It's entirely off topic but I have to spread the word on this car I'm reading about. Now if only this was available in America
today I'd be driving to work today without gasoline,
biodiesel, methane, ethanol, corn oil or hydrogen.
Interested? More on after the fold.
This weekend I stumbled on an article about a European company that has been working for 10 years to build a car that runs on
compressed air. The
MDI Air Car is too cool for words. It's now in production. My only question is where can I buy it?
The MDI Air Car runs on a tank of 90m3 of normal air, refills at a service station in 3 minutes, drives 60 mph for 120 miles and has emissions you can breath.
For the energy profile, compare 2 hours of gasoline burning to 3 minutes of an air compressor engine.
In 2 hours at 60 mph I would get 26 miles per gallon so I'd burn up 4.6 gallons of gas and I'd hit the Air Car range of 120 miles.
3 minutes running a professional strength air compressor, say 10 horsepower, would draw 7.5kw for 3 mins. (est 750 watts per horsepower) At 220V that's 34 amps for 3 mins or 1.7 Amp-hours.
For comparison this is less than the electricity required to run 4 100 watt light bulbs continuously for an hour.
So 4.6 gallons of gasoline or 4 100 watt light bulbs left on for the duration of the drive?
Drat, I've got to go burn a gallon and get to work. Maybe someone can check my math?