The rebirth of water injection

While this is not a totally novel idea it is an idea that’s time has come again with my novel twist, water injection of internal combustion engines.That might sound crazy, since water and fire don't mix, but it actually works! The water is injected with the air, which cools the air and allows more air to be taken into the cylinder. Then after the valve closes the water absorbs the heat of the compression stroke, meaning it takes less work which saves energy. (Pv=nrt) Then, as the fuel burns the water does something amazing! It keeps absorbing the heat of combustion until it boils and flashes to steam, the steam expands and forces the piston down, returning some of the energy it took earlier (energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat from the radiator or tailpipe).
The down side is you need an oil filter that can remove water as the steam pressure can blow by the piston rings, so more water will end up in the oil. Before you add a water hose to your carburetor, water injection only works if the engine is at temp. If it’s not the water will rob the cylinder walls of enough heat to make the flame propagation uneven or even prevent combustion.Ok all this is known, at least by some people.
The new twist I am adding is that instead of carrying around water which is heavy and would have to be refilled, the water can come from the condensate of the AC. If the coils are kept clean, the condensate water is very pure.You might say that's great during the summer, but what about the winter? Or I don’t use my AC unit…
Well, the compressor is connected to the crankshaft by a belt, so it puts load on the engine. In my design the compressor would be activated by the brakes, which would help slow the vehicle, and recover some of the energy otherwise lost by condensing water out of the air, so it can be injected into the engine later. If we really wanted to push recovering energy from braking, we could also have the alternator make extra energy to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen to be burned as fuel later.
If the extra weight and cost weren’t an issue a small compressor could be activated by braking to compress the H2 and O2 produced into small tanks so more would be available. A turbo would work and would give exhaust braking without the noise or if they could be cooled off, it might be possible to use two of the cylinders in the engine for compressing the cracked gas. It is in theory possible to store more energy in a short amount of time as a gas, than could be put into a battery in the same length of time.
For trucks and trains which require more braking force for a longer time, the water would be boiled and cracked as steam over a heated catalyst, since that method can absorb more of the power.
With or without my plan, water injection makes sense!

The end of roofing nails

Of all the things involved with building a house the one that has changed the least is the roofing more specifically what the roofing material is made of and how it is attached. The nails and/or staples destroy the sheathing, allow water and air to enter and prevent the underside of the deck from being used for energy capture since piping would be destroyed by reroofing.

It is time to change at least how the roofing material is attached if not the roofing material itself. What I propose as an intermediate step is coating the back of metal or fiberglass roofing material and the roof membrane with a plastic material and ultrasonically welding the roofing material down. You might think how strong of a bond can that be?
Well you ever try and open plastic packing that is tightly welded? This would be stronger, yet could be removed with a hot wire scrapper to prep the surface for reroofing. If it is possible it would be smarter to add something to the plastic that would destroy the bond if exposed to a second ultrasonic treatment, just to make removal and surface prep easier.
Once the ultrasonic technology proves itself in the field the actual roofing could change to plastics or thin film solar cells with addition ultrasonic spot welds used to make the circuit. The plastics could have vacuum insulation or phase change materials in them better control the thermal uptake and output of the structure. Or in the ulimate green roofing stratagy the panels could have 100+ micron gaps filled with filtered nutrient rich waste water, aerated with CO2 rich air from the house or furnace and algae to make hydrogen or methane for using in microgeneration. Plus you get lots of hot gray water for heat and watering the lawn. All of this could be made possible by not have to nail the roofing material down.