Re: Compressed Air Car

On Sat, 9 Aug 2008 19:06:41 -0400, "J. Clarke"
<jclarke.usenet@xxxxxxx> wrote:

default wrote:
On Sat, 9 Aug 2008 02:39:01 -0700, "Ted Mittelstaedt"
<tedm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Timberwoof" <timberwoof.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:timberwoof.spam-0BAF3B.20443508082008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


It's probably a little more efficient than a steel spring wound up
to run the car on a clockwork mechanism.

You willing to bet on that?

Ted

He's probably making a good point. The whole idea is use compressed
air as a means of storing energy, much like the vacuum flywheel, or
hydrogen powered fuel cell car. None of these miracle systems
really
solve problems they just transfer them, and they are very
inefficient.

Compress gas and you have to get rid of the heat of compression, and
you probably also need a refrigerated dryer to get rid of the
moisture
- doesn't that sound like energy being wasted?

It is almost always more efficient to burn the primary fuel at the
point of use, to produce work, than shift the production of energy
away from the point of use. The only time that makes sense is when
the fuel is more expensive to move from A to B. Gasoline is sent
through pipelines to terminals then on to trucks to filling stations
(hard to beat that for efficiency).

Or when the primary fuel requires a substantial physical plant in
order to be "burned", as is the case for hydroelectric, nuclear,
geothermal, and for the most part solar.


George Bush is an idiot. Hydrogen may be the most common element in
the Universe - but it isn't readily available in the elemental form
on
earth in vast quantities. You can use electrolysis to produce it
from
water by burning electricity produced by burning coal (double whammy
efficiency wise) or wind or hydro or ethanol/methanol conversion,
but
it is still only a storage system.

Most commercially produced hydrogen comes from natural gas, not from
electrolysis--I understand that there's a reasonably efficient means
of cracking the natural gas. Nice thing about it is that once the
infrastructure is in place, as the natural gas runs out it will be
easy to transition to electrolytically produced hydrogen made using
nuclear plants, and one hopes that by the time the uranium is getting
short fusion plants will be available.

Ah FUSION! not in our lifetimes probably, probably not in the
lifetimes of the next few generations. The shit may hit the fan
before that Hail Mary play comes to fruition. A lot of the gung ho
physicists working on it don't think it will ever work. Personally I
believe it will - but not with any scheme they are currently
exploring.

Then you have "cracking natural gas to produce hydrogen." Natural gas
is already a damn good fuel as is. Will processing release more
energy? Will it do it significantly cleaner?


Thermal efficiency is fine but when you don't have anything that you
can pump out of the ground, pump to a location, and then burn locally
what do you do? Just give up and die?

What we should be doing for sustainability on all fronts - limit human
population. Is the goal of life to have people stacked like cordwood
and maintained by machines? Oil isn't the problem or the scarcity of
oil isn't the problem.

We are the problem. Or our greed and shortsightedness is the problem.

Thousands of years of civilization and hundreds of years of machines
hasn't given man the ability to grow spiritually (ethically morally or
whatever - a word that captures the gestalt, may exist but it isn't
part of my vocabulary)

Our ability to produce the technology outstrips our ability to use it
wisely.

Even with limitless clean energy tomorrow, we have a lot of our
disposable lifestyle to clean up if we expect to be around. Unlimited
fusion power may be worse than fossil fuel from a sustainability point
of view.



Ethanol fuel is another non starter - costs more to make than it
returns in energy compared to oil. I might work someday, but
probably
won't be using corn for the feedstock.

The media and the politicians have no clue - or they substitute
their
own agenda for reasons. Tons of oil in shale rock - but not easily
extractable. (you think Sen. Bryon Dorgan, the one with the bad
comb-over, is some energy guru? - he just wants to award mineral
rights to large companies)

Build light and use diesel and use regenerative systems (hybrid)and
you will accomplish more than the technology will for the next
several
decades at least.

Yeah, it's so easy to build light 18-wheelers. All the "build
lighter" and whatnot stuff works fine for some kinds of personal
transportation but not for carrying freight.

Thinking that 18 wheelers are necessary to carry freight? It is what
we built, it isn't what is most efficient. Trucks only make sense for
the last mile.

I do kinda like the idea of springs - gas springs on pedal bicycles.
Hit the brakes and you compress the spring, release the brakes and
the
spring kicks you into motion. (gas spring because it lighter)

--

--


----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =---
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: NBC: Stop the Energy Insanity; by Mortimer Zuckerman
    ... drilling in ANWR will _not_ reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. ... energy and a different energy future? ... The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power. ... Natural gas and bio-fuels are the only domestic energy sources used ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • Re: European Union cuts back Biofuel use
    ... Meanwhile the evil oil and utility companies will continue to do what ... they've always done - supply reliable energy at modest cost, ... Technology that could, for example, make use of the wasted heat going ... Increase the size of the system, perhaps by 2, and one can fuel his ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: Low Cost Hydrogen is here to stay
    ... This library page holds a collection of hydrogen energy resources. ... But please do NOT call Hydrogen a fuel. ... one MIGHT foolishly object and say that oil coal and natural gas ... water down into its component parts and retain the hydrogen, ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Wall Street is the Enemy
    ... this way - out-classing the 28.8 billion barrels of conventional oil ...  To convert 1.5 billion cars to hydrogen fuel tanks at ... 30% Hydrogen Peroxide costs $2,000 per tonne and contains 0.9 GJ per ... You can buy 135x as much energy in the form of crude oil as you can ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: OT:Re: IMHO, saving fuel needs to start at the top!
    ... >> going to go over and sometime along the way a different system of fuel ... > wings that is cheap and as plentiful as oil that can be used to fuel ... These taxes are ... when energy is cheap and abundant, ...
    (alt.fashion)