OT: California passes new auto-emission rules...

[hangwire]

.......says the guy from Oklahoma?

And that's one of the reasons why

[bluesguitar65]

.......says the guy from Oklahoma?

 

Mwhahhahahahahahahahahahahahahha!!

 

By bluesguitar65 at 2012-01-11

[mirrorball]

 

{censored} California you couldnt pay me to live there.

 

 

Newsflash, the federal fuel efficiency and emissions standards now in the works will result in effectively the same targets. There's no mandate for the number of EVs or plug-in hybrids or whatever, but the Department of Transportation estimates about 15% of new car sales in 2025 will be those types of vehicles as a result of the rules. California's rules are being written to roughly match the federal proposal, with some state-specific tweaks.

[THAT4301]

ITT fuel experts who once read an article online

[amp_surgeon]

Thanks for the link. You have a very good point about the lithium batteries. The compressed air engine sounds interesting, but unfortunately, there are some significant engineering challenges. They tend to be very low torque. The typical service station air compressor can't put out anywhere near 250 psi, and most home units do even less, so they'd need purpose-built "filling stations" and at-home compressors of sufficient power. There's also the safety concerns of a big 250 psi cylinder - you'd probably want to protect that from getting punctured in an accident. And while you do have non-polluting emissions from the vehicle itself (since the engine's running on air, I'd call that zero, or at least "neutral and non-toxic" emissions - YMMV), a compressed air engine doesn't eliminate emissions - it just generates the emissions somewhere else. Instead of burning fossil fuels (diesel, petrol) in the vehicle's internal engine, you're burning some other fossil fuel (natural gas, oil, coal, etc.) to generate the electricity needed to compress the air. And IMHO, that's inefficient. You lose a bit with each conversion. IMHO, it would be more efficient to put the natural gas into the vehicle and burn it as cleanly as possible there, rather than burning it in a big power plant, converting that thermal energy into electricity, converting that into compressed air, and then powering the vehicle with that. I can't prove it, but I suspect it would be lower polluting to do it that way too, due to the improved efficiency. Of course, if you can power the compressor with electricity from solar, then you only have the costs of the solar panels and associated equipment to offset, although you'd still need the infrastructure established elsewhere for longer trips. I doubt you'd be able to transport the charging equipment with you - I suspect that it would require a lot of solar panels to have enough juice to compress that much air to 250 psi.

Getting high torque from compressed air is just a matter of the right gear train.



The French design used a conventional piston/crankshaft arrangement rather than a turbine, so the torque directly from the engine was reasonable.

You definitely couldn't get enough pressure or volume from a service station's tire pump. Even if they could reach the pressure you'd be there all day waiting for your tank to fill. A station would need high capacity tanks and a farm of compressors. You'd be transferring air that's already compressed and waiting in tanks, and not trying to compress it as you fill up. You'd have to pay them for that service, but I doubt it would cost anywhere near $50 for refill of compressed air.

I think one of the points they made about compressed air vs. electricity is that it's possible to transfer a large volume of compressed air energy in a short amount of time, while no current battery technology can be fully recharged that quickly without melting down or exploding. That's one of the biggest problems with electric vehicles. You can't take long trips without having to take long breaks to recharge.

You're correct that the conversion from electricity to compressed air is not efficient. It could probably be made more efficient, but nobody is currently working on that because there's no real incentive to, at least not yet. Use of carbon fuels to create electricity is a larger problem that's not exclusive to compressed air, or any other form of alternative energy for cars. That problem needs to be addressed regardless of which energy solution we adopt for cars.

The problem of tank ruptures can be addressed pretty easily. The tanks can be designed to split on a seam rather than a fragmented explosion. Internal bladders can be used to ensure that the pressure isn't vented in a focused way, but dispersed. I still wouldn't want to be standing next to one when it burst, but I'd rather be knocked down by a blast of air than a wall of shrapnel from an exploding gasoline tank. Also, a compressed air explosion wouldn't turn your car into a fireball like a gasoline or hydrogen explosion would.

BTW, you wouldn't run out of water with hydrogen. It recombines with the oxygen to form steam, so you get the water back. On the other hand, a million hydrogen powered cars in a big city on a hot day would probably increase the humidity quite a bit. That would probably be a welcome change if you lived in Arizona, but would suck if you lived on the Gulf coast. I can already imagine the green activists protesting because we were pumping too much steam into the atmosphere, changing weather patterns etc.

[cobalt-60]

Could you link me or mention the name of the French guy who made the air compressor car? My friend was telling me about it years ago. He also mentioned a young man who found a way to make nearly indestructible, lightweight plastic that could be used for car bodies.