Radicharger!

I was thinking about that geothermal idea today and, as always, about turbochargers. Not about turbonique, but still - something, anything to help to provide irresistible force to my movable mass.

When you burn fuel in your car, a third of the energy goes to turning the crankshaft, another third goes to heat the cylinder walls and head and the remainder shoots out the tailpipe. Turbos are great because they recover part of the exhaust's heat-energy and return it to the crank-shaft. As the hot gas goes past the turbine blades it expands and cools, and this energy is used to pump air on the compressor side into the engine. Which allows the engine to operate as if atmospheric pressure was 28 psi (or whatever), which makes it more efficient and powerful. If the turbocharged engine is cheap enough, durable enough, and well-designed to provide decent throttle response, it is smaller and more fuel-efficient that thee lowly non-turbocharged engine of the same power. Turbos have dominated racing whenever they are allowed, partly because cheap and durable aren't big factors.

But what I wondered about was the energy going out into the atmosphere via the radiator. If I run around at wide-open throttle (like I do all the time), that means I'm putting 200 hp into just heating the great outdoors via hot water.

However, if you had a hybrid car - you could extract this energy via a Sterling engine and store it electrically. The heat buildup is slow, so I don't see how you could make a direct mechanical feedback like a turbocharger does, but if you already have electric motors hanging off the drive train, why not? The key is to be able to efficiently extract power with 200 degree F water - just like geothermal power. At the very least it should work well for large diesel-electric trains and busses.