And who can argue with this? Let's see, Otto, Diesel, Brayton/Joule, and others... On the
agreeing side are Stirling, Rankine, Ericsson, and their followers...
Why the "Who's Who" of thermodynamics? Because they were the pioneers, So were Lewis
& Clark, But how many of us travel by "expedition party" today if we want to see the Pacific
Ocean?
Carnot described a cycle, and that's great for analyzing the theoretical performance of a
device. But one of the problems we face today, is caused by the fact that our society operates these
machines in a way that is not cyclical. If we obeyed the rules of the "cycle" your car wouldn't
have a tailpipe, you'd empty a tank of dirty soda water when you filled up with gasoline (or bio-diesel); but we
don't.
We're not calling for a value judgment here, just asking that you understand a basic truth.
Carnot was and is right, we may not be able to play outside the box, but we can think outside the box.
Perhaps we can fold it a little; maybe even cut a section out of the middle and push-n-pull it to the edge.
Has anyone mentioned here actually beat Carnot? Nope. Will we? Nope (gasp can I
admit that without scaring folks away?). So what's the point? We can achieve a significant fraction
of the area inside the box, and not dump any CO2 or other undesirables into the air. |
