24-01-08, 12:19 AM
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WHAT IS AN AIR CAR?
WHAT IS AN AIR CAR?
Not a flying car. Air cars have tires and run on the road like any car. Instead of a gas engine they have an engine that runs on compressed air. Instead of a gas tank they have an air tank, like a scuba tank but bigger.
HOW FAST CAN AIR CARS GO?
The sky's the limit. Depending on the design, air can make a car putt-putt around town or burn rubber on the race track. Air engines work like steam engines: expansively rather than combustively. This gives them the highly desirable characteristic of maximum torque at starting speed, unlike the gas engine which must be geared down from the high speeds at which it must function.
HOW FAR DO AIR CARS GO BETWEEN FILLUPS?
There are three answers for three different types of air car.- Hybrid air cars carry a gas-powered engine and compressor on-board, so their range depends on the efficiency of the system and the size of the gas tank.
- Conventional air cars, such as the pneumatic locomotives that were available commercially from 1890 to 1930, stop at air stations to refuel. These cars can be designed to go 5 to 500 miles between fillups, depending on the efficiency of the system, the size and pressure of the tanks, and the ingenuity of the designer.
- Self-fueling air cars are powered by solar energy and can travel non-stop until they break or develop an air leak. Such cars are experimental in nature, and getting an inventor to give up his secret is harder than figuring it out for yourself. Hint: absolute zero (if the sun went out, for example) is 460 degrees below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
HOW COULD SOLAR ENERGY POWER AN AIR CAR?
No solar panels, mirrors, lenses or other solar collectors are involved. The Earth's atmosphere is a gigantic air tank containing four quadrillion tons of compressed air at the pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level, slightly less atop Mount Everest.
If not for the sun's heat, our atmosphere would freeze and fall to the ground as snow. The sun adds about 500 degrees of temperature to the air and all this heat is stored in air. When air is pushed into a tank, that is, compressed above atmospheric pressure, its internal energy (solar heat) becomes available for use as a piston-pushing or turbine-driving power.
WHY HASN'T THIS ALREADY BEEN DONE?
Compressed air cars have been around since the 1880s. Dozens of patents have been granted to inventors of air cars. After about 1930, the term "air engine" was no longer used in engineering textbooks, and the pneumatic locomotives which once proliferated in mining were mostly replaced by electric conveyances which had not been safe or reliable until then. It was becoming apparent by 1930 that compressed air was going to displace the fuel industry with free solar energy, and sometime during the second world war it became unpopular in engineering circles to think optimistically of compressed air as an energy carrier. Gas was cheap at the time, and there was little apparent need to consider alternatives; we ate what the oil companies fed us, and now we are paying $3.00 for a gallon of gas in the U.S. while people in other countries are paying even more.
The short answer: we are letting profit-oriented mega-corporations make our decisions for us, instead of thinking about what we could be doing to improve our conditions and the condition of our environment. And why not? We Americans are still living like aristocrats compared to the rest of the world.
WHAT IS THERE TO LOSE IF WE WERE TO SWITCH OVER TO AIR? - Control of your transportation needs by energy monopolies.
- Worsening air pollution.
- Economic destabilization caused by manipulation of oil prices.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE OTHER ALTERNATIVES?
Electric cars use power generated by coal, nuclear power, and dams. They require hours to recharge. Batteries must be replaced frequently, and have no place to go when they die. Materials used in conventional batteries are caustic and poisonous. Materials used in exotic batteries are as scarce as petroleum. Batteries are many times heavier than air tanks.
Hydrogen cars use combustion engines, which are Rube Goldberg devices that an enlightened public would refuse to buy. Hydrogen must be stored in an altered form to keep it from being many times more explosive than gasoline or diesel. Hydrogen cars exhaust water, which will freeze on the road in cold weather and increase the humidity of the atmosphere, worsening the greenhouse effect. Hydrogen is much more costly to produce as a fuel than fossil fuels.
The simplest solution is the best solution. Air tanks don't really wear out or explode; not like batteries do, and nowhere near as often. Air engines require less frequent oil changes than gas engines, and can be designed to be almost lubricant-free. Air tanks can be filled in a minute or two. No chemical reactions take place in the compression of air. Air compressors actually clean the air, and no air motor increases greenhouse gases. All the necessary technology has existed for 100 years. Simple solutions cost less. Homespun mechanics will be back in business. High tech = high cost. Compressed air is solar energy. Solar energy is free energy.
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