Is This the Best Solution to Alternative Fuels?

Question

I found this on youtube you never hear about air cars as an alternative so I thought it was neat www.ConvertToAir.com

Answer 1

To be honest most alternative fuels have a price.

Simillar to how producing hydrogen fuel will release in someway polutants (trough fossil fuel refinement), the use of this air has major drawbacks.

Pressurizing air requires electric, and producing electric (for the most part) produces pollutants (because 80% of electric is made through burning coal). By increasing the need for electric by an expotential amount if we converted to this system, we would not see great benefits.

According to convertoair.com

A car tank of 54 gallons will give you only 93 miles.

To get that 54 gallons, the air must be pressurized.

To do so, just like hydrogen, the air must be compressed.

Compression occurs through the use of expensive machines. that range in the tens of thousands.

To make matters worse,  the process of presursing air on average can cause chemical reactions to occur, thus the air most likely will have to undergo a controlled reaction before it can be pressurized.

Besides, these tanks don't pressurize themselves, every 93 miles someone (a mechanic) would have to alter the tank because you can't just insert pressurized air of that intensity into a tank. Think of using pressure 10times that the amount in your tires.

I hope this helps.

Our energy problem is not simple, but i would recoomend looking up some alternative fuels.

Sugar cane ethanol: much more effective than corn based

Electric cars: In conjunction with a nuclear energy program we could achieve "true" zero emissions.

Answer 2

There's been a lot of talk lately about fuel alternatives and I'm not so sure I know what's the 'best' solution, but I sure hope someone figures it out and comes up with a good plan. lol

Answer 3

No, air cars are not the solution, because it takes a lot of energy to compress air, and it's impossible to have a car that compresses it's own air and drives forever because that violates the laws of physics. It takes energy to move the car, and that energy needs to come from somewhere. The real solution is hydrogen cars. There needs to be stations with solar panels, the electricity generated will split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Fuel cars up with the hydrogen, and when the car runs, hydrogen is mixed with oxygen in a catalyst, which produces electricity to power the car. The only emissions are pure water. There is no net change in the water supply, and all the energy comes from the sun.

Answer 4

Air cars are an alternative to such devices as electric battery cars, super-flywheel driven cars, or stored hydrogen power.

What we have to do is spend a lot of energy winding up our clockwork car so that the car can go some finite distance on a fraction of the energy we spent building up the pressure or charging the battery.

There are already available  electrically rechargeable devices that are more efficient than air cars, so my guess is that air cars will not be effectively on the market before they will be outdated.

Right now we do not have enough electricity to power air cars or battery electric cars in large numbers.

Answer 5

difficult, the cost of conservation in uncertain and beyond the reach of common man

Answer 6

So long as the air is compressed using green energy, this idea could form part of the solution.

Other things being equal, I don't know if it would be more efficient (hence cheaper) than electric or hydrogen power.