In the wee hours of the morning, I was having a series of dreams, all vaguely connected, after a fashion... here are some bits I can recall.
As the series began, some friend and/or business associate was showing off something he'd learned from the Internet: how to make a late-model Datsun run on acetylene.
(Yes, Datsun. Not Nissan. And somehow I think this was inspired by Robert Zubrin and this guy. What's the octane number for acetylene, anyway? 43? -27?)
Anyway: this somehow seemed like a good idea, though I suggested using MAPP instead of acetylene (being somewhat less insanely dangerous). I commenced calling around to welding suppliers to get a handle on what filling up with MAPP would cost. Somehow, it didn't occur to me to inquire about the general availability of MAPP filling stations.
Meanwhile, with none of the issues resolved, and solely on the basis of a demonstration that a minimally-modified car could run on acetylene, we commenced equipping a factory to build our own, designed-from-scratch, welding-gas-fueled cars.
Then, after a discontinuity and some driving around in a half-built vehicle, a posse appeared, bent on rounding up one of the partners in the venture, a big guy with delusions of being Jack Harkness. Fortunately, they'd learned all about being the good guys from old cowboy movies, and he wasn't really a bad guy, so what ensued was comedy rather than tragedy as he taught them what was wrong with their methods (which mainly seemed to involve ropes, which they didn't really know how to handle).
And, somewhere along the line, I woke up to a world that doesn't really make all that much more sense. (Gee, I wonder if I could get a government subsidy to work on acetylene-fueled "alternative fuel" cars...?)
If I were actually getting into the car business, I'd probably go for a small-battery diesel-electric hybrid with a motor at each corner. Could probably get great results in both fuel efficiency and traction. Makes a lot more sense than re-inventing the entire vehicle just to change the gas tank.
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