A New Engine to Revolutionize the World With

As far as the planet-conscious car buyer is concerned, there is almost no more sacred a choice in the car market than the hybrid. The problem with that view of things is that the hybrid, while it makes very clever use of a battery-driven motor so as to not have to use the engine at very low and inefficient speeds, does absolutely have to switch to the regular engine past 15mph. And that engine is a truly inefficient device – a century-old contraption that wastes 85% of the gas it consumes. All of that is about to change. Regular gas engines are about to go completely out of fashion. Welcome the new wave disk engine, a product of the automotive department at Michigan State.

The thing about the wave disk engine is that it isn't just a replacement for the engine of the regular car, which it of course, it is. It's that it's a replacement for the entire transmission of the car as well. A car powered by a wave disk engine would have no transmission, no pistons, and no cooling systems - nothing. This is the essential engine – a pure powertrain that is four times more efficient than regular gas engines. And what about emissions? Well, let's just leave it at saying that emissions from a wave disk engine would be 10% of what they are today coming from regular hybrid cars with regular gas engines.

So how does an engine combust gas without chambers and pistons? The new wave disk engine has a rotor that has a wavelike scroll that traps fuel in its peaks and troughs to burn. When the trapped fuel ignites, it transmits energy through shock waves. Such a vehicle would have an additional advantage in fuel savings over a regular car. It would be hundreds of pounds lighter than a conventional car - because it would have very few of the heavy space-hogging parts that a regular car does. Just imagine - to power a regular-sized car, you would need a wave disk engine that was no larger than a regular pressure cooker.

The basic technology in a wave disk system is actually more than a half-century old. The new design from Michigan State builds on the original and makes it a lot more efficient. One way in which it is more efficient is that it doesn't just a waste hot compressed air out the exhaust. It recycles it to use over and over again. The venture has netted a government grant of about $2.5 million. And they aim to produce a working model of car by the end of the year. These are exciting times then for the green movement.