Turbine Engine: No Pistons, No Lube, 30% Better Fuel Economy
There are more than 5,000,000 heavy duty trucks running up and down US highways each day. Every one of those trucks gets an average of 7 mpg, carries upwards of 200-300 gallons of diesel, and spews out potentially harmful emissions.
Like it or not, we depend on them to bring us our food, fuel, and products for everyday living. It’s a connection that most of us often forget about, only remembering it long enough to curse them as they slow us down on the highway.
It’s also an industry that has recently been hit hard by soaring fuel prices, and now, with the average price of diesel in the US at $4.70/gallon and climbing, it’s sure to get worse.
Needless to say, there’s a rising cacophony of voices within the trucking industry clamoring for relief. Most of this noise currently comes in the form of wanting a break in fuel prices, but really that’s just a temporary fix. Any solution with sticking power would have to offer both economic and environmental benefit — you know, win-win.
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Enter Turbine Truck Engines. The company has developed an engine for heavy duty trucks called the Detonation Cycle Gas Turbine (DCGT). Key features of this engine technology include:
- Uses over 30% less fuel than current heavy duty engines
- 30%+ fewer emissions including nitrogen oxide (NO, NO2, N2O2) and carbon monoxide (CO)
- Operates on all fuels and mixtures of fuels: biofuels, hydrocarbon fuels, hydrogen and synthetic
- Has few moving parts, requiring much less maintenance
- Has no pistons or valves, and uses no lube oil, filters or pump
- Is air cooled and lightweight (less than 2 lbs. per hp)
The company has been aggressively seeking investors recently and last year won the prestigious Frost and Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation.
Currently Turbine Truck Engines holds several patents and has a few prototypes under its belt. When (and if) their technology finally reaches the market, the combined savings on maintenance and fuel, as well as environmental benefits, could make this engine extremely popular with truck drivers and trucking companies worldwide.
What do you think? Is it worthwhile to invest in this type of technology, or should we move past fuel altogether and focus on other things such as our rail infrastructure for movement of goods? Is that even possible? Are big rigs a permanent feature of our society? Is there any way to run them entirely on electricity?
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Image Credit: Turbine Truck Engines
Fossil fuels are altogether harmful for our health and the environment. Classic engines based on fossil fuels and ignition-based engines, or ones that use compromise solutions of the same fuels are doomed to extinction in the next decade. There’s no purpose to fighting the simplicity and effectiveness of electric engines, because they are cheap to maintain and they can be fed from any power source: gas, wind, sun, water, geothermal, etc. Electricity is the most flexible and universal form of energy yet known. The rest is what destroyed us, it must be history. I write on alternative energy and I am especially delighted of electric vehicles. You can read more of what I wrote on http://www.greenoptimistic.com.
“Potentially” harmful emissions? C’mon… you don’t need to dance around the elephant in the room anymore!
Diesel exhaust has been classified a human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
@SolarDude
I say “potentially harmful” because I have a background in risk assessment and toxicology. Not every pollutant that enters the environment ends up doing harm to people or the environment. Its a matter of exposure duration and amount. If no one is exposed or the duration of exposure is very quick, the potential for harm is low.
Granted, there are lots of diesel trucks on the road so the potential for exposure at levels that could be harmful is relatively high, but it’s still only a potential for exposure.
I assure you, I’ve never danced with elephants.
When their technology finally reaches the market, could make this engine extremely popular with trucking companies worldwide.
Is it worthwhile to use an engine that reduces fuel consumption by 30%? Is that even a serious question?
Even if global warming is completely bogus, we are part of a global market where the winners are the ones who use their resources with the highest level of efficiency. That’s why ‘green technology’ is a win-win: even if climate change is a sham, at the end of the day we win when we’re the most efficient.
Ovidu, that’s nice and all, but electric motors do NOT yet have the torque and power to haul multiple tones of cargo over a mountain chain, in the snow. When you can show me an electric engine that can haul the same amount of cargo the same amount of distance between refueling, and travel at the same speed, THEN we’ll talk.
As to the article, yes, invest in it, we do not yet have the energy storage to make electric engines for the extreme uses (though I strongly recommend electric engines for commuter travel)
Long distance transport should switch to rail, but trucks will always be needed for last mile distribution. Currently batteries for electric don’t have the energy density required by trucks. Long term, fuel cells is a good option. Short to mid term hybrid (which is very similar to locomotive tech) is attractive, along with DCGT is interesting and I wish them the best commercializing it. I wonder if this could be used as the fossil fuel hybrid power plant, and what the chances are in migrating this to personal vehicles?
Electricity is all well and good, but in trucking there is an issue of total power output and total power output per pound (or cube) and fuel storage. Basically what I mean is how do you run a truck on electricity that needs enough fuel to run 100s of miles between fill ups and refill quickly? And, of course, how do you make an electric engine big enough to pull the tons necessary to move a truck over the Rockies at efficient speed without being bigger than the truck itself? Like it or not, liquefied fuels (be they hydrocarbon or even hydrogen) provide the kind of energy density that serious transportation needs whether it is truck, ship, rail or air that cannot be matched with batteries or fuel cells.
While the internal combustion engine is inefficient, it is relatively compact in size given its power output. A new engine type based on a turbine principal or another technology that is more efficient should be a welcome solution. No solution is a solution for all time either. Technologies will continue to evolve.
The only problem with turbines is that you have to run them at high RPMs to get any usable power out of them.
High RPMs = high pitched noise
I’d rather see widespread hydrogen injection, which can be done *today* and gives ~20% efficiency gains and much more than a 30% reduction in emissions.
Electric is still a long way from being a viable technology due to its limited range and slow recharge time. Before we can start to seriously discuss electric as a serious option, it will need to get to the point where recharge time is measured in minutes, not hours.
We need to take a serious look at the fact that this engine is a true flex-fueled engine. It can run on any combination of biofuel, petrol-fuel, hydrogen and synthetic fuels. Biofuel and electric produced hydrogen are the fuel sources of the future.
What I am waiting to see is engines like this in passenger cars and trucks!