"Pierre! I told you not to ignore the "Check Muslim" light!"
Posted on 02/26/2014 1:07:24 PM PST by A Formerly Proud Canadian
Peugeot has revealed plans to begin selling the first air powered car next year.
Based on a Peugeot 208, it will combine a normal engine with a radical new system that runs on compressed air.
The firm says the car could reduce petrol bills by 80% when driven in cities.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Or the end of Jaws.
I know someone who built a lead-acid truck that can go 80 MPH, climb hills no problem, and has a range of 100+ miles, all using low-tech components (no regenerative, etc). It would be even better if he could swing the cost of an induction motor and controller. The benefits, he stated, were that the batteries are housed in the bed of the truck which is designed to carry weight, it’s completely separate from the cab and enclosed in case of accident, and we’ve been recycling lead-acid batteries for 100 years with virtually no waste of the working materials (copper, lead). Lead’s health effects are well-known and techniques to work with it safely have been in place for decades. This is much in the vein of your post - that the total cost is more important than the “feel good” aspects of this. And, lead-acid batteries, until the regulations and artificial shortages of lead hit, are inherently cheap to build and buy.
“A compressor can capture short bursts of energy much faster than a battery can. electric hybrid (such as a Prius), because batteries can’t store small bursts of energy as quickly as a compressor. “
You keep hearing about ultracapacitors to store electricity, but there are issues when they can discharge as quickly as they charge (Wow! Zap! Ka-boom!).
Once again they lie, the car does not run on air, it runs on petroleum products.
I take it you've never seen a wall taken out by a cylinder of compressed gas when the regulator gets knocked off?
More so than the CNG and propane tanks used on many vehicles? Here’s a hint: air is not flammable.
"Pierre! I told you not to ignore the "Check Muslim" light!"
And a residential Air compressor with fairly slow recovery draws almost 20 amps at 120 volts when it is pushing 120 psi. If I remember right then these cars run on several thousand PSI.
So once again these are simply coal fired cars.
I actually like this approach to the electric car far better than GM/Toyotas. Makes far more sense...but as cool as your fiends car is as a project (and it definitely is cool!) it still suffers the same issues of lost energy in the conversion of electricity. Not as much as the big boys experiment in futility, granted. But Thermodynamics will not be denied, much as we wish it could be.
I think I'd rather be caught on a Segway.
India has been doing it for a while with no apparently problems.
So environmentally safe. So ... delicious.
I wonder if this car is using a “Scuderi” engine.
Compressed air propulsion is not new science! In 1879, the first mechanically powered submarine, the French Navy's Plongeur was powered by compressed air! Torpedoes were first powered by compressed air. Can a purely compressed air car work? Not very well and not very long, but such a system mated with an I/C engine sounds much better (and cheaper) than an electric hybrid.
A Lund University (Sweden) professor estimates that a compressed air hybrid system could save 60% of fuel consumption of city buses. There is logic in his comment. With stop and go driving, a bus uses energy when both accelerating and decelerating. If some of that energy used to decelerate could be captured to use in accelerating, the net result would be improved fuel efficiency, lower fuel costs and less pollution (and no, I do not believe that CO2 is pollution).
As I consider myself an average consumer, if Peugeot can produce a car that is of good quality and can reduce my costs, I would be interested in it. I will not write it off merely because I don't think they can do it. What I do know is, many cities suffer from pollution, especially vehicle exhaust emissions.
Below, is a picture of Calgary when there is a temperature inversion. Since there is no heavy industry, this ugly brown cloud is mostly caused by vehicle emissions. (Again, CO2 is not a pollutant, but there is lots of 'crap' in exhaust emissions.) I can only imagine what LA is like!
So are you going to compress the air with coal or gasoline or what?
It takes energy to compress the gas. You are merely replacing emissions at the exhaust pipe with emissions at the smokestack.
Yeah..
We haven't been able to build a decent perpetual motion engine since that Second Law was passed...
;-)
Trying it here in the good ol USA.
http://www.wavetechengines.com/
I don’t expect to see them any time soon. I don’t have the calculations right now BUT...I would have to figure out the efficiency of an efficient diesel engine running straight to a drive train verses running a compressor to a tank, then to an air motor.
Compressed air does not store much potential. The volume to make it practical is going to be huge.
I like being proven wrong in engineering.
There are approximately 2 million vehicles in Alberta. The province has approximately 55 plants where coal, NG, biogas or biomass is burned for thermal generation of electricity. There are approximately 150 units within these plants. Of these, approximately 35 are not NG, ie: coal, biogas, biomass. As of November 2013, 5.69GW of the 14GW installed generation is coal with 38.3GWh of 72.9GWh generated in 2012 being coal generation. (Link) Only 2GW of the 14GW installed is hydro or wind. Hydo is used for 'peaking', when prices top out, as we do not have a 7 year supply of 'fuel' behind our dams, as BC does.
Why is it, that the two newest units, Genesee 3 and Keephills 3 combined, produce over 900 MW? It is called 'economies of scale'. Economies of scale also applies to pollution control. Per unit of energy produced, the pollution is less in a new coal-fired generating plant versus the tailpipe of a car because of the use of electrostatic precipitators, bag-houses, cyclonic separators, wet scrubbers, flue gas desulphurisation, etc. in the plant. Are you willing to pay an extra $10,000-$15,000 per vehicle to get emissions to the level of a coal plant? (At least the emission levels of new plants in Alberta.) Stack emissions are monitored in real time and are linked to the regulators, so there can be no funny business, when it comes to emissions. Excursions beyond allowable limits result in investigations and fines. How much easier is it to monitor and control the emissions emanating from 55 thermal plants, versus 2 million vehicles? Would you prefer the ‘black box’ in your car to report to the EPA each time that yu needed to tune it up?
BTW, can you explain how a full CNG tank at 3,000 PSI is less dangerous than a compressed air tank at 4,000 PSI? You did not explain this when you replied. I would like to understand this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.