No ripping up of massive stretches of road needed. It can be done as an incremental process. Step one, vehicles are increasingly electrified (already increasingly underway). Step two, the vehicles are designed to have inductive chargers and any new or repaved roads have chargers/meters installed. The vehicles still need to have sufficient battery or gasoline power to keep going a relevant distance when there are no suitable roads around. Step three, enough roads in some places are converted that cars can start ditching energy storage/backup engines. Those who want to be able to offroad can still get vehicles with extended range.
Incremental changes tend to work a lot better than radical departures, especially when the capital costs are as huge as in the case of replacing our entire transportation infrastructure.
As for the person who asked about who would pay -- that's easy. Ever seen an EZ-Pass toll booth?:) Same sort of concept. Your vehicle has an identifying chip and transponder, and the road meters you. No identifier, no juice. Or, if that proved too costly, it'd be easy enough to have the occasional random bit of "smart road" that checks to see if you're stealing power, connected to a concealed camera to photograph cheats.
1) Li-ion batteries use no toxic components in manufacture, and while conventional li-ions have some chemicals that are poisonous in the end products, A) the latest generations of them designed for automotive use lose those (such as using nicer electrolytes and replacing the LiCoO2 cathode), and B) they break down harmlessly once disposed (no heavy metals or the like).
2) For a given amount of charge, an ultracapacitor is a lot *heavier* than a battery bank. They're lower energy density (assuming EEStor doesn't pull off a miracle).
Yep. Either the baffles *or* the correct trajectory would have been enough to make the mission a success. Even the payload separated -- just in the wrong trajectory. They got about 2/3 of the delta-V they needed.
For a practically from-scratch, they've done a heck of a job, and I like their design. And I was very impressed by how rapidly they're able to turn around on launch attempts. Here's to the next Falcon 1 launch!:)
Wrong again. Almost all car companies looking at li-ion are not looking at conventional "laptop batteries", but the alternative chemistries that sacrifice a little energy density in exchange for a very long lifespan and a high degree of safety. These include phosphates, titanates, spinels, etc. You can generally even shoot these battery packs with no fire occurring (there've been some nice demonstrations to this effect). The two notable exceptions that come to mind are Tesla and Lightning Car, but they're targetted at a different kind of consumer. GM, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Aptera, and on and on are all using safe li-ion chemistries in their next gen electric vehicles.
And yes, Toyota *will* put them in the Prius. There have been some delays due to QC, however.
Perhaps he and his supporters expect *every* Democrat to vote the same on *every* issue? Because that's usually what his campaign speeches come down to. Never mind that the vast majority of Democrats, on a given issue, side with him, and that compromises are almost always made only due to pressure from Republicans. No, because all don't fall in lockstep with his views, both parties are clearly the same.
First off, reserves don't work that way. Here's a writeup concerning how this concept applies to oil, but the same thing applies to lithium. Reserves don't simply "run out"; there's many thousands of cubic miles of the stuff in Earth's crust and oceans (Earth's 1.65e23kg crust is 20-70ppm lithium for a total mass of 3.3 to 11.6 quintillion kilograms). All that changes is how much is mineable at *today's prices* with *today's technology*. I.e., either higher prices or advancing technology put more lithium into play -- and not just a little more, but literally exponentially more. Example: the oceans have And on top of this, unlike oil, lithium is an easily displaceable resource -- most lithium is used in glass, ceramics, and greases, and can be substituted for in all of them.
The scare articles ignore these basic facts. They also ignore other things inconvenient to them -- most notably, tailings. For example, listen to this quote:
"This means there is less lithium per volume of water, so competitors have to process more water, explained Tahil, adding that there is also the issue of the lithium-to-magnesium ratio. The more magnesium, the harder it is to extract the lithium."
Yes, but that means that you get *more magnesium* out of the process, which also has sales value. Likewise, other mining operations that are seeking various minerals can (and do) get lithium tailings. Currently, these are typically discarded due to the low price of lithium. As demand for a mineral rises, recovery circuits get added where appropriate. This is "value added" mining -- no new mining is going on, but you just get more product out of it. Production from almost any brine pond in the world will give you lithium tailings, but almost none bother to extract the lithium salts from them; they're going after other, currently more valuable minerals.
Some people have this silly notion of world mining operations as though the Earth was some big ball of "nothing" in the crust, and scattered around this "nothing" are little random deposits of one mineral (mixed in with "nothing"), and these couple deposits are all there are of that mineral. And, obviously, the real world doesn't work that way. *Everywhere* is minerals, and a given element can be found almost anywhere at least in *some* concentration, however minimal. All that changes from place to place is how cheap it is to extract (which can vary widely). Likewise, when you produce products from anywhere, you're going to get tailings that include all sorts of other minerals -- and you're mining, crushing, and concentrating them to boot, so half of the work is already done! But if the price of the minerals is low, it's not worth recovering further from the tailings. If the price rises, you recover them; it's as simple as that.
One thing to remember about lithium: it's cheap. It's currently very cheap. So? Well, people don't prospect for cheap minerals. Think for a second of how much oil our insatiable demand has continually turned up over the past century. Now imagine actual exploration for valuable lithium deposits. It's only reasonable to expect major growth in known lithium reserves, probably by orders of magnitude, should lithium suddenly gain any appreciable value.
Lastly -- and here's the real kicker -- lithium is only a tiny fraction of the cost of a lithium ion battery It's price could grow tenfold and you'd barely even notice it (and you better believe there'd be a *lot* of new reserves coming online with that much price growth!) 1 kWh of automotive li-ion batteries currently costs ~$300-$2000, depending on the type. This involves less than a kilogram of lithium carbonate, which currently costs about $4.50.
In short: Ignore the scare mongering. There's no world shortage of lithium, and never will be.
You forget, though, that the batteries cause much greater environmental damage and recycling issues
Myth. Lithium-ion batteries are traditionally made from nontoxic lithium carbonate (often used in ovenware), nontoxic cobalt oxide (used as a pottery glaze), nontoxic graphite (used in pencils), and a polymer (plastic) membrane, all with a nontoxic electrolyte. You're mixing up lead-acid and nickel-cadmium batteries with more modern NiMH and li-ion batteries.
Car batteries are the most successful recycling program in modern history. Almost every car battery on the road today is ultimately recycled.
plus weigh a LOT more.
Much of the added weight is offset by reduced engine mass, since electric motors are so much smaller and lighter than piston motors. The Aptera Typ-1e, for example, weighs just 1500lbs. The MiEV and VentureOne are similarly lightweight.
Air compressors are horrible for efficiency, but they are also capable of running for decades without much upkeep as well as there's no real need to replace them for the life of the car.
You're telling me you've never had a compressor break? Are you kidding me? I've had the compressor on my AC break *twice*, and the compressor on my refrigerator break once. Compressors operate in high-stress environments, whether they're compressing coolant or compressing air.
Typical home fueling stations for CNG
Who's talking about CNG?
or electric
It's called a "plug" and an "outlet". Put plug in outlet. You're charging! The Aptera, for example, charges on an ordinary 110V/15A household outlet. The MiEV has multiple charging options.
A couple of large air tanks, OTOH, aren't much more complex that a typical SCUBA tank.
A scuba tank won't destroy your house if it has manufacturing defects or corrodes with age.
$4000 in batteries that you pay $5000 for in a Prius add up to a long payback time compared to a less expensive air powered car
The MiEV is something like $23-$24k. The Aptera is $27k. The VentureOne is something like $20k. And these are made in *first world nations*, unlike the $18k air car made by infamously low quality Tata Motors in India. And unlike the air car, they don't, well, destroy the environment worse than driving a gasoline car.
Wind, water, and solar plants may have low efficiency for turning energy into electricity, but the energy required to do that is free, unlimited, and does not directly pollute, so therefore is irrelevent.
Wrong. *Nothing* is irrelevant. Wind and solar have huge capital costs relating to all of the mining, processing, and labor that goes into them. Think giant towers of steep pop out of the ground without extensive mining and very dirty smelting operations, for example? The environmental cost of wind and solar is certainly notably lower than coal, but it *is* relevant. They also take up land that could otherwise be wilderness (especially solar, which can't pair with farming like wind can).
Hydro ("water") is the worst. It takes up huge amounts of land -- often ten times as much as the equivalent amount for solar generation in a sunny location. It destroys what are often some of the most scenic and environmentally sensitive areas in a country. Consider the Xolorado, for example -- an aquatic oasis in the middle of arid lands that used to even have otters living in it before we dammed the heck out of it and destroyed canyon after beautiful canyon. And to top it all off, *hydro causes global warming*. Hydroelectric plants lead to organic matter decaying anerobically instead of aerobically, which means methane, not CO2. Methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
Efficiency ALWAYS matters.
I'm NEVER going to suggest we use coal or other fuel to compress the air for air cars, nor would I for electric cars either
It's better for the environment to run an electric car from coal electricity than a gasoline car burning gasoline. By a good margin. It's notably *worse* to run an air car from coal power.
The direct efficincy of stored energy to engine power is near 100% for air cars.
~90% or so. It's getting the energy stored that's the problem -- 10-15% efficiency from garage or onboard-scale compressors.
Your numbers on electric motor efficiency are also WAY off. Yes, motors can operate at those efficienies, but only under constant and predictable (ideal) torque and RPM. In the field, they almost never come near those ideals. They do much better (60% or so efficiency for electric
Sorry to be blunt, but you simply have no clue what you're talking about. Start reading. The most efficient electric motors are about 95% efficient. 85-90% is more typical for an electric car in standard driving conditions.
combine this with distance loss of poewr over high voltage lines
A) Air compressors have the exact same loss. B) Once again, you demonstrate your ignorance. In the US, transmission losses are only 7.2%.
Virtually none with modern automotive li-ions (nanophosphates, titanates, spinels, etc).
and discharge loss (bettery efficincy)
Also 0.1% (see above link).
the other problems with electric cars are safety
That's funny coming from an air car advocate, given that compressed air has the fastest energy discharge in disaster conditions, faster than even hydrogen.
LiIon batteries explode
Automotive li-ions (titanates, nanophosphates, spinels, etc) do not.
capacitors can kill instantly
So can an exploding air tank. Both are "accident situations", but the former requires either new laws of physics or the casing to break and move out of the way, all of the engine components between it and you to move away, terminals to suddenly run into you or something you're sitting on, all without the fuses melting.
Air powered engines have extremely high (over 90%) efficiency
And compressors have extremely *low* efficiency. Small compressors (like you'd find onboard or in a garage) are 10-15% efficient at best, while huge, massively expensive regenerative industrial compressors can only get up to 60% or so.
The energy to make air into a compressed form can be done with 100% renewable energy.
Same with electric cars. And they don't have the massive compression losses of air cars, and they have, even currently, much higher volumetric energy density.
It's like an electric car, except instead of the electric motors gettign about 70% efficiency
Try ~90%.
Also, the thermal rediation (heat) from compression can be used to create hot water,
Hence the term "regenerative". Unfortunately, Carnot sticks his ugly head into this process.
Also note the energy to compress air is about 5 times less than the energy input to product H2 to power a fuel cell vehicle the same distance.
No, it doesn't power the car "when the air runs out". It powers the car at any speed over 20mph. At highway speeds, the overwhelming majority of the energy comes from the fuel.
making it pretty much a zero emissions vehicle.
Air cars are horribly inefficient, making them *high* emissions vehicles. The emissions just come from power plants. And in this case, from both the power plants *and* the onboard fuel.
Anyways, why would you drive a car from Tata Motors? Their reputation is no better than Chery's.
Oh, doh... didn't include the UK/US gallon conversion in there. But let's be more optimistic, say, 70 UK mpg at highway. That's 58 US mpg under the old system (assuming their tests were similar to ours), which equates to 51 mpg under the new system.
Yes, according to the manual, it's rated for 85.6mpg.. at 55mph. That's not typical highway driving around these parts. At 75mph, the Citroen gets 58.9 mpg. Of course, given when this is from, that'd be the old MPG ratings system, which assumed low acceleration, no AC, and so on; to convert, say, 62 mpg to the new ratings, that'd be 55mpg.
If an air car is only 1/5th the efficiency of a gasoline car it is still going to result in fewer emissions
No, it is not, at least with respect to CO2. Typical thermal power plants in existance are 30-40% efficient. Modern plants are 40-50% efficient. A gasoline engine is ~20% efficient. 1/5th of 35% (or even 45%) is way below 20%. If you're talking about emissions other than CO2, however, you have a point (at least on some of them). Power plants are worse for NOx and SO2 than ICEs, but a lot better on HCs and CO. Particulate matter is about the same. Also, power plants can displace emissions away from densely populated areas.
If you want to talk efficiency, compare it to an EV where the source of the electricity is the same and thus the efficiencies are directly comparable in terms of environmental friendliness.
Gladly -- and I do that over on my site. Electric cars are incredibly energy efficient; after any generation losses (which are shared by hydrogen and air cars), they lose almost nothing -- 7-8% in transmission, similar in AC/DC conversion, a fraction of a percent in charge and discharge (if using li-ion batteries; with NiMH, it's much higher), and ~10% in the motor. Here's a study you might find interesting. It doesn't cover air cars, but it covers many other types of vehicles.
[quote]It's emissions, not waste heat, that are why gasoline engines are bad.[/quote]
CO2 emissions per mile are proportional to thermodynamic efficiency of the fuel cycle and amount of energy that is needed per mile. With a gasoline car, the well-to-wheel efficiency is about 20%. With an electric, it's ~30%. With a hydrogen car, it's ~15-20%. With an air car that operates on air alone, it's something like 4-20%, depending on whether you're using an onboard or home compressor, or whether you're using a huge, expensive, top of the line regenerative industrial compressor.
Air cars have a whole host of other issues, too. Horrible volumetric energy density, safety (the energy likes instant releases), decaying performance (the lower the tanks get, the slower your car), and so on.
This may seem like a troll, but it's 100% correct. Those numbers are impossible, even with drafting.
As for fuel efficient cars, the most efficient vehicle coming out in the near future is the Aptera Typ-1e/Typ-1h, but the Typ-1h only gets 130mpg when its battery is depleted. And this is a car with a 0.11 drag coefficient (compare to 0.26 for a Prius). It doesn't get much lower than that and still be streetlegal.
If you have access *and you know what you're doing*. I get the impression that the parents don't. As for whether the submitter should be doing it, if the parents are the type who install cybernanny software on their kids computers, I say go for it.
Anyways, as for passwords: what about acronym passwords? I love them because they're so easy to memorize, yet end up quite random. Have your sister think of a phrase -- for example, "Mom and Dad, leave me alone!" -- and then make an acronym out of it, like "MaD,lma!"
Autobloggreen has garnered a number of comments on this concept, most of them negative. To sum up:
* The thermodynamic efficiency of air cars is worse than gasoline engines, often far worse, meaning that you *hurt* the environment by driving it. * The overwhelming majority of the performance of this vehicle comes from gasoline, not air * The company has a very bad reputation of making ludicrous claims and misrepresenting stats * It's made by Indian manufacturer Tata motors, not known for quality
In short, don't bother. If you want an affordable (100 mile range without burning any gasoline, that will be on the road in a year or two, there are really three good options I can think of off the top of my head right now: the Aptera, the VentureOne, and the MiEV. The Aptera is for if you want the absolute limit in energy efficiency modern tech can currently provide and want to look like you're driving a spaceship, the VentureOne is for if you want to feel like you're driving a motorcycle, and the MiEV is for if you have more than two people. I've probably missed a couple other good options, I'm sure.
To potential EV buyers: keep an eye out for scammers. Two big ones are LionEV and Spark EV. To potential hydrogen car buyers: hydrogen cars are worse for the environment than gasoline cars, so don't bother.
I can't believe that this beat out CIGS. 10-13% efficient in mass production (2/3rds that of silicon cells), but only $0.50-$1.50/W (cheaper than coal power even in Alaska), with almost no solar degradation or even radiation degradation (a big deal for satellites). And very lightweight at the same time. There are about two dozen companies working on different mass production methods, so them making it to market is pretty much a certainty. Nanosolar is already selling to Germany for $0.90/W, and reportedly makes its cells for $0.30/W. How could this not be a top 10 emerging tech?
A few others, among many:
* Long-lifespan, passively safe lithium-ion batteries hitting the market
* Vastly more energy dense energy storage techs in the lab
* The resurgence of the electric car (for example, the $27k highway-speed Aptera).
* Rocket launch costs for less than half what even the Russians, Chinese, and Indians are selling via SpaceX
Few pieces? It was an entire nuclear reactor. And not the only one.
Since when do *any* large tanks from *anything* survive intact through reentry? Name *one* example. I can get you lots of pictures of busted up tanks from all sorts of spacecraft. Reentry heating and drag do not play around.
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No ripping up of massive stretches of road needed. It can be done as an incremental process. Step one, vehicles are increasingly electrified (already increasingly underway). Step two, the vehicles are designed to have inductive chargers and any new or repaved roads have chargers/meters installed. The vehicles still need to have sufficient battery or gasoline power to keep going a relevant distance when there are no suitable roads around. Step three, enough roads in some places are converted that cars can start ditching energy storage/backup engines. Those who want to be able to offroad can still get vehicles with extended range.
:) Same sort of concept. Your vehicle has an identifying chip and transponder, and the road meters you. No identifier, no juice. Or, if that proved too costly, it'd be easy enough to have the occasional random bit of "smart road" that checks to see if you're stealing power, connected to a concealed camera to photograph cheats.
Incremental changes tend to work a lot better than radical departures, especially when the capital costs are as huge as in the case of replacing our entire transportation infrastructure.
As for the person who asked about who would pay -- that's easy. Ever seen an EZ-Pass toll booth?
1) Li-ion batteries use no toxic components in manufacture, and while conventional li-ions have some chemicals that are poisonous in the end products, A) the latest generations of them designed for automotive use lose those (such as using nicer electrolytes and replacing the LiCoO2 cathode), and B) they break down harmlessly once disposed (no heavy metals or the like).
2) For a given amount of charge, an ultracapacitor is a lot *heavier* than a battery bank. They're lower energy density (assuming EEStor doesn't pull off a miracle).
Yep. Either the baffles *or* the correct trajectory would have been enough to make the mission a success. Even the payload separated -- just in the wrong trajectory. They got about 2/3 of the delta-V they needed.
:)
For a practically from-scratch, they've done a heck of a job, and I like their design. And I was very impressed by how rapidly they're able to turn around on launch attempts. Here's to the next Falcon 1 launch!
Wrong again. Almost all car companies looking at li-ion are not looking at conventional "laptop batteries", but the alternative chemistries that sacrifice a little energy density in exchange for a very long lifespan and a high degree of safety. These include phosphates, titanates, spinels, etc. You can generally even shoot these battery packs with no fire occurring (there've been some nice demonstrations to this effect). The two notable exceptions that come to mind are Tesla and Lightning Car, but they're targetted at a different kind of consumer. GM, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Aptera, and on and on are all using safe li-ion chemistries in their next gen electric vehicles.
And yes, Toyota *will* put them in the Prius. There have been some delays due to QC, however.
And we all know that Nader is going to run another, "Both parties are the same even though they vote the opposite" campaign.
Perhaps he and his supporters expect *every* Democrat to vote the same on *every* issue? Because that's usually what his campaign speeches come down to. Never mind that the vast majority of Democrats, on a given issue, side with him, and that compromises are almost always made only due to pressure from Republicans. No, because all don't fall in lockstep with his views, both parties are clearly the same.
First off, reserves don't work that way. Here's a writeup concerning how this concept applies to oil, but the same thing applies to lithium. Reserves don't simply "run out"; there's many thousands of cubic miles of the stuff in Earth's crust and oceans (Earth's 1.65e23kg crust is 20-70ppm lithium for a total mass of 3.3 to 11.6 quintillion kilograms). All that changes is how much is mineable at *today's prices* with *today's technology*. I.e., either higher prices or advancing technology put more lithium into play -- and not just a little more, but literally exponentially more. Example: the oceans have And on top of this, unlike oil, lithium is an easily displaceable resource -- most lithium is used in glass, ceramics, and greases, and can be substituted for in all of them.
The scare articles ignore these basic facts. They also ignore other things inconvenient to them -- most notably, tailings. For example, listen to this quote:
"This means there is less lithium per volume of water, so competitors have to process more water, explained Tahil, adding that there is also the issue of the lithium-to-magnesium ratio. The more magnesium, the harder it is to extract the lithium."
Yes, but that means that you get *more magnesium* out of the process, which also has sales value. Likewise, other mining operations that are seeking various minerals can (and do) get lithium tailings. Currently, these are typically discarded due to the low price of lithium. As demand for a mineral rises, recovery circuits get added where appropriate. This is "value added" mining -- no new mining is going on, but you just get more product out of it. Production from almost any brine pond in the world will give you lithium tailings, but almost none bother to extract the lithium salts from them; they're going after other, currently more valuable minerals.
Some people have this silly notion of world mining operations as though the Earth was some big ball of "nothing" in the crust, and scattered around this "nothing" are little random deposits of one mineral (mixed in with "nothing"), and these couple deposits are all there are of that mineral. And, obviously, the real world doesn't work that way. *Everywhere* is minerals, and a given element can be found almost anywhere at least in *some* concentration, however minimal. All that changes from place to place is how cheap it is to extract (which can vary widely). Likewise, when you produce products from anywhere, you're going to get tailings that include all sorts of other minerals -- and you're mining, crushing, and concentrating them to boot, so half of the work is already done! But if the price of the minerals is low, it's not worth recovering further from the tailings. If the price rises, you recover them; it's as simple as that.
One thing to remember about lithium: it's cheap. It's currently very cheap. So? Well, people don't prospect for cheap minerals. Think for a second of how much oil our insatiable demand has continually turned up over the past century. Now imagine actual exploration for valuable lithium deposits. It's only reasonable to expect major growth in known lithium reserves, probably by orders of magnitude, should lithium suddenly gain any appreciable value.
Lastly -- and here's the real kicker -- lithium is only a tiny fraction of the cost of a lithium ion battery It's price could grow tenfold and you'd barely even notice it (and you better believe there'd be a *lot* of new reserves coming online with that much price growth!) 1 kWh of automotive li-ion batteries currently costs ~$300-$2000, depending on the type. This involves less than a kilogram of lithium carbonate, which currently costs about $4.50.
In short: Ignore the scare mongering. There's no world shortage of lithium, and never will be.
You forget, though, that the batteries cause much greater environmental damage and recycling issues
Myth. Lithium-ion batteries are traditionally made from nontoxic lithium carbonate (often used in ovenware), nontoxic cobalt oxide (used as a pottery glaze), nontoxic graphite (used in pencils), and a polymer (plastic) membrane, all with a nontoxic electrolyte. You're mixing up lead-acid and nickel-cadmium batteries with more modern NiMH and li-ion batteries.
Car batteries are the most successful recycling program in modern history. Almost every car battery on the road today is ultimately recycled.
plus weigh a LOT more.
Much of the added weight is offset by reduced engine mass, since electric motors are so much smaller and lighter than piston motors. The Aptera Typ-1e, for example, weighs just 1500lbs. The MiEV and VentureOne are similarly lightweight.
Air compressors are horrible for efficiency, but they are also capable of running for decades without much upkeep as well as there's no real need to replace them for the life of the car.
You're telling me you've never had a compressor break? Are you kidding me? I've had the compressor on my AC break *twice*, and the compressor on my refrigerator break once. Compressors operate in high-stress environments, whether they're compressing coolant or compressing air.
Typical home fueling stations for CNG
Who's talking about CNG?
or electric
It's called a "plug" and an "outlet". Put plug in outlet. You're charging! The Aptera, for example, charges on an ordinary 110V/15A household outlet. The MiEV has multiple charging options.
A couple of large air tanks, OTOH, aren't much more complex that a typical SCUBA tank.
A scuba tank won't destroy your house if it has manufacturing defects or corrodes with age.
$4000 in batteries that you pay $5000 for in a Prius add up to a long payback time compared to a less expensive air powered car
The MiEV is something like $23-$24k. The Aptera is $27k. The VentureOne is something like $20k. And these are made in *first world nations*, unlike the $18k air car made by infamously low quality Tata Motors in India. And unlike the air car, they don't, well, destroy the environment worse than driving a gasoline car.
Wind, water, and solar plants may have low efficiency for turning energy into electricity, but the energy required to do that is free, unlimited, and does not directly pollute, so therefore is irrelevent.
Wrong. *Nothing* is irrelevant. Wind and solar have huge capital costs relating to all of the mining, processing, and labor that goes into them. Think giant towers of steep pop out of the ground without extensive mining and very dirty smelting operations, for example? The environmental cost of wind and solar is certainly notably lower than coal, but it *is* relevant. They also take up land that could otherwise be wilderness (especially solar, which can't pair with farming like wind can).
Hydro ("water") is the worst. It takes up huge amounts of land -- often ten times as much as the equivalent amount for solar generation in a sunny location. It destroys what are often some of the most scenic and environmentally sensitive areas in a country. Consider the Xolorado, for example -- an aquatic oasis in the middle of arid lands that used to even have otters living in it before we dammed the heck out of it and destroyed canyon after beautiful canyon. And to top it all off, *hydro causes global warming*. Hydroelectric plants lead to organic matter decaying anerobically instead of aerobically, which means methane, not CO2. Methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
Efficiency ALWAYS matters.
I'm NEVER going to suggest we use coal or other fuel to compress the air for air cars, nor would I for electric cars either
It's better for the environment to run an electric car from coal electricity than a gasoline car burning gasoline. By a good margin. It's notably *worse* to run an air car from coal power.
The direct efficincy of stored energy to engine power is near 100% for air cars.
~90% or so. It's getting the energy stored that's the problem -- 10-15% efficiency from garage or onboard-scale compressors.
Your numbers on electric motor efficiency are also WAY off. Yes, motors can operate at those efficienies, but only under constant and predictable (ideal) torque and RPM. In the field, they almost never come near those ideals. They do much better (60% or so efficiency for electric
Sorry to be blunt, but you simply have no clue what you're talking about. Start reading. The most efficient electric motors are about 95% efficient. 85-90% is more typical for an electric car in standard driving conditions.
combine this with distance loss of poewr over high voltage lines
A) Air compressors have the exact same loss.
B) Once again, you demonstrate your ignorance. In the US, transmission losses are only 7.2%.
battery charge loss (heat when charging)
0.1% for li-ion.
battery depreciation (loss over time)
Virtually none with modern automotive li-ions (nanophosphates, titanates, spinels, etc).
and discharge loss (bettery efficincy)
Also 0.1% (see above link).
the other problems with electric cars are safety
That's funny coming from an air car advocate, given that compressed air has the fastest energy discharge in disaster conditions, faster than even hydrogen.
LiIon batteries explode
Automotive li-ions (titanates, nanophosphates, spinels, etc) do not.
capacitors can kill instantly
So can an exploding air tank. Both are "accident situations", but the former requires either new laws of physics or the casing to break and move out of the way, all of the engine components between it and you to move away, terminals to suddenly run into you or something you're sitting on, all without the fuses melting.
they're complex and expensiv
Air powered engines have extremely high (over 90%) efficiency
And compressors have extremely *low* efficiency. Small compressors (like you'd find onboard or in a garage) are 10-15% efficient at best, while huge, massively expensive regenerative industrial compressors can only get up to 60% or so.
The energy to make air into a compressed form can be done with 100% renewable energy.
Same with electric cars. And they don't have the massive compression losses of air cars, and they have, even currently, much higher volumetric energy density.
It's like an electric car, except instead of the electric motors gettign about 70% efficiency
Try ~90%.
Also, the thermal rediation (heat) from compression can be used to create hot water,
Hence the term "regenerative". Unfortunately, Carnot sticks his ugly head into this process.
Also note the energy to compress air is about 5 times less than the energy input to product H2 to power a fuel cell vehicle the same distance.
And you get this silly claim from where?
No, it doesn't power the car "when the air runs out". It powers the car at any speed over 20mph. At highway speeds, the overwhelming majority of the energy comes from the fuel.
making it pretty much a zero emissions vehicle.
Air cars are horribly inefficient, making them *high* emissions vehicles. The emissions just come from power plants. And in this case, from both the power plants *and* the onboard fuel.
Anyways, why would you drive a car from Tata Motors? Their reputation is no better than Chery's.
From Fueleconomy.gov:
We have revised the 1985-2007 MPG estimates to make them comparable to the new 2008 MPG estimates!
Fuel Type: Regular
MPG (city): 41
MPG (highway): 50
MPG (combined): 45
Not bad, but not 50-60 mpg.
Oh, doh... didn't include the UK/US gallon conversion in there. But let's be more optimistic, say, 70 UK mpg at highway. That's 58 US mpg under the old system (assuming their tests were similar to ours), which equates to 51 mpg under the new system.
:)
Still not bad, mind you.
Yes, according to the manual, it's rated for 85.6mpg.. at 55mph. That's not typical highway driving around these parts. At 75mph, the Citroen gets 58.9 mpg. Of course, given when this is from, that'd be the old MPG ratings system, which assumed low acceleration, no AC, and so on; to convert, say, 62 mpg to the new ratings, that'd be 55mpg.
;)
Still, not a bad little car!
If an air car is only 1/5th the efficiency of a gasoline car it is still going to result in fewer emissions
No, it is not, at least with respect to CO2. Typical thermal power plants in existance are 30-40% efficient. Modern plants are 40-50% efficient. A gasoline engine is ~20% efficient. 1/5th of 35% (or even 45%) is way below 20%. If you're talking about emissions other than CO2, however, you have a point (at least on some of them). Power plants are worse for NOx and SO2 than ICEs, but a lot better on HCs and CO. Particulate matter is about the same. Also, power plants can displace emissions away from densely populated areas.
If you want to talk efficiency, compare it to an EV where the source of the electricity is the same and thus the efficiencies are directly comparable in terms of environmental friendliness.
Gladly -- and I do that over on my site. Electric cars are incredibly energy efficient; after any generation losses (which are shared by hydrogen and air cars), they lose almost nothing -- 7-8% in transmission, similar in AC/DC conversion, a fraction of a percent in charge and discharge (if using li-ion batteries; with NiMH, it's much higher), and ~10% in the motor. Here's a study you might find interesting. It doesn't cover air cars, but it covers many other types of vehicles.
[quote]It's emissions, not waste heat, that are why gasoline engines are bad.[/quote]
CO2 emissions per mile are proportional to thermodynamic efficiency of the fuel cycle and amount of energy that is needed per mile. With a gasoline car, the well-to-wheel efficiency is about 20%. With an electric, it's ~30%. With a hydrogen car, it's ~15-20%. With an air car that operates on air alone, it's something like 4-20%, depending on whether you're using an onboard or home compressor, or whether you're using a huge, expensive, top of the line regenerative industrial compressor.
Air cars have a whole host of other issues, too. Horrible volumetric energy density, safety (the energy likes instant releases), decaying performance (the lower the tanks get, the slower your car), and so on.
This may seem like a troll, but it's 100% correct. Those numbers are impossible, even with drafting.
As for fuel efficient cars, the most efficient vehicle coming out in the near future is the Aptera Typ-1e/Typ-1h, but the Typ-1h only gets 130mpg when its battery is depleted. And this is a car with a 0.11 drag coefficient (compare to 0.26 for a Prius). It doesn't get much lower than that and still be streetlegal.
If you have access *and you know what you're doing*. I get the impression that the parents don't. As for whether the submitter should be doing it, if the parents are the type who install cybernanny software on their kids computers, I say go for it.
Anyways, as for passwords: what about acronym passwords? I love them because they're so easy to memorize, yet end up quite random. Have your sister think of a phrase -- for example, "Mom and Dad, leave me alone!" -- and then make an acronym out of it, like "MaD,lma!"
Autobloggreen has garnered a number of comments on this concept, most of them negative. To sum up:
* The thermodynamic efficiency of air cars is worse than gasoline engines, often far worse, meaning that you *hurt* the environment by driving it.
* The overwhelming majority of the performance of this vehicle comes from gasoline, not air
* The company has a very bad reputation of making ludicrous claims and misrepresenting stats
* It's made by Indian manufacturer Tata motors, not known for quality
In short, don't bother. If you want an affordable (100 mile range without burning any gasoline, that will be on the road in a year or two, there are really three good options I can think of off the top of my head right now: the Aptera, the VentureOne, and the MiEV. The Aptera is for if you want the absolute limit in energy efficiency modern tech can currently provide and want to look like you're driving a spaceship, the VentureOne is for if you want to feel like you're driving a motorcycle, and the MiEV is for if you have more than two people. I've probably missed a couple other good options, I'm sure.
To potential EV buyers: keep an eye out for scammers. Two big ones are LionEV and Spark EV.
To potential hydrogen car buyers: hydrogen cars are worse for the environment than gasoline cars, so don't bother.
That's CdTe cells, not CIGS.
Cosmos 954 was soviet, used a reactor and crashed 30yrs ago?
Yes, yes, and yes. Wow, can't you even follow a link?
CIGS uses *no* cadmium. You're confusing CIGS with the older thin-film tech, CdTe (cadmium telluride).
I can't believe that this beat out CIGS. 10-13% efficient in mass production (2/3rds that of silicon cells), but only $0.50-$1.50/W (cheaper than coal power even in Alaska), with almost no solar degradation or even radiation degradation (a big deal for satellites). And very lightweight at the same time. There are about two dozen companies working on different mass production methods, so them making it to market is pretty much a certainty. Nanosolar is already selling to Germany for $0.90/W, and reportedly makes its cells for $0.30/W. How could this not be a top 10 emerging tech?
A few others, among many:
* Long-lifespan, passively safe lithium-ion batteries hitting the market
* Vastly more energy dense energy storage techs in the lab
* The resurgence of the electric car (for example, the $27k highway-speed Aptera).
* Rocket launch costs for less than half what even the Russians, Chinese, and Indians are selling via SpaceX
"Buy lightspeed briefs."
I knew it! Conspiracy theories: 1. Regular theories: A billion
Few pieces? It was an entire nuclear reactor. And not the only one.
Since when do *any* large tanks from *anything* survive intact through reentry? Name *one* example. I can get you lots of pictures of busted up tanks from all sorts of spacecraft. Reentry heating and drag do not play around.