All of a sudden, the air car concept is popping up everywhere. I hadn’t head of it before someone left a comment yesterday. Now, it is on Metafilter, Slashdot, and YouTube.
I must admit that the prospect of a $7,500 car that can run for 200-300km on $3 worth of compressed air sounds pretty amazing. Of course, the compressed air would just be a storage mechanism for energy generated in other ways. The advantage over hydrogen and fuel cell systems of biodiesel could lie in lower infrastructure costs. Installing compressors in homes and service stations already connected to the electrical grid is a lot cheaper than developing a whole new hydrogen infrastructure, leaving more money to direct towards genuinely renewable sources of energy. The compressors could also be powered directly by wind or water turbines, as well as solar power systems. As for biodiesel, once you factor in the energy required to grow the crops and process them, as well as the inefficiency of internal combustion engines and the continued reality of toxic emissions, it doesn’t seem like a hugely alluring prospect to anyone but corn farmers.
While it is unlikely that one technology will allow us to overcome fossil fuel dependence, it does seem sensible to think that something like this could be part of the mix. Especially if the energy being used to compress the air is coming from a renewable, non-greenhouse-gas-emitting source, these cars could make a big difference in the developing world. They could also help tackle urban air pollution, such as the kind plaguing Beijing.
PS. I got today’s photo of the day in Oriel College, as part of my initiative to photograph each college at least once. While there, I discovered a sizable conference on climate change ongoing, about which I had heard nothing. This goes to show just how many people are working on the issue, both here at Oxford and more generally.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I want a compressed-air booster for my bike.
Cars bear brunt of green taxation
Drivers of the biggest and most polluting vehicles are to see car tax almost double to £400 by April 2008, Chancellor Gordon Brown has said.
I want a compressed-air booster for my bike.
The exercise is good for you. While climate change is a big deal for society, for individuals in western countries heart disease is a more immediate and personal danger.
At 6:20 in the YouTube clip, it shows what my friend Matthew is a Wankel rotary engine. Apparently, the Mazda RX-8 uses one (that burns gasoline).
Apparently:
“They have a problem, which is large flat faces (the faces being in the same plane as the screen). The flat faces are a relatively large area through which heat loss occurs and thus inefficiencies arise. The traditional piston in cylinder design has smaller flat faces (the face of the piston itself being one) because the circular cross-section of the cylinder maximizes volume and minimizes surface area.”
I don’t know, the air pressure in these cars is obscene. Also, these milage figures need to be compared to gasoline cars of equivalent weight, which are themselves over 100mpg (see the audi A2 for an example).
Also, the air pressure in these tanks is obscene. Even if the tank only “splits” in a crash, it could still easily kill you. 100 times what you put in your tires? That’s like 3000 psi. Compare that to a shop compressor, 120-150 psi. And that amount of air pressure can easily kill you if it gets under your skin.
Where is that stained glass?
The Ford Global Challenge - A Green Car That Runs On Air?
By Phil Hart on compressed air
Forget petrol, forget electric… how about air?: Hanafin and de Souza believe their model, which has an engine powered by the release of compressed air, fits the bill.
“Fitting the compressed air technologies into cars of today which are quite heavy and large is infeasible,” de Souza told 2GB’s Jason Morrison. “Whereas the concept we’ve come up with is a really small, lightweight vehicle that can make use of this type of technology.”
Although the idea of a compressed air engine suggests it wouldn’t last long without needing a ‘re-fill’, de Souza insists his model would have real staying power.
“One of the conditions [of the competition] is that it had to have a 200 kilometre range. So we’ve engineered it to make sure we have that range,” he said. “It’s a slightly tweaked system where we re-heat the air… which gives it a bit of a boost. If you just used plain compressed air you’d probably get 60 to 70 kilometres.”
Where is that stained glass?
In the Oriel College chapel, Oxford.
The Ford Global Challenge - Deakin Uni Air Powered T2 Wins the Prize
Posted by Phil Hart on October 7, 2008