07.02
Out of gas? No worries, man. Just throw something flammable in the tank. Shirt. Toilet paper. That obnoxious CD your sister plays. OK, that last one might not work (Hint: dunk in gasoline first). Hell you could even throw in some fresh roadkill. At least that’s the idea behind Segway inventor Dean Kamen’s new Stirling engine hybrid scooter. It’s not as batshit crazy as you might think. Stirling engine technology predates the regular combustion engine by a good margin, and even Honda has shown interest in applying the tech to their own gas misers. Kamen filed a patent for a new scooter powered by a Stirling engine and electric motors, using the “burn anything but gas” approach in a Volt-esque configuration to charge the batteries. Could it work? In theory sure. You could have a scooter powered by readily available garbage from any local dumpster. Assuming it doesn’t emit harmful gasses, it’s about as green as you can get. I hope it sells better than the Segway, for Dean’s sake. Kamen has reportedly already invested $50 Million in R&D for the Stirling engine alone. That’s not exactly chump change by anyone’s yardstick. [Source: Gizmag]
Yeah, burning trash is about the least green thing you could possibly do.
Like, before they even realized car emissions would be problematic, most cities banned incinerators.
Uhm…. no? There are plenty of acceptable methods of burning trash, and much of the R&D going into Stirling engine technology is filtering the harmful emissions associated with ANY type of combustion.
There are, in fact clean ways to burn waste. Unfortunately, most of them won’t fit on a tiny scooter.