Price of Air due to Skyrocket

http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

The problem with compressed air as an energy storage medium is that PV=nRT, as you increase the pressure of air, it's temperature goes up and you get a tank of hot (or at least warm) air, the tank will proceed to cool to ambient temperature, then when you use the air to drive a piston the reverse happens, the air cools dramatically when decompressed in the piston, resulting in less displacement than the volume of air that originally went into the tank.  Unfortunately, the more you compress air (IE range), the more losses you incur due to this.

IME, other than PHEVs, the other great application is compressed natural gas vehicles like the Honda Civic GX.  You can fill them up in your home from your natural gas line with a $3000 compressor (which can fill multiple cars).  Sure it's mostly fossil fuel right now, but methane - the principal stuff of natural gas - is FAR easier to make from renewable sources than liquid fuels such as ethanol, or bio-diesel, because it is a much simpler compound.  Many existing cars can be modified to run on compressed natural gas by tweaking or replacing parts in the carbeurator or fuel injectors and adding a tank.  It's already popular for fleet vehicles like UPS trucks because they can use a central fueling station and the fuel is 40% cheaper, but home compressors are getting inexpensive enough to make it practical for the general population - and there are many gas stations that carry in in CA too now.

Hmmm...........What are the energy demands to compress the air?   It's like electric vehicles:  There's a hidden ecological cost.  It's just not at the car.

I've been watching these cars for about 2 years now. The inventor said he is working on a generator / compressor that will work like the hybrids by charging the batteries when you brake.

Essentually, it would run the generator when braking and the generator would run the compressor to re-charge the air tank. This would increase the range of these many times.

Looks promising

Stoggie

I've seen a couple hydrogen cars, where the car battery is used to convert *water* to hydrogen for buring.  the cars can use regular gas as well, I understand.

Still wondering where the catch is....

"run your car for 200 miles on 1/4 cup of water" or something like that.....

Allen