Compressed Air "Batteries"

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aminorjourney
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Postby aminorjourney » Mon May 28, 2007 7:16 am

I still want to see one in the flesh. If it turns out that, pound for pound, it's cheaper to run a four-hour compression cycle (which you've used renewable-sourced electricity to run the compressor) and then use that compressed energy as 'power' for an air engine and that buying and maintaining said air vehicle is cheaper than regularly buying new batteries I could certainly see the idea of air vehicles catching on. And it's not bad news for EV owners either. If people concentrate on the infrastructure for both (electrical outlets) we're both happy!
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Postby ChrisB » Mon May 28, 2007 8:28 am

I think thats it Nikki , if the air vehicles are so wonderful where are they ???

OK so you could say they are new technology but air engines have been discussed for years now and everynow and then one pops its head up for a short video clip, are we seeing air engines being run by jo blogs ?

I think theres got to be fundamental problems with these units which either makes them just too costly to use or the maths dosnt add up on them and while they do actually work its not a viable option to actually use them.

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Postby aminorjourney » Mon May 28, 2007 8:32 am

Actually Chris, I've seen some on these films and they look pretty good.

Don't forget Electric vehicles have been around for over a century but they're still viewed by many as non-suitable technology for transport.

For the past 100 years our transport industry has revolved around the need for oil and oil products. Perhaps these air vehicles have suffered the same injustices that EVs have: No-one is interested because they are a threat?

Just thinking out loud :)

I think there may be more in these air engines than people think!

P.S. Isn't it great to have these sorts of discussions? :)
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Postby ChrisB » Mon May 28, 2007 8:40 am

Agreed , but thats just it, we keep seeing these things on film/video etc going back many many years I'm pretty sure there was a bit on a program called "Tomorrows World" ( wow what ever happened to that program :cry: )
But thats all we've ever seen, dodgey bits of film.

EV's on the other hand have been around for ..........well hundreds of years pretty much as soon as the motor was invented if you think about it.

If the air engine was so good then the military would be using it as 99% of stuff thats anygood normally gets developed by the military or space race bods first, as they have the money to do it.

I'm not saying it cant be done or doesnt work I think its just not a cost effective way of using power currently and hence doesnt get developed.

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Postby ChrisB » Mon May 28, 2007 8:46 am

aminorjourney wrote:
P.S. Isn't it great to have these sorts of discussions? :)


Always good to have a good banter in my book 8) as long as things dont get too heated, I dont proclaim any wonderful things, everything I spout is either stuff I've learnt or I'm still learning about or just my view on a subject.
Sometimes I'm wrong :oops: , sometimes I'm right but I'm always out to learn new stuff.

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CAES Power Plant

Postby k81ng » Mon May 28, 2007 8:55 am

ChrisB wrote:I think thats it Nikki , if the air vehicles are so wonderful where are they ???


Actually, if you check the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage), you'll see that, according to the US Dept. of Energy, there are already two power plants relying on this technology. CAES is being looked at by a number of folk in order to store power from renewable sources such as wind and waves, too.
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aminorjourney
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Postby aminorjourney » Mon May 28, 2007 8:56 am

Completely Chris, and that's the reason why these forums are so good!

Have you, perchance, looked at the MDI site? It's the site of the AirCar company MDI who are seemingly now into quite advanced devlopment of this technology. I have had a browse through the site and it seems to answer some of the questions aimed at air cars. It may provide a little more detail than those old clips*.

I love it reading about new technologies (i.e. new to me). I think that new technology could hold the very solution to some of the problems we're faced with when it comes to global warming. I wish these guys all the luck in the world with the Air Engine because if it works it could slove a lot of problems generated by battery use.

Maybe not now, but in the future perhaps it'll be a common tech?



(*Wow. Tomorrow's world. I used to watch that! It was one of my favorites alongside the Krypton Factor... Okay, I was only five at the time! )
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Postby EVguru » Mon May 28, 2007 9:07 am

I've been involved with EVs for over 12 years and I've got very cynical. I've heard all the 'new' inventions and 'amazing breakthroughs'. Most weren't new and most weren't breakthroughs.

I've seen the companies playing the 'grant game' or sucking in venture capital. Some were just conmen.

I had a visit by some people from Malaysia, who were working on a government funded EV project. They'd paid £500,000 to licence the Frazer Nash technology. They came to me when they found it was worthless and I pointed them at Electroautomotive.

I've been following the air car for many of those 12 years and the public face of the project has rung many of the allarm bells that I've developed over the years. It's been discussed on the EV list many times and people who can do the maths have shown that the energy density of compressed air is less than that of good old 'wet' lead acid. The energy efficiency is about half that of lead acid!

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Postby ChrisB » Mon May 28, 2007 9:11 am

Wow interesting link and certainly the best bit of info on them I've ever seen.

Whats this all about

Image

Most bizzare piston comrod layout. Lots of moving parts in that !!!!!

I wonder why theres not more noise about them ?? ( excuse the pun :lol: )

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Postby aminorjourney » Mon May 28, 2007 9:14 am

Okay, but I'm talking about lifespans here.

A regular EV will use many sets of batteries in a lifetime. Would an Aircar over a ten year lifespan use less resources? After all, air is free. Yes, you'll need to compress it and that will use energy - but will the total resource footprint be less than half a tonne of lead acids? Just curious :)
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