The piston engine is powered by the release of compressed air which is stored in tanks, very similar to scuba diving tanks, attached to the underside of the car.
The body of the vehicle weighs only 700kg, and the engine itself is a mere 35kg.
MattSavinar wrote:
I'd say you have to be a dumbass with no energy literacy to fall for this.
Dr. Foolioso, tell all us lowly doomers what it takes to compress the air?
clueless wrote:The piston engine is powered by the release of compressed air which is stored in tanks, very similar to scuba diving tanks, attached to the underside of the car.
The body of the vehicle weighs only 700kg, and the engine itself is a mere 35kg.
What happens when it crashes ?
As for the eeeevils of personal motor vehicles, sure, let's go back to horses, and hire an army of sweepers to clean up the enormous quantities of urine and manure they leave behind.
At the turn of the 20th century, in NYC and Chicago the accumulations got to be a foot to 18" deep in most parts of the cities. The high leather boots of the era were not a fashion statement, they were a necessity for slogging through the steaming stinking shit.
Electricity will always be around, it is not a finite resource. It is only limited by our ability to harnass it which is too FF dependent but need not be. If we can develop a technology that relies on electricity, not FF, we have a good chance.
clueless wrote:Electricity will always be around, it is not a finite resource. It is only limited by our ability to harnass it which is too FF dependent but need not be. If we can develop a technology that relies on electricity, not FF, we have a good chance.
Electricity is only the energy carrier, the work still needs to be done to transmit via electricity. When electricity is transmitted through power lines it is only carrying the work being done by the Steam or Gas turbine, which is powered by boiling water or expanding gasses.
clueless wrote:I work for one of the largest PG companies in the world and short of the gas combustion turbine, Boiling water is the only way we have figured out how to produce "work" that can be transmitted through a power line. There are NO new fixes on the horizon, I know this becasue I am involved with hiring engineers on all the
R & D projects.
Olle wrote:The problem is that it is so extremely energy inefficient. Worse than the ICE
Actually its carrying the power from the generator which was generated from the work done by the gasses expanding from high pressure to low pressure against the turbine blades producing shaft work that drives the generator. But thats besides the point
You are in charge of hiring for R&D and you think that only gas and steam turbines are the only ways to produce electricity? What about wind and hydro turbines? What about nuclear reactors, what about PV cells?
smallpoxgirl wrote:Olle wrote:The problem is that it is so extremely energy inefficient. Worse than the ICE
It seems like a pretty cool deal at first glance, but this seems like the unavoidable problem. The engine in the aircar functions essentially the same as an ICE.
The tanks on the car hold 90 cubic meters of air at 300bar. SourceThat's 2.7 gigajoules of energy. A gallon of gasoline, by contrast, has 130 megajoules of energy. So the tanks hold the same energy as about 20 gallons of gasoline. It only gets 200km on a fill, so that's an equivalent efficiency of about 6 miles per gallon.
2.7 gigajoules = 750 kwh. Assuming the compressor is 33% efficient, it would consume 2250 kwh of electricity. At $0.10 per kwh, it would cost $225 to fill the tank.
Anybody find an error in my calculations?
clueless wrote:You really need to take a step back - It's OK nobody is attacking your "Turf".
How about getting me your analysis and feasablity in retrofitting the entire country with Wind, Hydro and PV's ???
You never did say what your team was R&D'ing.
smallpoxgirl wrote:Olle wrote:The problem is that it is so extremely energy inefficient. Worse than the ICE
It seems like a pretty cool deal at first glance, but this seems like the unavoidable problem. The engine in the aircar functions essentially the same as an ICE.
The tanks on the car hold 90 cubic meters of air at 300bar. SourceThat's 2.7 gigajoules of energy. A gallon of gasoline, by contrast, has 130 megajoules of energy. So the tanks hold the same energy as about 20 gallons of gasoline. It only gets 200km on a fill, so that's an equivalent efficiency of about 6 miles per gallon.
2.7 gigajoules = 750 kwh. Assuming the compressor is 33% efficient, it would consume 2250 kwh of electricity. At $0.10 per kwh, it would cost $225 to fill the tank.
Anybody find an error in my calculations?
http://peakoil.com/fortopic27418-0.html
The country will most likely burn every last bit of recoverable coal, thats not in question. What happens as coal regualtions push price up and renewables continue to become cheaper?
You never did say what your team was R&D'ing.
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