Many automakers are using turbochargers for forced induction or pressurized intake of ubiquitous 2.0L or 2 liter inline 4 cylinder gasoline engines used in more than 700 different automobiles as the ICE prime mover or major energy system for propulsion & to drive auxiliary loads like the alternator to make 14.2vdc to charge the SLI 12v automotive battery & energize all the 12vdc loads like compute modules like the ECU or engine control using, turn signal lights, headlights, DRL lamps & bulbs, brake lights, often now LED modules with cool looking designs.
I often think of the a hobby turbine mated to a generator optimized for the rotational speed of the turbine, think up to 100K RPM, with NiFeB magnets spinning in coils of wire with rectification to make DC or without for AC output. I am thinking of a compact emergency power generator that uses a compact turbo-gen set with inverter power control that's lower in mass & size than a traditional compact air cooled gasoline fueled portable generator.
On Amazon cheaper portable backup generators that run on unleaded gasoline, of 2kW output with low electrical distortion sine wave inverter 120vac output, are available for under $400 that are analogous to the exceptional EU2200 Honda unit that cost around $1200 or 3X more, though probably also 10x longer lasting or more reliable. Meg & I got an EU2000 at Home Depot for $899 a few years ago, and it has about 640 minutes of runtime on it now. At 46 lbs & under 50 db sound levels the EU2000i has an eco mode, is very quiet, very fuel efficient, makes clean AC output, and stable DC output. The cheaper ones have worse review scores than the Honda, burn oil, have problems with wires coming unplugged, damaged spark plugs, leaking gasoline, faulty CO detectors & other issues. Honda makes the most reliable backup power generators, bar none, period, no debate. Perhaps a Yamaha backup generator would be similar, since it's like buying a Toyota, given that Yamaha & Toyota work together extensively on engine & vehicle technologies.
I have a Yamaha MT03 motorcycle from 2020 MY that I absolutely love, thanks Meg. It was a value at $4599 and smaller than the then unavialable Honda CB500F that I really wanted, but was also more expensive & bigger. The Yamaha MT03 is the entry level of the MT line, but thankfully has the refined for 12 year engine of the Yamaha R3. This offset parallel twin 321 cc makes around 40hp & 20 lb-ft of torque, sending about 37HP or 30kW to the rear wheel. It gives 57 MPG all day on regular unleaded gasoline, and can be ridden fast and still gives over 40 MPG, while mile hypermiling gives 55-70 MPG & aggressive hypermiling gives up to 84 MPG. The click-y mechanical 6 speed sequential transmission has a lovely left foot shifter, dash gear indicator, easy left hand clutch leaver, and the bike is nimble, balanced and great around town. On the highway at freeway speeds in America the engine a little buzzy up around 5-8k RPM even in 6th gear which is long. It can reach its top speed in 4th gear with the redline near 11,800 RPM. I leave it in 4th gear for fun riding, but upshift to 5th & 6th for super efficient cruse modes, able to be in 6th gear at speeds as low as 35 MPH. Early upshift saves fuel, a form of hypermiling to get brake specific power more efficiently. The engine warms up easily even in cold weather, and the water cooling with power assisted fan cooling works well even in hot summer weather at low speeds trolling in storm & go traffic.
Most portable generators have an air cooled piston engine of 37cc to 250cc displacement, and make 1kW to 3.5kW of output power as AC energy via sine wave inverters. Again Honda the undisputed king of portable power generators that are reliable & correspondingly more expensive. Surely aircraft APU are even more costly. I am wondering why no manufacturers make a premium turbo-electric portable generator of lower mass, perhaps because of how loud such turbines are?
I know from watching YouTube videos that the portable hobby scale turbine engines are over 120 db so super loud like gun fire, but continuous as a high pitch whirl sound, like takeoff in a commercial airplane with the engines at full power output, but higher pitch.
Capstone makes 30kW combined heat & power units for domestic use, but they are too big & heavy for portable power generator applications during natural hazards & disasters, or power outages. I understand that the fuel economy of small turbines not great, and they are known for guzzling fuel. They are also more complicated to operate & maintain than the small air cooled piston engines of common backup generators, some of which can also operate on propane.
I dream of a well made DME fueled compact low mass turbo-generator that outperforms the Honda EU2200i in every respect. Sound optimized for low noise emissions, easy start up, easy maintenance, easy operation, easy problem shooting, easy to cary, light weight or low mass, and flex fuel so it can run on kerosine, diesel, warm wax, bio-fuels, E85, gasoline, propane, butane, starting fluid or any fuel widely available like white gas used for camping stoves, or isobutane or whatever.
Most commercial power plants use turbo generators or steam turbines to make grip power electricity sent over long distance power lines to utility customers for energizing appliance, charge battery electric vehicles, recharging cell phones or smartphones or laptops or smart watches & IoT devices with Li-Ion batteries.
I am talking about charging portable electronics which are widely popular around the world. I am talking about energizing microwaves, ovens, washing machines, lamps, bulbs & lights. I am talking about the advanced economy enabled by persistent electrical energy access & how internet & e-commerce have revolutionized economies globally.
Fuel Supply Chain Logistics
Your backup generator is only as good as your fuel supply to keep it running during a black out or power outage. Even natural gas generators can experience a control board failure during a winter power outage, so keep a spare or two spares or more like the Pentagon if that's possible for your budget. I suggest keeping spare parts, control boards, & similar for your generator in a thick plastic bag, inside a box, in a dry location that you can assess if something goes wrong with your generator.
Adding fuel stabilizer to gasoline increases its shelf life from 3 months to 2 years, so I highly advise using Fuel Stabilizer for your backup generator fuel supply or in infrequently used seasonal lawn mowers or similar power equipment, or motor scooters or motorcycles that are used sparingly.
Diesel fuel stabile for up to 10 years amazingly. Kerosine has a similar long life.
Propane & DME in tanks have an almost unlimited life as long as the tank is free of corrosion and stored in a dry location inside somewhere, a cave or garage or similar.
This idea very old, from the 1800's, learn more on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_generator
Let put this another way
If you live in a wealthy country & consider electric power essential, then doing the CME when sun knocks out grid power for many months, most people in those countries are going die from starvation, from being cold in winter if that's when it happens. WWIII also a blo-war so many people, upto 90% of Earths human population will die within months of the start of WWIII. No backup generator is going to help solve that problem.
Life is temporary & your time alive is limited & everyone even including some children know this at an intimate personal level. They know that we are born as a baby, grow into children, then teens, then young adults, then become middle aged, and if we are lucky we make it past 80 year, but no one alive today lives for 969 year like Methuselah as denoted in the Bible, as the son of Enoch in the chapter Genesis of the Old Testament.
Some scientists estimate that some people born recently will be able live 150 or so years using age reversal technology. The hope of the Trans Human movement that I was previously associated with H+, is that technology will eventually enable unlimited or endless life for anyone who embraces it fully.
It seems that with 4IR or the information war globally, artificial intelligence will give rise to advanced computer brain interface technology that supersedes the touch screen, keyboard & mouse paradigm of todays largely digital computers, smartphones, tablets & similar information technology.
Did you know that most analog circuits are still hand designed by people one at a time using expertise & specialized knowledge that takes 20+ years to fully develop with daily practice. You would be really surprise to see the role that analog circuits play in the automatic transmissions of a typical car, or in sound systems that turn digital streaming into analog sound pressure waves using speakers, or that turn analog sound pressure from human voice into digital signals for computers with natural language processing or NLP.
Many voice activated personal assistance on Amazon Prime or Google or Siri on iOS for example use natural language processing to understand human voice as an input & to give spoken response to voice queries or requests. On an iPhone you can say "Hey Siri, find driving directions to the nearest Safeway" for example & it will load Apple Maps with A-GPS & dynamic 3D visual mapping on the screen, even of the Apple Watch, to get you to the new destination. People who move to a new city often use these navigation functions of their smart technology to find routes to & from different local destinations, without aimlessly driving around wasting fuel & time looking for something.
In these ways even working poor people with smartphones enjoy features & functions that were not even available to billionaires in the 1970's. To say that information technology was born on the shoulders of giants is an understatement. Many thousand of computer scientists, software engineers, digital computer designers, circuit designers, coding experts, analog circuit & ASIC circuit designers, so many different educated talented people have contributed towards all the widely diffused COTS or consumer off the shelf technologies widely available today, that make use of those chips made on ASML's latest lithography mass manufacturing equipment by TSMC for the most power efficient mobile SOC's for example. A modern automobile contains more than 130 of these chips, in compute module, mostly passively cooled with aluminum heat-sink housings, running on 8-14vdc or vehicle power made by the alternator & passed into & out of the SLI battery, mostly flooded PBA, though sometimes AGM in premium vehicles.
AGM means absorbed glass fibers or fiber glass that keeps the sulfuric acid & lead plates stable while the vehicle undulates & vibrates when operated on roadways in the real world, in what the industry calls NVH or noise vibration & harshness. Lexus was supposed to make premium Toyota vehicles with excellent ride quality & low noise interior, but the F-sport models take cues from Gazoo racing tuning with harder lower suspension, lower profile tires on bigger wheels, and have more NVH paradoxically than the Toyota Avalon paradoxically. I am thinking of the pre-95 Lexus LS400 with the most reliable engine ever made, and excellent ride quality & very low NVH, or nearly silent interior. The main drag of the LS400 comes in its poor fuel economy of only 10 MPG. Thats like 50 liters per 100lm, or a gas guzzler.
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