October 3, 2004

A beam of stupidity, a ray of light...

From Yahoo/AP comes this story of some group in France trying to resurrect the "compressed-air-car" trope, stupidity at best. The article is glowing but they check their facts and note that compressed air is not a fuel: bq. Pricey Oil Could Be Boon for European Car Record-high oil prices might seem like bad news for the auto industry. But one European manufacturer plans to make a type of car unaffected by $50-a-barrel crude — cars that run on compressed air. bq. "It's safe, doesn't pollute, doesn't explode, it's not poisonous and it's not expensive," said Sebastien Braud, a representative for Luxembourg-based Moteur Developpement International. bq. Inside the Air Car, an electric pump compresses air into a tank. The air in turn pumps pistons that take the vehicle up to 70 mph. The car can travel 50 miles at top speed on a full tank, and farther at lower speeds. Emphasis mine - I used to SCUBA dive and compressed air tanks do explode - I had a safety-disk rupture happen on a set of twins. Thankfully, it was where I was living and not underwater but I have also seen what a full tank can do when the valve gets 'bumped' Fortunately for Yahoo/AP's credibility (these days anyway), they checked with someone else and the report continues: bq. Environmentalists are also wary about the Air Car's claimed benefits. Converting energy from electricity to compressed air is inefficient, according to Karsten Krause of the European Federation for Transport and Environment, a green lobby group based in Brussels. bq. By consuming much more energy from the power plant than it delivers on the road, Krause said, it could even do as much environmental damage as some gasoline cars. bq. "You may not have any pollution from the car itself," he said, "but you're just transferring the environmental burden to another place." bq. Krause's organization pushes a much simpler recipe for cutting greenhouse gas and toxic emissions from vehicles. If consumers ditched their SUVs and other gas guzzlers and chose engine capacities reflecting their real needs, he said, fuel consumption would drop by a third. Sheesh - someone with an environmental brain! For a good dissection of air cars, hydrogen and the whole Eco-Energy myth, check out Don Lancaster's website and especially this article (PDF reader required) Posted by DaveH at October 3, 2004 12:46 AM