Now I know this isn't breaking news, as this was announced as early as last year, but considering our current oil situation I thought it would be topical to highlight a totally radical zero emissions car.

Six passengers with a 1,000 mile range at up to 96mph! WOW, and all that on a 2-hour charge of compressed air, now that is amazing.

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Big Number of 2008
8,217,246
Obama's Margin of Victory

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

pretty ugly but a good idea assuming that we get the nuke power to run the compressors !

And it runs its own pneumatic tools

Nuclear Power has many flaws... first the construction of a new power plant takes quite long and is expensive... Plus (something very few think about) - Uranium is a finite ressource and with the number of nuclear plants doubling in the next decades, I doubt it will get cheaper...

Though I must say, the US could use the nukepower more relaxed than Europe in my opinion...Because the US has a big uranium production I think and because it has enough open space to see the remaining security risk abit more relaxed than over here.


Anyways... If you wouldn use electricity to power compressors and instead use windpower directly to compress air... it would be possible to increase efficiency and dezentralized supply...

Wind turbines that power a compressor and could pipe the compressed air to a nearby gas station (Air station? which would increase decentralization.

Besides, I think putting a compressor in a windturbine must be alot cheaper than a generator...
I think there is a project somewhere out there to use windpower to compress air and use the compressed air to power a generator... This eliminates fluctuations in the electricity supply.

EDIT:
Though I must say that 1000 miles sounds like the maximum someone could possibly drive at one day... I mean in normal life conditions...

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Lol... imagine how fast you can change your spare tire

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Here's the American link to the company:

Zero Pollution Motors

They hope to start filling orders in the US in 2010, sign up at their website to keep informed of the cars availability.

__________________
Big Number of 2008
8,217,246
Obama's Margin of Victory

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

Of course, the downside is that when someone piles one of these things in and ruptures a large, 5,000+psi tank, you'll need a sponge and bucket to clean them up.

Matt

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

Well they claim the carbon fiber tanks will prevent a catastrophic failure. We'll see after they get crash tested.

__________________
Big Number of 2008
8,217,246
Obama's Margin of Victory

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

At least when 15 - 20 gallons of gasoline goes up in flames, clean-up can usually be done with a broom and dustpan, no sponges required.

Any concentrated lump of energy can be dangerous, gasoline, batteries, a large amount of compressed air. I would hope design include reasonable safety considerations.

Reading the article referenced in the first post, it seems the 96mph, 1000mi range version is completely theoretical at this point.

Matt

__________________
De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

Well if you goto the website, this will be achieved with a combustion engine hybrid. If you watch the videos they have on their website, you should be able to travel from Los Angeles to New York on one tank of gas. So I think the 1,000 mile range will most likely happen from a compressed air hybrid.

__________________
Big Number of 2008
8,217,246
Obama's Margin of Victory

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

Don't get me wrong, I think this is pretty damn cool.

I'm just not sure 2009 / 2010 is a realistic deployment date for a technology that hasn't been prototyped yet.
Matt

__________________
De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

Well it has been prototyped, and 2010 is a banner year because of the X-Prize competition. Though I understand your skepticism, as most ambitious project are delayed. But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

They are also working on a compressor powered by the compressed air on board to achieve a self sustaining supply of compressed air; if they can do that, it will be astonishing.

__________________
Big Number of 2008
8,217,246
Obama's Margin of Victory

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

Yes, but the gasoline 'worst case' requires damage sufficient to cause a rupture and then an additional ignition. In the case of compressed air, once the tank is damaged, the contents actively contribute to a rupture, and there's no additonal ignition required to get your 'worst case'.


Astonishing is an understatement! That would be the infinte motion machine that science has been trying to find for hundreds of years! (And long since determined to be impossible, btw.)

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

there is not sufficient airflow everywhere to use wind. we're basically talking about replacing oil for electricity and the best reliable supply of that is nuke. or you could use the clean and abundant coal from out west as opposed to the high sulfer coal RObbie Byrd forces power comanies to use.