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The Pressurized Air Car?

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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 07:33:29

Sorry, I'm experiencing technical difficulties.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 07:35:08

clueless wrote:
What happens as coal regualtions push price up and renewables continue to become cheaper?


Not meaning to attack you, but this way of thinking has to be changed.


Not meaning to attack you, but you do not know what you are talking about.

clueless wrote:"Cheaper" is a realitive term. Chepaer means nothing, nothing ever really gets cheaper. Wind Turbines require huge capital investment that will never be recouped by the company building them.
Everything requires a huge capital investment. The first law of thermodynamics basically states you don't get something for nothing. We will use the remaining FF anyways, why not use them to build renewables, a net energy producer no matter what way you look at it.

clueless wrote:They get "cheaper" from subsides and accounting tricks, but the reality is in the long run they will never be profitable or make any real impact on the supply side.


"Accounting tricks" are great but even without them wind turbines now cost about 4-7 cents per kwh, whats not cost effective about that? Drilling for oil was not very profitiable for decades. http://www.rnp.org/RenewTech/tech_wind.html

clueless wrote:Renewables may become more usable, but they do not get cheaper. Same with photovolatics, they will never come close to generating the bang for the buck that Combustion or Steam power generation will - You should know that.

Actually thats just an ignorant remark; especially from someone who subscribes to PO. Today PV is closing the gap as coal plants are now being required to build $700,000,000 scrubber systems onto their plants to avoid fines. This cost is being passed on the consumer, look for it in you bill in the next 1-3 years. Also, we're getting close to reglulating mercury as well, get ready for another price hike from FF. All the while PV cells are approaching 40% efficiency and silicon shortages are being resolved through new materials and manufacturing processes. Even if you don't want to put down $15,000 to insure an average electricity bill of ~$60 a month for the next 30+ years, you can lease a system with no up front cost for ~$80 a month.
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clueless wrote:I am not sure if Nuclear Energy uses air, but CT's and Steam do - That is the reason why they are so efficient is the largest componet used in the combustion process is air which is simply sucked out of the atmosphere. That is why the ICE will never be replaced - Because it does not have to transport the air it uses in combustion, which in most cases is (What) 20:1 ??


You are not sure about a lot of things. Steam turbine and CT plants are not efficient at all! (about 33%) Where does nuclear energy suck air out of the atmosphere? It uses a nuclear reaction to boil water, the rest is no different from a coal plant.

What do you suggest we do? If its power-down and start farming then you need a reality-check. You are more likely to see 100 million solar rooftops and 500 million windmills or a be all end all resource war, than a rewind of the evolutionary clock.

Your kind of thinking needs to be changed.

Once again, if we can develop viable transportation methods that do not depend on FF, we have a great chance because there will always be electricity, that is not the problem.
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Re: IS THIS THE END OF PEAK OIL?

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 07:41:02

smallpoxgirl wrote:Those numbers still don't seem right. Can this thing really be getting 1800 mi/gal equivalent efficiency!?!?!


I don't know where they got the numbers but you don't want to quantify energy of a gas per unit volume unless you are absolutly sure of the temp and pressure (or enthalpy, or entropy) or you can be off by a wide margin. You can't get specific energy without 2 independent properties. Just take a peak at a set of thermo tables and you will see the variation.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 07:52:30

clueless wrote:
This site claims there are more than two, but who knows? Here in CA, we supposedly have turbines from U.S. Windpower, Kenetech & Vestas, and probably GE. May even be more...


There two manufacturers in the US. -

Siemens and GE will be the owners of the wind biz in the US. Vestas and Suzlon people are leaving like mad, and due to mandates from the federal govt and tax incentinves all the small guys will be out of business or purchased in a matter of a few years.


That doesn't mean anything, GE and Westinghouse supply all of the turbine generators in my companies fleet. Ford and GM made quite a few cars for only 2 companies........

Like someone said, specialized manufacturing is usually not divided up into a lot of different companies, its usually the first to perfect the biz becomes the icon.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 07:58:46

clueless wrote:
I'm curious, how did the US dept of Wind Energy run us into a 10 trillion dollar deficit?


Their they are part of the US Dept of Energy aren't they ? Which is a part of the US govt. Correct ?


So is my mailman.

I'm going to grab him today and demand an anwser for the deficit. I'm sure that bastard had a big hand in it.

Ignorance...
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 08:17:01

onequestionwonder wrote:And yet none of you geniuses has answered with a single equation, why it is impractical.

Answer a question, or be silent.

Why is it impractical? :evil:


Most people here complain that people just blindly passed off all the warnings as nonsense as we got ourselves into this mess.

Many of those people now blindly pass off any mention of a solution as nonsense.

Interesting to say the least.

No one is claiming that a air powered car would be more practical, more efficient, or a better option than a FF power car. Just that it might get us from point A to point B after the FF cars are gone.

Whats so hard to understand about that?
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Re: IS THIS THE END OF PEAK OIL?

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 08:59:55

jbeckton wrote:I don't know where they got the numbers but you don't want to quantify energy of a gas per unit volume unless you are absolutly sure of the temp and pressure (or enthalpy, or entropy) or you can be off by a wide margin.

The potential energy of a compressed gas is P*V. If you want to take into account the fact that we don't like in a vacuum, it would be V*(p1-p2). At 300 bar, the effect of atmospheric pressure though is pretty much negligible.

If you were to heat the cylinder, that would increase it's pressure, and thus it's potential energy. I understand that the exhaust is much colder than the cylinder and some of the potential energy is lost in that way, but that relates to the efficiency of the car, not the potential energy of it's "fuel".

If their numbers are even close to correct, and this thing can really go 200 km on that amount of compressed air, this is clearly a huge quantum leap in automobile design. I've driven gasoline vehicles that had not much more range than that, and I can totally believe compressed air stations. This seems to me a much more plausible approach than electric cars.

I'd love to hear from someone how it is possible to get such fantastic efficiency from the engine when it's function isn't that different from an ICE. I'm still in disbelief about it getting the equivalent of 1800 mpg.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby Heineken » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 09:13:34

As long as we're discussing the technical feasibility of such devices, we're heading in the wrong direction. Compressed-air cars are just another scheme to keep things basically as they are. And the way things basically are is not sustainable, no matter how personal vehicles running on vast road networks are powered.
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Re: IS THIS THE END OF PEAK OIL?

Unread postby yesplease » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 09:59:40

smallpoxgirl wrote:I'd love to hear from someone how it is possible to get such fantastic efficiency from the engine when it's function isn't that different from an ICE. I'm still in disbelief about it getting the equivalent of 1800 mpg.


Well... First off, you're not going to get useful work from all of that potential energy. Like my previous blurb stated, you may only get a little over half of that energy, which is the equivalent of 1000mpg. An electric bicycle is in the realm of ~25wh/mile, which is ~1350mpg equivalent. This is heavier than the bicycle, but it's much more aerodynamic (for instance, the CdA of a mtb rider is about the same of the CdA of a Honda Insight), so ~1000mpg equivalent isn't outside the realm of possibility.

The big difference between EVs/ACs and ICE powered vehicles, is that the lossy power generation for EVs/ACs is done offsite in large plants optimized for efficiency. While the ICE uses chemical energy onsite, with much lower average efficiencies. For the EV/AC, the biggest efficiency hit happens offsite, and everything after that isn't as lossy, hopefully. It pretty much works like this (figures are just guesstimations)

ICE
extraction/refining/transport=85%, Use in car=20%, efficiency is .85*.2=~17%.
AC
extraction/power generation/transport=40%, Industrial electric air compressor=75%(?), Use in AC=50%, efficiency is .4*.75*.5=~15%
EV
extraction/power generation/transport=40%, Charging=90%, Use in EV=80%, efficiency is .4*.9*.8=~29%.

The use (aka energy transfer) in the Air Car, or Electric Car is relatively efficient because the lossy transfer of chemical energy to thermal energy is done offsite. While the ICE powered vehicle does it onsite, and makes an already inefficient energy transfer even worse. There are also design constraints. Since the AC has such poor energy storage density, it must be small, slow, and efficient. EVs follow the same idea, and most ICEs can be the size of houses because the fuel has very high energy density. So the different sizes also throws off a mpg equivalent comparison.

These are just numbers that I pulled out of my bum and should be taken as such. But, the point is that EVs/ACs are efficient in terms of mpg equivalent because the process they use to transfer energy in the car is relatively efficient, and the offsite process is inefficient. ICE powered cars are the opposite, with most of the energy being lost onsite.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:00:35

I'm with you on that Heineken, but I don't run the world. The rest of the creatures are pretty into their creature comforts. They are going to leap upon any workable scheme to maintain the status quo. If this thing actually works as claimed, it could allow them that luxury. Is it a good thing? Of course not. It just sets us up for a bigger eventual fall, but it does seem workable. Who knows. Maybe it doesn't work half as well in real life as it does in the marketing materials, but if it does, there's enough coal around to power this thing for a good long time.
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Re: IS THIS THE END OF PEAK OIL?

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:12:12

smallpoxgirl wrote:If you were to heat the cylinder, that would increase it's pressure, and thus it's potential energy. I understand that the exhaust is much colder than the cylinder and some of the potential energy is lost in that way, but that relates to the efficiency of the car, not the potential energy of it's "fuel".

If their numbers are even close to correct, and this thing can really go 200 km on that amount of compressed air, this is clearly a huge quantum leap in automobile design. I've driven gasoline vehicles that had not much more range than that, and I can totally believe compressed air stations. This seems to me a much more plausible approach than electric cars.


Where are you heating the cylinder? Are you talking about adiabatic heating from compression? It will be lost energy not potential energy.

Are you considering the fact that the car is about the size of a large golf cart and is made of fiberglass and glue? Also, if the engine doesn't put out a lot of horsepower, which I suspect is the case, the efficiency goes way up.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby yesplease » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:12:57

Heineken wrote:And the way things basically are is not sustainable, no matter how personal vehicles running on vast road networks are powered.


I don't think it's personal transportation that's the problem, as much as people using four-ten person vehicles with poor W-W efficiency is the problem. It only takes ~300W to move a human at an average of ~50mph under their own power, but we use tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Watts to do the same thing. Of course, we need really inefficient mechanical devices. How else would those poor, poor, fossil fuel owners sell their products? :razz:
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Re: IS THIS THE END OF PEAK OIL?

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:25:01

jbeckton wrote:Where are you heating the cylinder? Are you talking about adiabatic heating from compression? It will be lost energy not potential energy.


I'm not heating the cylinder. You said I had to know the temperature of the gas. I'm saying you don't. You only need to know the tank pressure. Any changes in temperature will just change the pressure.

Are you considering the fact that the car is about the size of a large golf cart and is made of fiberglass and glue? Also, if the engine doesn't put out a lot of horsepower, which I suspect is the case, the efficiency goes way up.

True enough, but I bet most model airplanes don't get 1800 mpg. That really a fantastic number. I'm still skeptical that it's even true.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby clueless » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:44:48

Most operations at most factories operate on electricity period. Its method of generation has nothing to do with it. A steam turbine or a combustion turbine produce exactly zero electricity! Only the generator produces electricity and the generator requires no FF to burn.


What drives the generator pal ??

Photvoltaics will power a coffee pot but not an automated factory.

You are using semanitcs to try to discredit my statements, I am full aware a generator is powers by a turbine..Give me a break.

And I am fully aware of the FGD business, I am also involved in hiring people for those installs also.

You really don't know half of what you think you do...

So is my mailman.

I'm going to grab him today and demand an anwser for the deficit. I'm sure that bastard had a big hand in it.


Ignorance...
I am speaking about general govt incompetence - DId you forget the USGS (a federal agency) missed the US Peak by thirty years ?

I do not have the time to waste debating a guy who believes we will power a Ford and GM manufacturing plant on solar panels..

What an idiot...
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Re: IS THIS THE END OF PEAK OIL?

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:46:55

yesplease wrote:Well... First off, you're not going to get useful work from all of that potential energy. Like my previous blurb stated, you may only get a little over half of that energy, which is the equivalent of 1000mpg.
The work that I'm interested in achieving is moving my posterior from point A to point B. They say it can move my posterior 200km with that amount of potential energy.

In the final accounting, yes, the compressor should be taken into account and that takes it down to a much less fantastic 600 mpg equivalent. I'm not sure that including power grid losses leads to a fair comparison though. Gasoline also requires distribution systems, and I'm not sure that it's that much less efficient to send electricity through the grid to your nearest compressor station than it is to truck gasoline to your nearest gas station. When you talk about the mpg efficiency of a car, you don't take into account all the fuel that was lost in getting it from Saudi Arabia to your gas station.

The use (aka energy transfer) in the Air Car, or Electric Car is relatively efficient because the lossy transfer of chemical energy to thermal energy is done offsite. While the ICE powered vehicle does it onsite, and makes an already inefficient energy transfer even worse. There are also design constraints. Since the AC has such poor energy storage density, it must be small, slow, and efficient. EVs follow the same idea, and most ICEs can be the size of houses because the fuel has very high energy density. So the different sizes also throws off a mpg equivalent comparison.

These are just numbers that I pulled out of my bum and should be taken as such. But, the point is that EVs/ACs are efficient in terms of mpg equivalent because the process they use to transfer energy in the car is relatively efficient, and the offsite process is inefficient. ICE powered cars are the opposite, with most of the energy being lost onsite.


Good synopsis. Makes a lot of sense. I guess the big difference in how an ICE engine functions and how an air car engine functions is that you don't have the massive amounts of energy lost to heat in an aircar engine. All of the thermal inefficiencies from burning stuff happened at a coal power plant 300 miles away.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby clueless » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 10:49:48

clueless wrote:

I am not sure if Nuclear Energy uses air, but CT's and Steam do - That is the reason why they are so efficient is the largest componet used in the combustion process is air which is simply sucked out of the atmosphere. That is why the ICE will never be replaced - Because it does not have to transport the air it uses in combustion, which in most cases is (What) 20:1 ??



You are not sure about a lot of things. Steam turbine and CT plants are not efficient at all! (about 33%) Where does nuclear energy suck air out of the atmosphere? It uses a nuclear reaction to boil water, the rest is no different from a coal plant.


Read my quote moron - I asked if Nuclear reactions used air - Do you read ? Or are you so obsessed with your own intellegence you refuse to pay attention to what anyone else has to say.

And again I asked if Nuclear Power uses air from the atmosphere - Unlike you I am not afraid to ask a question if I am unsure on something. My original statement was all modern PG comes from boiling water by combustion, do you have a point to prove ? Or are you simply a coward that can't face reality that the energy guzzling USA is running out of gas ?

Wind and Photvoltaics will power industrial civ - What a joke.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby clueless » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 11:04:39

Actually thats just an ignorant remark; especially from someone who subscribes to PO. Today PV is closing the gap as coal plants are now being required to build $700,000,000 scrubber systems onto their plants to avoid fines. This cost is being passed on the consumer, look for it in you bill in the next 1-3 years. Also, we're getting close to reglulating mercury as well, get ready for another price hike from FF. All the while PV cells are approaching 40% efficiency and silicon shortages are being resolved through new materials and manufacturing processes. Even if you don't want to put down $15,000 to insure an average electricity bill of ~$60 a month for the next 30+ years, you can lease a system with no up front cost for ~$80 a month.
http://peakoil.com/fortopic27418-0-asc-0.html


My point is Money is manipulated by the parties who print and loan it out. Cheaper is a relative term, how much did the average house cost 30 years ago ? Were they cheaper back then ? Not if you were looking back 30 years.

$15,000 to insure an average electricity bill of ~$60 a month for the next 30+ years,


Idiocy - Consumer minded thinking...Have fun running your coffee pot while all the gangbangers who cannot afford solarpanels are ripping them off your roof so they can run their coffeepots.

Th US economy runs on inexspensive (the most inexpensive in the world) energy - Times are changing.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby jbeckton » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 11:05:49

clueless wrote:
Most operations at most factories operate on electricity period. Its method of generation has nothing to do with it. A steam turbine or a combustion turbine produce exactly zero electricity! Only the generator produces electricity and the generator requires no FF to burn.


What drives the generator pal ??


The shaft connected to the wind turbine, havn't you been following along?

clueless wrote:Photvoltaics will power a coffee pot but not an automated factory.

They can easily power an entire house. Tell me why they can't power a factory? Thats just a dumb statement.
clueless wrote:You are using semanitcs to try to discredit my statements, I am full aware a generator is powers by a turbine..Give me a break.

I don't think you do if you don't understand that electricity is electricity no matter how its generated to the end user. You are using semantics claiming that PV can only power a coffee pot.

clueless wrote:I do not have the time to waste debating a guy who believes we will power a Ford and GM manufacturing plant on solar panels..


Do you have time to read the thread before you post? What are Ford and GM going to be manufacturing post PO? Its very unfortunate that such a shortsighted idiot is in the research and development field.

Figures

You picked a good name for yourself.
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby clueless » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 11:08:42

They can easily power an entire house. Tell me why they can't power a factory? Thats just a dumb statement.


Then why is it not being done Einstein ??? Hey - I got a great idea let's tear down the entire city of Compton put up solar panels so we can run one factory.

Makes alot of sense...
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Re: Compressed air car article - Gizmag

Unread postby Aaron » Wed 21 Mar 2007, 11:10:04

Well spank Tesla's Abiotic butt.

5 pages on the AirCar?

What's next... Area 51?

The dignity of Paris Hilton?

Some of you folks will chat about anything... yeesh.

If you believe in AirCars I want my tax-dollars back for your education.
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