

Coffee-powered car breaks renewable "gasification" land speed record - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/97287-british-coffee-powered-car-breaks-world-record

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zwieback
This type of thing, much slower of course, was used in Germany during and
after the war to run cars with wood. The actual furnace was often pulled on a
trailer.

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mrsebastian
Were those not just steam-powered cars? (Quite common, once upon a time.)

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jws
Apparently not, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator>

You can see one in an old movie clip on YouTube:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11FB83YxoeM> skip up to about 3:10.

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mrsebastian
Ha, awesome :) Love the picture of the Saab, in the Wiki entry.

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esdweb
I loved this -- and don't skip the video. British ingenuity. It reminded me of
Orville and Wilbur making airplanes from bicycle parts. Sadly, we don't do
this kind of stuff anymore in the U.S. The other thing it reminded me of is
that British reality game show in the '90s -- Robot Wars or something. I used
to love to watch that. I think the huge problem is the tremendously high heat
in a small footprint. It's similar to the issues of the early natural gas
powered vehicles -- they are basically a terrorist's wet dream, an explosive
on wheels. Mind your hands, dear. Make sure you put on your asbestos gloves
before you go out for a spin. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch
the video.) Pictures speak a thousand words and that dragon fire plume spewing
from the fender definitely gave one pause. But all that said, I think this is
something worth developing. The issue is how to generate a thousand-plus
degrees of heat in a very small space in a safe and green way. The last time
we went about this we came up with the atomic bomb. Hmmm. They make mini-
reactors for the inter-planetary satellites -- perhaps you could adapt one of
those?

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to3m
Wow, a Rover SD1 that's actually still running.

I think that's much more impressive than people finally finding a good use for
coffee.

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derekdahmer
If this ever took off, we'll all end up having to pay $20 for a cup of coffee
because the beans are all being used to power our cars.

