Mary - Yes, you absolutely can generate electricity by a fan driven generator on a car. What you can't do is get more energy out than the extra energy consumed by pushing the fan through the air. That would be getting something from nothing, and there are basic laws of physics ruling that out. Better to make the vehicle more efficient in some way, such as making it lighter, more aerodynamic, recovering energy during braking, etc.
I like the idea of pedals for passengers. How about something like this: http:/
Man, it is so frustrating and depressing talking to engineers. You guys take all the fun and creativity out of life for those of us who are less educated about what can and cannot be done. 
It's like my father discouraging me from driving across Canada and camping along the way because he told me a bear would tear down my tent and kill me. 
This reminds me a little bit of the "downwind faster than the wind" discussions that have been going on over the past year in the Amateur Yacht Research Society. Very smart people on both sides of the argument would come up with very detailed explanations of why it was or was not possible, both equally certain of their position. Somebody recently built a small machine with propellor driven wheels and sent it downwind - any guesses? - yes, faster than the wind. He promises to report on additional tests.
There it is! That's the Smart Car I was talking about. You have to click on Jbecker's link a couple posts up, then click on the word "Smart" in the first paragraph and it will take you to the Smart car. I've seen lots of them all over Europe. Looks like fun, any of you guys have one?
I still can't get over this. 40 mpg a good mileage ? I'm driving a 13 year old car that does 39 mpg. When I had two boats I would tow both of them (300 kg of boat + 150 kg of trailer) simultaniously at 75 mph and still do 30 mpg.
You betcha that the technology to do 40 mpg has been available for many years now. It is not technology that stands in the way but human nature. Which macho guy wants to drive a fuel efficient car ? Doesn't match well with the image.
Wouter
Of course, it's possible. As I said, our Honda Civic is now 16 years old, and it gets 40 mpg.
Our Honda Odyssey (minivan) gets 30 mpg without a tow and 24 when towing two boats double-stacked -- even up and down over mountains.
For some reason, auto manufacturers (at least in the U.S.) do not seem to be highly motivated.
As I think somebody mentioned earlier, this is very relevant to sailing, because the high price of fuel, combined with low mpg for towing vehicles, is hurting regatta attendance.
One of my pet topics :
Computer controlled high speed road trains.
By this I mean, normal plain cars that have an electronic control cirquitry linked to their brakes and cruise control and use that to drive only 1 to 2 feet behind the car in front of them. Length of these road trains could be 2 cars to tens of cars. All slip streaming.
The technology required would be darn inexpensive (how much does a sound cart for your PC cost or a mobile phone) and most cars are fully prepared to take cruise control anyway.
Immediately savings would be 40 % in fuel consumption by cars and an immediate 5 fold increase in the capacity of roads.
Joining and leaving such a road train would be as easy speeding up to the rear of it or just slowly steering to side and move out from the train. The gap would then be filled but the rear part of the train speeding up a little.
No chances in infrastructure are needed and even accidents will be alot less severe if any happen. Why, because you really can't create much speed difference when you are only 1 foot behind the guy in front of you. So a head tail collision would only bend your bumper out of shape a little.
As with these thigns always it needs a group of politicians with gusts.
Wouter
Wouter, sorry about the creative editing, but from what I have heard, we already have this in Los Angeles. 
I forsee two problems with the "road train"
1) What happens when a car has a blowout or other mechanical failure.
2) People are not going to want to turn over control of their very lives to a computer.
That being said, Trey and I spent over $600 in gas to get to and from Tradewinds in January.
Your damn skippy...and I don't understand it either. I drive a vehicle that gets crappy mileage (although I went with a small truck with a V6 instead of V8 to try and save a little...turns out to be just as bad). Will you just LOOK at how many Hummers are out there getting 9mpg - it's rediculous. Even with the gas prices nearly doubling they're STILL selling these bahemouths. I just don't get it. If I were in the market for another vehicle you bet fuel mileage will be on the top of this list. However, I think we're going to have to get to 3 or 4 dollars per gallon before the rest of America will wake up.
Timbo:
Since I've been living in my house for 18 years, does that mean I would have been saving $400 per month for the last 10 years!
Stated another way, if you were selling your house in today's market, how much would that $40,000 investment be worth?
Sounds to me like the technology is effective today, and with the 30% the State is willing to put up, it's pretty well affordable.
Using the numbers you gave us, can someone do this math for me:
I've heard citrus canker has destroyed 70,000 acres of citrus here in Florida. If you put all that land into photovolaics, how much would that amount of electricity be worth in the energy market? There is a market to buy and sell electricity isn't there?
But, what if you took (all,or most, or some) of the eighteen wheelers and put them in the interstate median. That would free-up a lot of road for passenger traffic.
Given that their cargo would only need to be delivered "just in time" you might want to slow them down, realizing a fuel savings.
It's a open forum 
DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.
REPUBLICANISM
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature' s private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.
IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.
FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.
CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udder
Don't some of you have more of a life than this????
One of my pet topics :
Computer controlled high speed road trains.
At the company I used to work for, we had an automatic highway system. The problem was it could not pass by the legal department. So, it still sits on the self.
Matt:
I hate to digress from my favorite genre, but is your club as nice as it looks?
How many sailing days do you have per year?
Yes, I work for a French corporation, or at least it seems French
Welcome, and be careful or you could end up like Jake, at last count he had posted here 4 times!
To give you a comparison; In many European nations the fuel goes for 1 to 1.3 Euro's per liter = 5 to 6.5 USdollars per Gallon
Wouter
And what was the reason that it could not pass the legal department ?
Wouter
Not much else then what already happens now. You get an adrenalline rush while the cars around you slow down. Then you steer to the side of the road while the remaining traffic steers around you and speeds up again.
What do you think would happen. The beauty of the system is actually that it is safer as well even during major breakages. Because the traffic is so much closer together you don't get high speed differences which lead to major collision damages. Think about it.
2) People are not going to want to turn over control of their very lives to a computer.
You mean computer systems like traffic lights, nuclear reactors, fligh by wire airplanes, cruise control, medicine production and what not else in our computer controlled societies. Our lives are already turned over to many many many computer controlled system; this is just illogical fear of the unknown by the common man. Or does anybody believe that a computer glitch on a road crossing with traffic lights will lead to anything but very serious harm ?
Wouter
Yep , but now imagine this at 50 mph instead of that leasurely pace of 1 mph
Wouter
Pete, stop making me participate!
A few thoughts:
- hybrid vehicle on electricity and biodiesel/ethanol mix. Could drop fossil fuel component to less than 30%
- hydrogen vehicle. Unfortunately, hydrogen is most cheaply produced from fossil fuel. Perhaps someone can develop a better solar cell to allow for electrolysis to be more efficient. Caution with this approach is that byproducts of electrolysis of H2O include extremely caustic (pH 14+) solution that has heavy water component (i.e. radioactive duterium). I'm not a chemist, so I can't really explain the stoichiometry of it....
Coincidently, I believe it was Norway that was using electrolysis heavily in the 1940's to produce hydrogen (from water) to be used in fertilizer (ammonium nitrate). Apparantly, as the story goes, the Nazi party had begun informal experimenting with the heavy water byproduct to develop atomic energy (and possibly weapons). History could have been re-written (and not for the better) had they placed this research (and jet power) on a high priority.
Yeah....what he said. But on the whole solar thing...the state of Florida just this year started with the 30% rebate for adding solar panels, up to a maximum of about $3,000. So not much help for doing a whole home system and as I said before, they are sold out of PV panels.
The idea to do it came to mind right after the 3 hurricanes of 2004. After each one the weather was beautiful, lots of sun, no electricity. Generators need gasoline but all the stations were closed, no electricity to pump it. It also would have been nice to have a wind generator as soon as the power went out, while it was blowing 80-120! But will solar panels stay attached to your roof in 120 mph winds?
Most of you now in your 40's, who grew up in the US, remember the oil shortage of 1974. We were told then that by now (30+ years later) we would all be driving electric cars, or little 100 mpg diesels, like they do in Europe. We were also forced to learn the metric system because we were going to be using that by the 1980's...don't get me started.
My parrents bought a VW Diesel Rabbit back in 1978, for $8,000. It got 50 mpg. Wish I could find one today! The new Diesel Jetta gets about 48 mpg, but costs $21-23,000. A Toyota Carola gets 41 mpg on gasoline, for about $13-16,000. Diesel is about $.20 more expensive than gas (why is that? It used to be twenty cents cheaper. Taxes?)
Still, I would rather ride the train the 85 miles to work, like most do in Europe, but we don't have them in rural US, only in a few major cities, like Chicago, NY and Boston. That way I could read or sleep.
Pete,
I feel it is a beautiful pace to sail. To me, there is nothing more beautiful than looking out toward the water and seeing no land, but Pultneyville is a really nice town. There is some farm land, lots of trees and parks. There are no buildings or anything like that, just well maintained houses. It is not too developed. When ever I take someone out for the first time they are always astounded by the view.
Our sailing season runs from May to November. I keep saying, "Rochester is the new Florida if this 'global warming' keeps up!"
I am always thinking, I wish I had a camera so I could remember this view forever. This year I will be taking a camera out to get some good shots.
Matt
It's too late, they already have.
Cars - No more points in the ignition system or carburetors. Computers now control everything in cars. In some cases, over control. Look at the horrible implementation with BMW’s iDrive and Mercedes drop in quality caused by their on board computers.
Banks/Finance – When’s the last time bank tellers hand entered info into a bankbook? 30 years ago? Any company in this area that isn’t using more and more IT systems is a non-player.
Manufacturing – IT systems tell you what/when/how to build. Humans are peripheral equipment.
Engineering – If you aren’t using CAD systems for design you’re taking way too long to bring products to market.
Internet – You’re reading this aren’t you?
And what was the reason that it could not pass the legal department ?
Wouter
Liability, fear of litigation. My understanding was that the system was one of the most promising systems developed and was close to completion, but all funding was cut after the lawyers could not work around the liability issue.
I like the train idea.
Matt
Timbo:
That's true but someone will make more!
The thing to do is send Jeb a message saying $3k isn't enough!
Anybody wanna work on a group project to get the Gov's attention? Something fun,envolving sailing?
If there's Grant money to be had, I'm in! Every day I read in my local paper about another (needles, idiotic) project being funded by "Grant Money" usually around $250,000 or more. So, yeah, let's put together a project for Solar/Wind Powered boats, get Jeb to "grant" us $250,000 and have a regatta! "Look Ma, no imported oil!" Saving the world, one regatta at a time!
How about an Education Grant to teach kids to sail instead of ride jet skis? $250,000 would buy a lot of Waves!
Thanks for the answer
In effect, the laywers were afraid for the unknown and preferred the inferiour performance of a known situation rather then risk improving things by introducing a relatively unknown situation.
Also for some reason people are expected to sooner litigate a company whose "trained" car was involved in an accident then a car company that produced an "untrained" car, even while the latter situation is most likely a more dangerous situation. As in most applications; human controllers are pretty mediocre. Alot of accidents happen because a human controller made a error or intepretated the situation the wrong way.
I'm sure that "trained" cars will add a few new error and accident modes, but the reduction in human induced accidents could be much more significant.
But it is the same thing ago; alot of world problems could have been solved already if not everybody was paying so much attention to protecting their own backsides.
Wouter
Matt, can you give me the name of the company who did this work and development ?
Wouter