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Show ISP"?! Is There a J44T -- Steam Car in Your Future? 7 Wt V; X I i It could end air pollution, reduce fuel costs, and revolutionize motoring but it still faces a long road ahead before winning public acceptance A experimental combustion-syste- steam generator is installed in GM auto. m By JAMES JOSEPH wrn hink steam" proclaims -- L a bumper sticker. Motorists may well chuckle at the very idea of owning, much less ever driving, a car powered by steam. But engineers Corp., at Lear Motors Reno, Nev., and similar re- searchers around the nation aren't chuckling. They're too busy perfecting a steam motor for your car of the future. "A system," emLear Motors' founder, phasizes William P. Lear, Sr., "will cost no more initially and considerably less to operate than today's gasoline engine. And, being virtually pollutant-freit will cleanse our air of much of its deadly pollution." The steem motor also promises more "go" for your money because fuels. it burns Within the next few months, Lear expects to unveil the first production-read- y steam motor and have it installed in a car, which any skeptic may see and drive. Sen. Warren Magnuson (D. Wash.) and Sen. Edmund Muskie (D. Me.) have both recently called for the stepped-u- p development of steam cars. Auto critic Ralph Nader calls the steam car the one bright hope in our otherwise losing war on smog. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Richard F. Morse, who headed a major Commerce Department study on electric (battery-powerecars, emerged from his research by sayng: "If you want an automobile comparable to what is running now (but virtually pollutant- steam-propulsi- inter- nal-combustion e, low-co- st d) 10 F amily Weekly, November 30, 1969 free), the only way is with the engine" nal-combustion exter- meaning the steam engine. A recent Senate Commerce Committee staff report agrees. It calls for legislation that would require the Federal government to earmark a big chunk of its annual "$155 million car n ones, expenditure for once they're in production. Uncle Sam then would not only help to put steam cars on the road but would reduce his own contribution to air pollution. Ford Motor Company also is cure derently engaged in which velopment as is General Motors, last May showed its first of two exc perimental models. One, a 1969 Grand Prix, powered by a 160 steam engine, was hp, developed by its own research laboratories. The other, a 1969 Chevelle, was fitted with a 50 hp Besler steam system of Besler Developments, Inc., a California engineering firm. Both cars are undergoing tests. But a number of workable steam-engicars have been on the road for years. Best known is the custom-bui"Williams Steamer." It produces 100 hp, find its steam genabout only erator in the trunk leaves little room for luggage. Silent as a ghost, it can go more than 70 mph. At their Ambler, Pa., shop, the Williams family turns out a limited number, at about steam-drive- steam-engin- Pon-tia- four-cylind- er ne lt $10,000 each. Behind the push toward steam are some recent grim findings and statis- tics. They were formally presented to Congress last January by outgoing Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Wilbur J. Cohen. Summing up nearly a decade of research and HEW's own conclusive studies, he named the automobile and its inter engine, as the chief source of air pollution. The automobile, Cohen said, contributes more than 90 percent of all carbon monoxide, 60 percent of hydrocarbons, 50 percent of toxic oxides of nitrogen, and virtually all of the potentially poisonous lead emitted into the atmosphere. Annually, 125 million tons of pollutants are spewed into our air. More than 60 percent comes from motor vehicles, mostly automobile. Antismog devices and new Federal and state antipollutant standards have helped to reduce cars' pollutant emission. But it is hardly noticeable. Not until sometime after 1971, concludes HEW, will there be any significant decrease. Many experts see only two ways to curb auto pollution n an engine or some wholly noncombustive power source. Batteries, for example. Already well publicized are the auto d "electric" industry's encars, turbine engines, rotary-typ- e gines, and even fuel cells, an exotic type of electric engine. The nuclear engine, which might solve most pollutant problems poses some ew ones of its own. For one reason or another whether because of size, weight, cost, or the state of their existing technologynone by Detroit's own yardstick measures up to the automakers' old eye-irritati- ng long-ran- ge external-combustio- battery-powere- standby the internal-combustio- n gasoline engine. By the same token, neither apparently have a myriad of exotic fuels proved successful in reducing the gasoline engine's pollutantsand for many of the very same reasons'. The steam engine may be the solu tion with its simple operation. M "working fluid" (water or some spe cial liquid) is heated and turned tc steam in a boiler. The steam powers a motor or turbine which, through gearing, drives the car's wheels. The! steam, once used, is cooled, condens-- l ing back to its original liquid state Then the cycle begins all over again. For all its apparent simplicity, unH til now the steam engine has defied! every engineering attempt to turn! it into a practical, economic, high powered power plant for cars. Now, however, Lear he is the! manufacturer of Lear executive jets! and Lear stereophonic equipment seems to have solved many problems in steam propulsion for everyday road use. He and a staff of engineers have built an engine a system, he insists 0 which produces up to hp in a motor smaller and lighter than any conventional car's. It burns almost anything combustible (the cheapest fuels, too), costs less to operate, and produces so little pollution that it can scarcely be measured. The engine's working fluid won't freeze. Nor must it be constantly added to, as in most previous engines. The compact boiler is And start-u- p has been reduced to little more than 20 seconds. The entire system fits just where your present engine fits. Lear's experience in technology and marketing makes him a realist, and a realist would be the last to declare the steam engine has "arrived" on our roads. In the last analysis, Detroit and car buyers themselves must decide if a revolution in motoring is really workable. 500-70- one-fif- th explo-sionpro- |