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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 31 2018, @12:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the under-pressure dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

It's called Spark Controlled Compression Ignition, and Mazda made it work.

Despite rumors to the contrary, the internal combustion engine is far from dead. Recently we've seen several technological advances that will significantly boost the efficiency of gasoline-powered engines. One of these, first reported back in August 2017, is Mazda's breakthrough with compression ignition. On Tuesday, Mazda invited us to its R&D facility in California to learn more about this clever new Skyactiv-X engine, but more importantly we actually got to drive it on the road.

The idea behind Skyactiv-X is to be able to run the engine with as lean a fuel-air mixture (known as λ) as possible. Because very lean combustion is cooler than a stoichiometric reaction (where λ=1 and there is exactly enough air to completely burn each molecule of fuel but no more), less energy is wasted as heat. What's more, the exhaust gases contain fewer nasty nitrogen oxides, and the unused air gets put to work. It absorbs the combustion heat and then expands and pushes down on the piston. The result is a cleaner, more efficient, and more powerful engine. And Skyactiv-X uses a very lean mix: a λ up to 2.5.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/mazdas-skyactiv-x-shows-the-internal-combustion-engine-has-a-future/


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday January 31 2018, @01:44AM (9 children)

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @01:44AM (#630769)

    Rubbish. Sources of fossil fuels will be plentiful for many hundreds of years to come.

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  • (Score: 4, Disagree) by requerdanos on Wednesday January 31 2018, @01:53AM (5 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2018, @01:53AM (#630774) Journal

    [petro-] fuels [will] eventually price themselves out of the market due to scarcity [but not] anytime soon...

    Rubbish. Sources of fossil fuels will be plentiful for many hundreds of years to come.

    Rubbish? We are saying the same thing.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday January 31 2018, @02:11AM (4 children)

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @02:11AM (#630781) Journal

      And people have been saying that same thing for over 100 years. [gizmodo.com]

      Our cars get more efficient, extending existing supply, but cars get more plentiful, reducing existing supplies.
      And we keep on predicting.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Wednesday January 31 2018, @02:31AM (3 children)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2018, @02:31AM (#630792) Journal

        people have been saying that same thing for over 100 years.

        On the whole, I don't think my prediction of "eventually" is going to be wrong by too many orders of magnitude.

        That's my same prediction for the heat death of the universe, though that one's probably a longer "eventually."

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:04AM (2 children)

          by Frosty Piss (4971) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:04AM (#630805)

          Once people fully understand the safety and beauty of nuclear power, we'll have an atom furnace in every car!

          • (Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:07AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:07AM (#630807) Homepage Journal

            Just remember the flux capacitor may be powered by Mr. Fusion but the DeLorian still runs on gas.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:47AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:47AM (#630872)

            1958 Ford Nucleon [google.com]

            Firefighters/rescue crews were uneasy at the thought of new hazards to them when electric cars became popular.
            Just image a nuke-powered thing getting in a crash.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by choose another one on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:56AM (2 children)

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:56AM (#630891)

    Bingo.

    Coal didn't die because we ran out of it. Last I heard the UK still has about 3 centuries worth of known reserves at long ago usage levels - but we've pretty much stopped using it.

    It was a Saudi oil minister who said: "The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil."

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:06AM (1 child)

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:06AM (#630892) Journal

      He was then promptly stoned to death by Saudi religious enforcers for implying that the world is older than 6000 years.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:28PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:28PM (#631075)

        Huh? Wahhabist Islam has its issues to be sure, but I thought the 6500-year-old Earth thing was purely a Christian idea.