What do you think of this?
 

http://www.vidly.net/video-compresse...ngine-car.html

I found this link on the politics forum and i would like to have the smp’s opinions and thoughts regarding this.

Some questions.

How valuable could these new motors potentially be?
Why have i not heard about this before?
Is this technology advanced or revolutionary?
This is the product of the labour of two individuals, what could have been, if the complete focus of the automobile industry was on this?

Re: What do you think of this?
 

It looks great, but it has the same problem that all electric cars have. You remove the energy footprint of the vehicle from gasoline and put it onto electrical power generation.

Re: What do you think of this?
 

But, isn't getting a couple thousand miles off of 2 dollars worth of energy much cleaner than anything else?

Edit: Sorry, I typed this while only half way through the segment. It hadn't yet explained that only the hybrid engine gets that much mileage on one tank of gas.

Still, isn't this much cleaner than anything per mile?

Re: What do you think of this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
But, isn't getting a couple thousand miles off of 2 dollars worth of energy much cleaner than anything else?

Edit: Sorry, I typed this while only half way through the segment. It hadn't yet explained that only the hybrid engine gets that much mileage on one tank of gas.

Still, isn't this much cleaner than anything per mile?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but cleanliness isn't the problem, the added electrical demand is. The only reason that you can get away with using an electric car right now is that nobody uses electric cars.

Re: What do you think of this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
It looks great, but it has the same problem that all electric cars have. You remove the energy footprint of the vehicle from gasoline and put it onto electrical power generation.

[/ QUOTE ]

And this way we get a cleaner enviroment. That's a good thing no?

Re: What do you think of this?
 

Right now the way we generate energy is mostly by burning carbon. Moving it from a car's engine to a coal fired or oil fired power plant doesn't get rid of the pollution from the car, just moves it to the power plant.

Granted, not all of our electricity is generated by burning carbon, but most of it is. If electric cars really catch on hopefully some of the increased production capacity required will be nuclear or solar.

Re: What do you think of this?
 

It would work, but compressed air doesn't store enough energy for the space it takes up to be practical. MythBuster's fans may remember the episode where they powered a boat with compressed air. It didn't go very far, or very fast.

Gasoline has a very high energy density for the volume, that's why it's the current technology.

Re: What do you think of this?
 

the historically minded may want to investigate the history of the naval torpedo, for a look at the development of compressed-air-driven machinery. (It was the technology of choice in the 1890s, outperforming mechanically wound-up contraptions, but was in turn drastically outperformed by combustion devices in the 1900s.)

Re: What do you think of this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
It would work, but compressed air doesn't store enough energy for the space it takes up to be practical. MythBuster's fans may remember the episode where they powered a boat with compressed air. It didn't go very far, or very fast.

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you may be right but that mythbusters episode is not relevant at all. there was no pretense of an attempt at efficiency.

Re: What do you think of this?
 

[ QUOTE ]
It would work, but compressed air doesn't store enough energy for the space it takes up to be practical. MythBuster's fans may remember the episode where they powered a boat with compressed air. It didn't go very far, or very fast.

Gasoline has a very high energy density for the volume, that's why it's the current technology.

[/ QUOTE ]

I correct myself. Tata Motors (a big Indian car company) has a compressed air prototype, the MiniCAT.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007...otors_sig.html

I still don't think it's practical. You'll see from the posts on that site that it is less efficient then current hybrid regenerative braking.