New Eco-car uses compressed air as fuel

[McLeodGanja]

Nice idea, but how much energy is used to make these, and how much to compress the air?

** Car that 'runs on air' **
A French engineer claims he will be ready to start selling a car with no carbon emissions within a year.

BBC Media Player (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7240000/newsid_7242000?redirect=7242070.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1&nbram=1&asb=1)

[rebgirl420]

I don't know. What's the catch?

[McLeodGanja]

Well, it seemed to be pretty noisy on the video. And also, 95% of carbon emissions are produced in the making of cars, not in their subsequent use. So I'm thinking there probably is a catch too.

[dragonrider]

The main advantage to something like this is that it shifts the energy production to a power plant, which can be operated more cleanly and more efficiently than a thousand individual internal combustion engines in a thousand cars. Any pollution occurs at the power plant, instead of at the engine. Similar to an all-electric car, but probably some advantages over the electric --- air tanks are cheaper than batteries, air tanks fill faster than batteries charge, compressed air filling stations would be more practical than electric recharging stations.

Some of the science shows you see on TV are just asinine, and you wonder how they can go on with such gross scientific errors. This was a good report, but I saw this same car reported on a different show, and it was just crap. It said the car RUNS on air, an infinite, clean, non-polluting resource. Crap! It does not run on air, it runs on compressed air. The energy does not come from the air. It comes from a power plant that makes electricity that is used to compress air. No polluition occurs at the car, but the power plant probably burns something that makes pollution. Then the show made an allusion to the possibility of using compressed air to run the compressor that compresses the air. Crap! Why would you ever do this? If you already have a bottle of compressed air, why would you run it through a machine to make another bottle of compressed air? You already have a freakin' bottle of compressed air! It said something about a perpetual, polluition-free resource! I don't see how this garbage gets on the air sometimes. Don't they hae a science editor for these science shows?

Anyway, enoguh of my rants about lame science shows. This looks like a cool idea worth exploring.

[McLeodGanja]

Think I'll just stick with my old Sinclair C5 then...