Currently, the transportation mainly depends upon internal combustion engines burning, generally a liquid, hydrocarbon fuel. Now, a British company named Clean Power Technologies is experimenting with a new type of hybrid powertrain with an aim to lessen the polluting thrown out by the combustion of fuel by augmenting the effectiveness of intrinsic energy usage by storing the lost heat energy in the form of steam.
No doubt, the idea sounds great but it’s not that easy to make the best possible use of steam inside the limited car space. The way power plants use steam to drive turbines and generators; it wouldn’t be possible for the vehicles to produce sufficient steam flow to keep a turbine in the running state. To address this issue, Clean Power will be using a pair of Mazda RX-8s to develop their system while the Wankel rotary has been modified so that one of the rotors runs usually on gasoline while the other is power-driven by steam.
They will be working on the RX-8s for the next one year and it will be interesting to see whether the steam system can generate more than enough power to the drivetrain to beat the extra mass.
Via: Autobloggreen
