Ever wonder what they will think next? We’re ready to go out there and put our names on one of those lists to get a hybrid car because of gas prices at the pump and then someone comes in and yells; “Wait, have you heard of thermoacoustic propulsion?” No, in fact most of us haven’t thanked him much when we hung up the gas pump and looked at that total and cringed when we got our automatic pump receipt from the Kiosk at the station. My God, that hurts. That’s just to put gas in my vehicle; “I hate OPEC”, you tell yourself and you think the unthinkable; “We are going to bomb the Middle East and take the damn oil!”
Well, in fact, it may be a long way off and never make it to market, but now a new engine is being tested, which could power cars, and it has no moving parts. It works by “thermoacoustics”, it works by applying external heat to a cylinder or tank with helium gas inside, as the gas heats it from acoustic waves, it generates enough heat to produce steam and then it is used to generate electricity.
The resulting pressure fluctuations operate with vibrations at approximately 80 Hz. This sound is converted into electricity through steam. A microphone as a motto, electroacoustic transducer produces sound waves. A 700 watt prototype works very well and can be used to power cars without batteries, therefore no need to dispose of old batteries that cannot be charged, hence electric cars with no residual pollution later on. We may never see it due to strong lobbying efforts in the oil and auto industry, but I think it’s a pretty good idea.
