With the high cost of gasoline, a team of father and son from France is designing a new type of car that no longer use gasoline. No, these cars are also not powered by electricity. They actually use AIR! Too good to be true? Here is the video clip of the new technology. Do you think this is possible?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Very interesting concept. Hope it works.
Susan, the above picture just gave me disturbing flashbacks of my time spent in Atlanta…the traffic there is absolutely horrible….
That’s why when in Atlanta, I try to use the local subway-lightrail when possible. They have stops at or near all of the downtown hotels and convention center.
to power a gasoline car, you need to refine crude oil into gasoline and burn it in a combustion engine.
to power a compressed-air car, you need to use electricity to compress the air into the car’s tank. electricity is produced by burning oil (mostly).
so basically the same thing, no?
Actually, alot of energy is produced by nuclear power. One of the drawbacks of which is the long half life (radioactivity) of the end product.
However, recent experiments have suggested it may be possible to massively accelerate radioactive half lives (although this is thought to be impossible) by surrounding the radioactive atom with a certain (i’ve forgotten which!) hypercold compound.
If that’s possible then Nuclear power would be very clean and hence the reliance on fossil fuels would be massively reduced, making cars like the aforementioned very desirable in terms of polluntants (but not performance!)
well it takes a lot of energy or power to move a car say 1000 miles. the trick is finding the energy. My understanding is that gasoline contains a large amount of energy is a small compact mass. I dont know that you can get all that energy into compressed air so easily.
efficiency is obviously important. if there is 1000 units of energy in oil and you burn it to move the auto say with 80% efficiency then you try to use the energy of oil to make electricity and then use it to make compressed air and then use it to move the auto, I can guarantee it will be overall less efficient than the 80%. of course if we can get the energy from a clean different source that would be good.
We might even think of gasoline or oil as compressed air. when it burns it expands into high pressure gases. of course this method causes dangerous air polution which problem we must solve.
It is another environmental sleight of hand trick. Explanation:
Sure it would work (car by compressed air). The concept was invented hundreds of years ago, called steam engine. The only difference, that instead of high pressure steam, the inventors here use compressed (high pressure) air. Why only a trick? Because the air must be compressed and that requires ENERGY. Now, where does that energy coming from? They must use some motor to compress the air. What propels the motor? Either traditional fuel or electricity? If electricity, where does that come from? From generators which use traditional fuel.
So, no matter how many steps it may take, eventually we are back using traditional fuel. Since each conversion results some energy loss, ultimately the compressed air technology must use MORE traditional energy than directly burning fuel (traditional cars).
Why the trick? Because the (more) fuel is not burned at the point of usage (in the car), but somewhere else. People who are not aware of technology in general may think that this is some “fuel-less car”, which it isn’t. But some environmentaly aware (too many falsely) people may jump on the “opportunity” being “energy savers” and buy THIS car.
Gabor
Ps: the exact same explanation is applicable to the hydrogen cars. There the energy is needed to manufacture and compress the hydrogen.
But at least it is possible to have generators using renewable resources. instead of burning fuel. Hopefully this will become more common.
Gabor points out an important point to bear in mind when considering different fuel options for transportation, heating, power and illumination.
A major source of energy loss (wastage if you will) occurs when the fuel is converted from its stored form to energy. The more efficient that process can be and the fewer intervening steps (each of which attrit a bit more wastage) the better. Steam engines and most nuclear reactors are not thought as the same device – the former being from the 18-19th century and the latter a 20th century device yet conceptual they are identical. The steam engine burns wood, coal or coke and boils water into steam which drives a piston thereby converting the stored energy into kinetic energy. A nuclear plant uses the radiation to heat water or a gas to spin a turbine to generate electricity. What they share in common is the very inefficient step of heating water or gas – heat engines are only about 30-33% efficient in energy conversion – most of the energy is lost as heat into the surroundings. If we can somehow skip the heating step and directly generate electricity from radiation – a radiation-electric effect like the photoelectric effect, nuclear power would be very attractive.
It’s way more easy implement effective systems of controlling the pollution of relatively few (thousands !?) generator plants than of tens millions cars and trucks.
it’s not a trick, as long as the electricity is generated from renewable sources.
electricity delivered to a stationary location (home or charging station) is more practical to generate from renewable, non-polluting sources such as solar or wind.
putting solar panels or wind turbines on a car is just not practical and will not be anytime soon.
Convenience is another big issue…today if driving a fossil fuel auto and you need more “energy source” you simply take a few minutes while en route to somewhere else (work, shopping, kids, etc.) and fill up the gas tank; end of story (excluding infrequent vehicle maintenance.
Is the “new” propulsion fuel easily, quickly, and conveniently renewed, and is relatively safe in transport and accidents while being relatively environment friendly?
How do the new cars perform?
Also, with cold fusion still on the back burner (or the hot plate depending on how you look at it) thermodynamics points out that there is no free lunch, while engineering points out varying cycles’ efficiencies…
…next
Remember when you see anything in the American media that reporters are as a general rule very ignorant. They tend to have attended something called “journalism school” instead of getting a proper education.
In my opinion, this is at least as great a problem as bias (and probably feeds bias, as reporters find it less intellectually taxing to go along with the rest of the newsroom).
This reporter undoubtedly has no idea how an internal-combustion engine works, or why gasoline makes such a good fuel. And it never would have occurred to her that it might be a good idea to look these things up for a story on automobile engines.
Note that she bought completely into the idea that this engine will be pollution-free, and asked no questions about its efficiency, nor did she consider asking a disinterested expert for a judgement.
And these are the people a majority of Americans rely upon for their information.
Tells you a lot about why we’re in this mess, doesn’t it?
Well the problem in the US is that most electrical power comes from fossil-fuel burning power plants, it is sad that the fear of nucear power is so big that nowbody wants a nuclear plant (even if nucear plants are better for the environment provided that you use apropriate storage facilities for the comparably small amounts of waste by-product. (the thing comming out of the big chimney-s is water …)
D.K.
One anonymous wrote:
it’s not a trick, as long as the electricity is generated from renewable sources.
True. However, that is a totally different issue, that is about the production of energy. Today, whatever percentage comes from renewable source, it is the same, regardless whether it is used to power your lightbulb or used to run a motor to compress air for this car. If you use more to run the air compressor, you will have less for the lightbulb (or whatever) and more fossil fuel will be needed for that.
Therefore, it is still a trick, unless the user is aware of the fact that he not only not saving energy, but using more, and that he is not helping to generate less CO2, but generates more CO2 (due to the multiple conversions requiring more energy)
Gabor
Good post Gerard , exactly .
I have a new revolutionary method if transportation that is pollution free, uses no fossil fuels, no radioactive isotopes, no wind energy, no solar energy.
It involves using a two wheeled device with foot pedals, a chain, a seat, and handlebars…
I understand that a team of French scientists is investigating exploring the sun…
…it appears that their plan to overcome the sun’s millions of degrees surface temperature is to land during the night…
Stay tuned for an exciting video…