Zero pollution from new car/engine design
With all this talk of "Peak Oil" it was only a matter of time before a viable alternative to petrol would appear to power cars etc. MDI - The Air Car I have put my name on the waiting list! It's not quite like my Audi A4, but I am all for ditching petrol in favour of this system if it works. I also found this little beach buggy type car QPOD I like the looks of this little beast, it'd be even cooler if it had the MDI Air Engine! 
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Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
Has there ever been a conclusive investigation on the net effect (of pollution) of using centralized power versus individual power supplies in each car? Where do people get the idea that centralized power is somehow worse on the environment?
Of course, if you go with nuclear or other form of power, then you don't have air pollution at all.
The main problems with large, central power generators are that they concentrate a large amount of pollution in a small place, the large distribution grids they require use a lot of overhead, and they can start exhibiting chaotic behavior (c.f. the brittle East Coast power grid), they require single-sourcing a particular energy type (natural gas, coal, wind, whatever). Their sheer scale requires the support of large corporations, which are congenitally inefficient, high-overhead, and difficult to control. And, power plants are big fat targets. It would take very little to knock out power to New York City tomorrow.
The Air Car looks like an interesting solution to a specific problem, but I'm also skeptical that it'll give people warm fuzzies while sweeping the problem under the proverbial rug, or introducing a new set of problems that aren't any better. After the whole Ethanol "environmental" push, which basically just legislated a way for Archer Daniels Midland to print money, I tend to look askance at any large-scale initiatives in this area.
Still, it's good news that people are working on this stuff. If the car is actually feasible, and if someone can actually couple this with an energy generation system that doesn't just push the problem around, we might get somewhere.
Originally posted by Crustibooga
With all this talk of "Peak Oil" it was only a matter of time before a viable alternative to petrol would appear to power cars etc. MDI - The Air Car I have put my name on the waiting list! It's not quite like my Audi A4, but I am all for ditching petrol in favour of this system if it works. I also found this little beach buggy type car QPOD I like the looks of this little beast, it'd be even cooler if it had the MDI Air Engine!
There might be zero pollution from the car itself, but that's far from the case for the overall system needed to supply the energy which compresses the air that runs the car.
If you "refuel", as per one of the examples on the web site above, by plugging your car into an electrical outlet at home, all you're doing is adding to the pollution produced by the power plants which supply your home. If these power plants are burning fossil fuels, you will be using energy less efficiently and burning more fossil fuels than if you simply burned fuel in the car itself -- instead of:
fuel -> mechanical power (car's motion)
...you have...
fuel -> mechanical power (turbines) -> electrical power (generators) + transmission line losses -> mechanical power (air compressor) -> energy stored as compressed air -> mechanical power (car's motion)
The air car would contribute to avoiding or lessening "Peak Oil" problems if and only if a substantial portion of our power generation capability can be switched over to non-polluting, renewable energy sources. More direct use of primary energy sources to generate compressed air would probably be very important to improving the efficiency of the overall system.
The air car simply moves the energy problem somewhere else, it doesn't solve it. Not that simply moving the problem is necessarily a bad thing. This technology might help solve one piece of the puzzle by being an energy carrier for which a new distribution system can be established with relative ease. If we're lucky enough to develop sufficiently cheap centralized sources of power using renewable energy sources (a big if!) then perhaps the electrical grid which already exists can be the distribution network.
Does anyone know what kinds of energy densities can be achieved -- and safely stored -- using compressed air? How efficiently can air be compressed without losing a lot of the energy needed to compress the air as waste heat?
Of course, there's the question of how quickly the SUV-loving public could be weaned off gas-guzzling status-symbol ego machines and convinced to ride around in what are essentially lightweight, compressed air-driven golf carts. And then there are the questions of how much of our energy consumption is represented by personal vehicles, how well freight and construction and other industrial transportation and machinery could be adapted, etc.
Originally posted by shetline
The air car would contribute to avoiding or lessening "Peak Oil" problems if and only if a substantial portion of our power generation capability can be switched over to non-polluting, renewable energy sources.
"Peak oil" and pollution are two different problems, and you can help solve one without solving the other. Simply reducing gasoline use will go a long way towards solving Peak Oil, since gasoline is our #1 use of oil. Only 12% of our electricity comes from oil (coal >> gas > nuclear > oil > hydro), and we're not going to run out of gas or coal anywhere near as fast as oil. So even if pollution were a wash, weaning ourselves off gasoline is a Good Thing.
As for pollution, I think Outsider has a point. It's much easier to control pollution at one large plant than a million small ones. Even more so when many of those plants are non-air-polluting to begin with (hydro, nuclear, etc). We'd need an awful lot of new generation stations to meet the demand for replacing gasoline, but that would be a great impetus to make the whole electricity grid more modern and robust. Not to mention that you don't need to compress air (or make hydrogen) in your home - it would surely be more efficient to compress it at large, centralized plants (just like refineries) located near the power sources, and ship it to consumers (just like gas). Long-term, all of our energy generation has to be from non-fossil fuel sources, so the sooner we come up with viable alternatives to gasoline as a mobile form of stored energy, the better.
Originally posted by Towel
"Peak oil" and pollution are two different problems, and you can help solve one without solving the other. Simply reducing gasoline use will go a long way towards solving Peak Oil, since gasoline is our #1 use of oil. Only 12% of our electricity comes from oil (coal >> gas > nuclear > oil > hydro), and we're not going to run out of gas or coal anywhere near as fast as oil. So even if pollution were a wash, weaning ourselves off gasoline is a Good Thing.
I'm aware that "peak oil" and pollution are two different issues, I'm just trying to think in terms of solutions that would be better for the environment, and which won't lead to "peak coal" and "peak gas" as looming problems. China is already showing the negative environmental impact of having a large economy greatly dependent on coal, a lot of which is very high in sulphur.
Thanks for the info breaking down the sources for US electrical power. I'll have to see if I can google up something for world electrical power production.
Not to mention that you don't need to compress air (or make hydrogen) in your home - it would surely be more efficient to compress it at large, centralized plants (just like refineries) located near the power sources, and ship it to consumers (just like gas).
That was my point about the efficiency of the distribution system. Unfortunately, since part of the peak oil problem is not just creating alternative energy sources, but infrastructure issues, the least efficient way to distribute energy for making compressed air -- over the electrical grid -- is the one which requires the least investment in new infrastructure. In general, we tend to be held hostage to short-term goals and short-term decision making which favors minimizing immediate costs and maximizing profits in the next quarter.
Long-term, all of our energy generation has to be from non-fossil fuel sources, so the sooner we come up with viable alternatives to gasoline as a mobile form of stored energy, the better.
I think we're essentially in violent agreement here.
Considering that hydrogen can be extracted from water by the same electricity is takes to compress air, and you have an interesting possibility.
http://www.egovehicles.com/
I was riding it around the small parking lot where we work. It has great pick up, electric, and goes a little over 20mph. He's in love with it.
Originally posted by Scott
My boss just got one of these.
http://www.egovehicles.com/
I was riding it around the small parking lot where we work. It has great pick up, electric, and goes a little over 20mph. He's in love with it.
20mph? That's about as fast as I go in traffic in SW CT.
Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
Originally posted by AirSluf
Yeah, can you say Hindenburg?
The same trauma to a tank that will only cause a slow and relatively harmless leak from a liquid like gasoline would cause a potentially catastrophic hydrogen leak. Big crashes that would rupture a gas tank catastrophically probably wouldn't be much worse, but the change in risk for minor tank damage is completely asymmetric to its potential result.
Hindenburg didn't blow up due to the H2. The actual cause was the lacquer used to seal the cloth. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1237.htm
Enjoy.
Originally posted by AirSluf
Yeah, can you say Hindenburg?
The same trauma to a tank that will only cause a slow and relatively harmless leak from a liquid like gasoline would cause a potentially catastrophic hydrogen leak. Big crashes that would rupture a gas tank catastrophically probably wouldn't be much worse, but the change in risk for minor tank damage is completely asymmetric to its potential result.
It's no more dangerous than a tank of compressed air, and I would assume that the automakers involved are going through the necessary precautions to make the thing safe. There are plenty of propane and LP gas vehicles on the road that seem to work OK.