Thursday, May 25, 2006

Multiple Fuel Internal Combustion Engines

via Wired - Can Engine Make Gas Obsolete?

The engine can run on a number of fuels including hydrogen, ethanol, natural gas, propane or digester gas from landfills.


It seems that with current technology it should be possible to have internal combustion engines that can use just about any combustible as a fuel. For example, in cleaning my basement I found an August, 1980 Popular Science and on the cover it says "Axial Piston Rotary Engine burns any liquid or gaseous fuel".

I dream of a car of the future like a locomotive train in concept. There'll be an engine (hydrogen, diesel, gasoline, turbine, etc) and electric motors at each wheel. If the engine cannot burn multiple fuels then it'll be easily swapped (diesel for gasoline for example) in order to create electricty to power the wheels.

The future is electric...