem as fuel cells - you are essentially running a battery electric vehicle, but with small batteries that are regularly topped up by an onboard generator. This is the reason BEV's are so compelling, the maintenance is an order of magnitude lower than ICE vehicles, and adding a range extender removes some of that advantage.

But no diesel engine etc to mess with either...

Hang in there Marc.

I know this comment is 3 years old but you could also just bolt a generator directly onto the turbocharger shaft via a gear reduction, like they do in F1 powertrains

@@Byefriendo all good except there is no turbocharger shaft remember, they got rid of the Diesel engine completely in this scenario - hence why the turbocharger has now become a standalone turbine ;)

+mhtinla Here you go: inhabitat.com/toronto-waste-truck-runs-on-natural-and-bio-gas/

Run Dual fuel system on the diesel engines using C.N.G. as the primary fuel and only a small amount of diesel to ignite the C.N.G. this is a simple conversion, cheaper to run, cost effective and by far much safer.Bottom line this is a very big improvement over the Battery topped up by turbine system. theoldbear Long Time Red Seal Heavy Duty Mechanic

theoldbear1943 > yeah, but where do you get C.N.G. from? It's still mostly from fossil fuel and you're still not solving the problem of starting and stopping every 60ft - which is what is killing the efficiency of these trucks' operation. Plus you have the maintenance costs and the cost of the engine replacement which is much higher.

I'd ask the same. The Chrysler '63 Turbine car could run on anything, so I thought he'd mention biodiesel.

Like the Viscount DART engines.

This was in 2015, and he was probably quoting stats from 2014 or 2013... the 40 he quoted on coal for the US dipped to 30 last year (2017)

cause its nonsense, from the first minute. jets replaced reciprocating engines in planes because there lighter, and planes need to be light. Trains, boats and trucks still use pistons cause there, cheaper, rev better and are more fuel efficient

Yes ! ! it would be Extremely efficient to simply hook a heat exchanger to the turbojet and heat your house while generating much cleaner electricity than coal fired plants. It would be most cost effective in northern states and all of civilization above USA. AWESOME suggestion!

I'm not an engineer so this is just a layman suggestion but I have spent a lot of time comparing heat exchangers, oil boilers and gas recently before I bought a new heating system. Oil and gas boilers tend to only heat water to about 60 degrees. Neither of this temps are high enough to generate steam because we don't want steam. We use hot water in our heating systems. So I suspect the reason nobody does it would be because we'd first have to heat up our water an extra 40 degrees to get the steam to power the turbine, then cool it back down 60 degrees before we could send it off around the central heating system. Nobody wants 90 degree water coming out the taps. Now we can bleed some of that heat back into the cooler water coming from the heaters and get some efficiency there but not huge amounts. Say the incoming water is 10 degrees we'd need to use almost twice as much energy to get to 100 than we would 60 and there'd be more inefficiencies there, I just don't see it as a likely cost efficient way to generate power.

@@daemonbyte It's easy. have a variable control valve or variable speed pump. this will control the flow into the ... wait a minute. i think u confuse this with a steam turbine. there are gas turbines too u know. also, u can have the working fluid free of the circulating fluid, meaning the water in your heat exchanger can be indendent of any other water here. so y does it have to turn into stea,m?

@@poknatinpokkers5289 because I didn't see another way to heat water and spin a turbine. But I guess your idea is to use a gas turbine and then use the hot air to heat the water to 60 for the heating system after it's been through the gas turbine? That could work although I suspect there's a reason nobody's done it I'd be interesting in seeing the figures.

Robert Neve If you are talking about heatening the house and water. The most cheapest and cleanist way is ground thermal. It will cost a little bit more but pays it self back under 10 years. They drill hole in the ground and it is working like heatpump. And in the sumer you can allso vool your house with it. I can tell more if you like:)

that's what the more elaborate combined cycle NG power plants do.

Why in the world would you want a fuel cell train? An electric train does not even need batteries as it can get the power from the rails or overhead lines and send generated power from slowing down back into the grid. Using hydrogen to store electricity is very inefficient.

@@bobo888bobo The hydrogen creates electricity as it is needed via an on-board fuel cell. It has *range* and zero emissions. BTW, in Germany they now have a hydrogen fuel cell is operation taking fare paying passengers. Also Liverpool's Merseyrail metro later this year will trial battery/electric trains that run on 3rd rail and batteries on electrified lines. This extends the rail network onto track that was unviable to electrify. The batteries can be charged via the 3rd rail when on electrified track.

Fuel cells ("fool cells") are an insanely inefficient way to power cars or trucks. It takes more energy to extract hydrogen and pressurize it into a tank, than what you get back. They also require expensive and dangerous filling stations. It's a *lot* easier, cheaper and safer to install an EV charger, than a hydrogen filling station. And, with hydrogen, you'd still have to drive to a filling station and wait in line. With an EV, you plug it in, when you get home and forget about it. Oh, and would you want to drive a car, with a high-pressure hydrogen tank? I really don't think that hydrogen / fuel cell cars have much of a future. It's a gimmick, promoted mainly by Toyota, to try to distract from the fact that they had their ass handed to them, by Tesla...

lnpilot Have a second look at them. They are used in boats and expensive yachts already, because they are very reliable, as long as you have clean fuel on-board. The good ones use ethanol or methanol. As far as we know, the industrial ethanol is very cheap to produce. The fuel cells are OK, and getting better.

epSos.de Fool cells are not an efficient or practical source of mobile power, at the scale of cars (especially compared to ever-improving batteries). It's insanity to extract the hydrocarbons, store them in a tank, run them through the fool cells, just to get electricity, enduring great losses at every step, when you could just store the electricity directly in a battery. And you still depend on hydrocarbons, you can't charge from solar power and so on. *Totally defeating the purpose*! Toyota is pretty much the only company trying to push fool cells for cars, because they've lost the EV battle against Tesla. They claim fool cells will be popular. They also claimed, with their "infinite foresight", that Li-ion batteries would never be viable for cars. See how that worked out for them...

lnpilot Yes, the hydrogen fuel cells make no sense in cars that are outside of Japan, but the fuel cell technology is not limited to hydrogen, it can be applied to natural gas, to ethanol. It is possible to have renewable sources of fuel for the fuel cell. Have a deeper look into the technology, fuel cells are not about hydrogen, there is more to them than you would expect.

epSos.de BTW, I've had a Model S for over 3 years. I haven't been to a "filling station", in over 3 years. I would rather go back to dial-up internet, than to a gasoline, or fool cell car. If you drive a Tesla for a few months, you will understand what I mean... A couple of times a week, I plug in the car when I get home, and forget about it. It takes 10 seconds and costs 3-5 times less than filling up a gasoline car. No driving to filling stations, no waiting in lines. There's also a Supercharger half a mile from me, next to the grocery store and restaurants. I can get a free charge while shopping, or having dinner. It has been getting busy, as *everyone and their dog has a Tesla around here*... (but, Tesla is building more Superchargers and they are making them faster...). In contrast, I've never seen a single fuel cell car, and I live in California. That should tell you what *actual drivers* think of the EV vs. fuel cell debate... Ok, The Toyota Mirai is absolutely hideous, so it's not entirely fair to compare it to the Model S... ;) I've been following fuel cells for decades. I'm an electrical engineer, so I've been looking into the technical details too. You can't even compare EVs with "fool cell" cars. It's not even a contest. Are you a Toyota Mirai PR person, by any chance? ;)

Ok, found the answer, what he meant was it runs 10,000 hours before needing a service, which is incredibly impressive. Surprised he didn't make that point clearer and go into more as the need for such little maintenance alone will save enormous amounts of money. Pretty impressive technology.

".... he states it will run 10,000 hours, after that what happens, does the jet engine generator die? Isn't that roughly 5 years of heavy use?" "Black box" unit replacement, that's what happens. Easily implimented if the vehicle is designed around this powertrain from scratch.

I doubt they swap out engines on jets like that, though for uptime, and with a small enough capital cost for the turbine, it might make sense to have a few spares laying around to recondition while new or reconditioned ones go back into the vehicle. That way the vehicle keeps going while the turbine is being reconditioned.

They do rebuilds based on inspections and yes, they do sometimes just pull the entire engine and put a new one in....

+Alex Turlais which is constantly improving and will gain a tremendous leap in efficiency once were off lithium.

CaptainDave True

+I am Your Father This whole system is so much more efficient than typical diesel drivetrain that it doesn't matter.

idontcare80 yes, but objectively lots of energy is still lost. less than before, but still.

+I am Your Father You know a better way to massively improve the efficiency of these vehicles?

Many many reasons. It turns out it's difficult to design a turbine range extender, a 4 speed eAxle, power electronics, battery modules, aux. systems, etc. with a skeleton crew and a shoestring budget.

No one mentions jet noise levels.

+elfboi523 1 hp is roughly 750w so 4hp 3kilowatts miles are 1600m 1.6km - 5m=8km 10m=16km

illumicon Yes, I know that, but it's hard for me to do the conversion while listening to the talk. It would be great if there were subtitles with metric units.

so pull up a browser window and type somethign like this: "convert 92 hp to kilowatts" "convert 127 miles to km" and it'll solve the math for you - same works in reverse, and vast number of conversion units are supported... Cheers.

The problem is you need a very large, heavy, expensive motor to be capable of launching a 60,000lb truck on a 25% grade as well as go 75mph. In an application like this, a multi-speed transmission is a better option.

@@-EnginerdYou probably also need to invest in ear muffs or ear plugs.

prob. never, only chinese, but they will be 1000% profit, since they need to be made specifically to a single car.

He's one of the founders of Tesla. Don't you think he sees both sides of the situation and is choosing to pursue applications away from the limiting factors of the pure EV due to space constraints ?

@@lylestavast7652 Yes he is one of Teslas founders, but he's also comparing cars to trucks which is disingenuous.

this is the real game changer not tesla

@ There is always more than one solution to a problem. In this case Weightspeed doesn't even offer a solution for cars but for commercial trucks (as in not pickup trucks), whereas Tesla produces cars (yet). At the moment I think Wrights solutions for trucks is way more feasable and reasonable, but development doesn't stand still. There might be better batteries in the future which make full electric trucks more feasable. And as battery technology and production improves, which means lower cost and higher capacity, a range extender for an electric car make even less sense.

They will fly & travel back in time...like 'Back to the future' :)

the amount of available bio-mass methane the is unproduced but possible.. is huge... however piping it to central power plants and simply having electric garbage trucks would be more efficient, and far cleaner.

Some turbines run cleaner than others.

depends on the fuel you feed it.

Where did the CO2 produced from burning the coal go, if it was not going up the stack?

@@pauleohl Scrubbers collect it and it gets reburned at such high temperature it changes the molecular structure of the soot. Same as vehicle catalytic converters and dpf on diesels. We've had the cleanest burning, most affordable energy production for over 50 years but they can't control the proletariat with clean, affordable energy as close as the light switch in your living room. Behold the "alternative" energy scam.

@@bigblocklawyer Are you unaware of the difference between soot and CO2 gas?

@@pauleohl Yeah. Don't do any research, just keep mouth breathing.

Although this was aired in 2015, little changed, electric semi is still not in production, and coal still made over half of power generation. We probably will still be talking about it 7 years from now.

The school district I went to in the 90's used Propane powered buses at the time.

Engineers? They don't run companies and rely on budget and freedom to R&D on the goodwill of business management and marketing monkeys in suits. EV and Hydrogen are trendy and that's what is pushed by political ideologues, the other monkeys in suits, controlling by pen and tax what is "Right or Wrong". The "Freedom is Slavery" thing comes to mind. Though engineers need constrains so they don't tank companies with R&D, like Mazda almost did with the Wankel shenanigans, we shouldn't trust every aspect of technical decisions to bureaucrats in the "Ivory Towers", in government or business. Trust me! I'm an engineer! 😅 Even before College and I think High School, I was thinking about Diesel-electric locomotives and mining equipments. They use Diesel engines with an electric generator, while electric motors provide incredible torque on demand directly to the wheels with minimal or no power transmission mechanical mechanism (which weighs a lot and has losses). Similar concept for different types of engines and fuels. I also remember being fascinated by turbine cars and thinking about the issues. A lot of people out there, with and without fancy degrees, are thinking about such things, but we don't have the freedom or resources to explore the possibilities.

@@chaoswarriorbr That's some statement, thanks for taking the time.

As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas, partial oxidation of methane, and coal gasification. This energy intensive process releases six times more CO2 than it produces hydrogen. Pretty much, 95% of hydrogen is essentially a fossil fuel. So. If there's any leftover cleanly produced hydrogen, I'd say it's better to just be used in the existing hydrogen-hungry industrial processes. We don't need more consumers of hydrogen.

Wankel or turbine... Same outcome... In this regard

H extracted from water is the future. Fast electrolysis is a suppressed tech / Stan Meyer and several others have shown it to work