Great Lakes Disappearing??

[tangentair]

Well the French like it, they have been put into service in the Paris taxi cab fleet

Is it time for me to walk around wearing the sandwich board that reads "The End Is Near"?

You live in Fla. and you are asking that question? The end is near for over half the state but there are lots of us waiting to take their place.

I wonder what it would take - probably a place like Portland - to get a test of those taxis running in this country. Unfortunately I do not think anything will happen soon enough and we are going to have to deal with the geopolitical consequences of climate change - something like the little ice age of the middle ages. I know that there are a few doubters out there, but regards of why, the ice is melting, and if the gulf stream changes, well all that great English weather is going to change as well.

Considering the lack of inertial breaking, I wonder if anyone has considered alternative power plants for pleasure craft. I know we were working on using high field magnetics and super conductors to generate them as propulsion for ocean going vessels a while ago.

[Catigale]

There is some thermo in the 'air car' concept that doesnt add up.

Work is work, whether it moves the car down the road or it compresses air. When the car runs on air, you need the same amount of energy from the compressed air as you do from a conventional engine, but of course you have lost energy since you cant compress air with 100% efficiency.

[Don T]

Hello,
True, however you also have losses in batteries and electric motors too. The compressed air motor uses a small combustion chamber, similar to a Honda CVCC pre-combustion chamber to burn the fuel and push on the much larger piston. The compressed air is exerting force on the large piston area. Two cyclinders run while 2 compress air, then all 4 run on the compressed air. And of course, it doesn't idle, and has fewer starts and shutdowns unlike our Prius. They use the compressor mode to slow the vehicle down as "regenerative" braking. Zero emissions while on compressed air and no battery chemicals, manufacturing wastes either.

Now if we could just figure out how to compress the air without energy.............................

[baldbaby2000]

Some say the compress air car is a scam. Seems I've read that the company is really trying to sell a whole production system (i.e. a turnkey factory), not really the technology. Compressed air for powering engines is a tough problem because the pressure changes drastically as the air is used. Batteries in an electric car on the other hand don't change voltage that much from full charge to say half charge.

[Catigale]

You need a certain amount of energy to drive a distance of x from home to the local hardware store, passing walmart on the way (sorry )

You either get that energy traditionally from fuel burning in the ICE or from the compressed air.

To make this work, you need to prove that you can compress the air more efficiently than an ICE first, then maintain the edge in the efficiency of the compressed air engine

Compuspec tells me typical electric aircompressors (electric run at 90% efficiency) so you are losing 10% of your energy compressing air, best case. Compressing it with an ICE engine will be more like 40% efficient

Using the 90% figure above unless the air engine is at least 10% more efficient than an ICE its a losing proposition.

[tangentair]

Well the French like it, they have been put into service in the Paris taxi cab fleet.

passing walmart on the way (sorry )..........its a losing proposition.

Maybe the French don't have to go to WalMart? When I was a kid we used to have to walk up hill both ways to WalMart in the snow. And there is a French joke in here somewhere.....
What I don't see is esentially what Cat is saying, where is the efficiency in compressing the air, as long as there is a motor involved then a flywheel or spring will recover and store energy far better than compressing a gas. There will not be the heat energy loss for one thing. you know change in pressure, volume constant equals change in temp.

[Catigale]

Sacre Blue Hull.....

[bastonjock]

We need the common rail diesels like they have in Europe and UK. Lots of those get 50 mpg and they run just like normally aspirated gasolene cars, no clackerty clack noise from engine and no smelly fumes.I drove Citroen Picasso at 110 mph down the M1 in England a few years ago,real quick car.The only time I knew it was a diesel was when I filled the tank up.

i often ask people with small diesel cars here in the Uk "what mpg" on small cars like my daughters nissan,you can achieve 55 mpg with its 1400cc diesel engine,i had one elderly guy claim 60mpg,eveb when you hammer these little cars down the motorway,they give 45-50mpg.

for me,the answer is to hang onto your old 4x4 to tow the mac and have a smaller car for a run about

alternatively i could try "hitghing up the horses" if i really wanted to go green,but wouldnt all that additional methane(a by product of a horses rear) increase global warming?

The Uk looks like it is going to increase its number of Nuke power plants,the problem is,what do you do with all that "used urainium"

about 25 years ago,they tried to sell us the idea that they were going to place it in long shafts under "loch doom" (honest) as it had the most stable bed rock anywhere,whilst the argument was raging,we had an earthquake at loch doom,kind of killed the argument.


surely there must be a way to harness the power of the sea to generate power?

[bastonjock]

Well the French like it, they have been put into service in the Paris taxi cab fleet

Is it time for me to walk around wearing the sandwich board that reads "The End Is Near"?

You live in Fla. and you are asking that question? The end is near for over half the state but there are lots of us waiting to take their place.

I wonder what it would take - probably a place like Portland - to get a test of those taxis running in this country. Unfortunately I do not think anything will happen soon enough and we are going to have to deal with the geopolitical consequences of climate change - something like the little ice age of the middle ages. I know that there are a few doubters out there, but regards of why, the ice is melting, and if the gulf stream changes, well all that great English weather is going to change as well.

Considering the lack of inertial breaking, I wonder if anyone has considered alternative power plants for pleasure craft. I know we were working on using high field magnetics and super conductors to generate them as propulsion for ocean going vessels a while ago.

The research that is being carried out by the Norwegian government is quite scary,they have drilled deep into the permanent ice cap to look at the effects of climate change in the past.

They found that the ice has melted before and it pushes the gulf steam south and then another ice age starts,the sea levels will drop and all of the old land bridges will reapear

[Catigale]

Norwegians will stream across the land bridges, corrupting the British staple of pizza with salted herrings...

but wouldnt all that additional methane(a by product of a horses rear) increase global warming?

Animal methane output is quite substantial, but it doesnt contribute to climate change....extra credit for figuring out why?

[kmclemore]

Animal methane output is quite substantial, but it doesnt contribute to climate change....extra credit for figuring out why?

Simple. Because all of the animals pretend it was the animal next to them that did it.

[bastonjock]

naw kevin you got it wrong,steves plan is to hook up all those animals to gas extraction systems and use the gas to power electricity generators

[baldbaby2000]

Animal methane output is quite substantial, but it doesnt contribute to climate change....extra credit for figuring out why?

I would guess that the mehane the cow puts out goes into the atmosphere, breaks down into CO2 and water. The CO2 is then abosobed by the new grass that replaces what the cows eat?

Or maybe if we didn't have cows, the grass would decay producing methane anyway?

I think maybe the second is the answer because either way CO2 and H2O, bad greenhouse gasses get put into the atmosphere even if for a limited time.

[Don T]

Hello,
You know, the hybrid car charges it's battery with the IEC. The compressed air is just another way to store energy to use later. The principle is that IEC's are more efficient at certain settings. The milage on our prius changes depending on the speed you are going, and not in the traditional way. At 30 mph it gets 40, at 40 mph it gets 50. Then it drops a little when the motor revs up to it's next efficient rpm. So, there are speeds that are much more economical than others. It was one of the things I had to get accustomed to when we got it. The engine does not follow road speed or your foot. The idea is to level out the energy requirement to make it more efficient. In the case of the MDI engine they use the compressed air to level out the energy and also to provide continous zero emmissions while in the city. The taxis in France run on air only and stop at "stations" to fill the tanks (takes 5 minutes). They drive 100km per fill at 60 km/hr (60 miles @ 36 mph). Not a performance monster for sure. The cab company says that with the cost of compressing the air, the "fuel" as it were, costs 20% of equivalent gasoline per liter.
Oh yeah, the exhaust air is cleaner coming out than going in and is at 0*C ~ -10*C so it can be used to air condition the cab.

[Catigale]

Or maybe if we didn't have cows, the grass would decay producing methane anyway?

Bingo...there is no net CO2 added to the atmosphere since its already in the balance ...well done...!!