Talk:Magnesium injection cycle

Efficiency?

I read the three external links, but nobody states anything about efficiency. If I understand it well, the Magnesium is only a medium - all the energy is taken from solar panels, which supply the laser which isolates the Magnesium from its oxide. So the question: is the overall efficiency greater or lower compared with an electric engine supplied from a battery charged by solar panels? Consider that the Magnesium injection cycle also requires water to run... and lasers... Aldoaldoz (talk) 14:30, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

See also the existence of the Tesla and various hybrid electric vehicles and the total non-existence of anything resembling this. Don't forget the power spent hauling around a big battery that can handle being stored in fully charged state for long periods and operate for days on end for that time the massive storm runs in and your panels aren't running jack... so the company making these still needs expensive LiFe cells or similar except they won't have Tesla's purchasing volume and they'll add a ton of expense. Ooh, I know, mount a wind generator on the roof, too. .... sure, it'll increase drag, but think of how green the car will be!

I should probably also mention that finely divided magnesium powder is considered hazmat above a certain quantity (which is well below what you'd need to get a car moving) by DOT because metal fires are just not something you want inexperienced people trying to put out which means your fancy new Mazda that can do 0-30 in 20 minutes also needs you to get a fancy new CDL and yearly recertifications on hazardous cargo. A Shortfall Of Gravitas (talk) 02:04, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

How does it work ?

There's a discussion on the French Wikipedia talk page about this, because it's not clear whether the reaction only involves water and Mg, which would be too slow a reaction. Then I found this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flameless_ration_heater . Could it work the same way ? Elpiaf (talk) 15:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

If iron or something else to speed the reaction (and make it continue, since Magnesium Hydroxide formation eventually slows reaction with an excess of water unless you involve an acid of some sort and now you have another problem) was involved it would need additional energy to convert the rust back to iron... which is typically done with carbon and heat. For that matter MgO acts as a lens in the 1000nm IR range, and reflects most of the visible range (hence its extreme whiteness) so what spectrum of laser are they planning on kicking off the oxygen with? Diode UV lasers still aren't in a very good state and having to re-gas your nitrogen laser tube after every trip is going to get old fast. The MRE heaters are one-use, the corrosion isn't reversed, and they use an alloy. It would take a huge amount of magnesium to generate enough energy to move a car. Ignoring the losses of energy to thermal and mechanical waste (same as we have now), they mentions 10s of kW. A rather meager 100HP engine is ~76,000W. The Tesla S and X 2024 models are 1020HP; there's also the whole thing where if you let your water get low enough your car will turn into a metal fire. On the extreme end the Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier is going to be powered by two nuclear reactors, generating 700MW thermal each (260MW of direct drive power, and 125MW of electricity generation according to the estimates). If highly efficient, purpose built fission reactors with all energy consumed on site with a lot more money dumped into them than this project are still wasting 40% of the generated thermal energy there's probably a reason nothing new has been seen here and the article from MIT seems to be down. I'm sure it could work but it's not practical in any way, shape, or form. Vehicles large enough to not mind the addition of 3 different chambers for producing power, a highly flammable metal powder intentionally put in a configuration that'll get it burning if whatever container it's in ruptures (just wait until you rear end a car with a gas engine, you'll finally get that 70s cop show explosion), solar panels which haven't gotten any smaller, laser(s), etc... Can't fit a big enough one of these things onboard to generate enough power to move. I'd rather have a nice, well built, plutonium RTG powering my car. They've survived shuttle crashes and explosions intact, nothing on the road is going to break the shielding they put on those things, the radiation is safely contained, and it's something to do with a bunch of the plutonium laying around. Of course the main reason that's not an option is because most of the population are too stupid not to start drilling holes in it to see what's inside so along comes Japan's rube goldberg with this insanity instead lol. A Shortfall Of Gravitas (talk) 01:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

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