A lot of big talk on measures to combat climate change yet some relatively simple engineering could make an enormous difference.
Even with a huge adoption of electric vehicles, there will be more ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles in the future than there are today! Rather than complicated Engineering to make small efficiency improvements, why not simple engineering for major improvements?
The ICE vehicles of today convert ~ 25% of the gasoline energy into usable energy while the remainder is converted to heat. Why not store and use that heat directly? We use heat for all sorts of things such as to heat our homes in the winter, dry our cloths, heat showers,…etc.
A gallon of gasoline contains ~ 120,000 BTU’s of energy. So for every gallon burned, approximately 90,000 BTU’s is wasted in heat. If a car were to store this heat in an insulated water tank, it could be offloaded when arriving back home. It would be the same level of effort to plug in an EV to charge but rather an automated system would pump out the hot water to be stored for later use. Now instead of burning natural gas to heat your home or shower, it would come from your cars gasoline.
Carrying around the extra water weight to store the heat will only reduce your cars efficiency by ~ 1% per 100 pounds. Assuming that 100 lbs. of water was heated for 70 to 210 degrees, that would be 14,000 BTU’s of stored heat at a price of 300 BTU’s in lost efficiency. That’s a huge benefit ratio. Let’s stop wasting heat and do better.
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