🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <10310@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM>, tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM 
(Trevor German) writes:
> 	6. All of the above requires significant engineering and expensive
> 	   hardware that is way out of the price range of domestic transports.

yup.

> 	That brings up another point though. Why can't compressed air be
> 	used directly to drive a vehicle. I guess it's a quantity thing,
> 	but I can visualize a compressed air turbine being used as a power
> 	plant. A large chunk of industry uses the stuff for a power source
> 	after all.

Yes but they do so with a large AC line-powered compressor plus a large 
storage tank (a "battery", if you will), and the things that are powered 
are relatively small.  

An air tank big enough to replace the gas tank in even a lightweight car
would be much bigger than the car.  Fittings and so on to handle that much
pressure  would be "interesting".  Especially the non-permanent connection to
the air pump at the "recharging" station. 

> 	Like whats the point making the cars electric if it just puts 
> 	more smoke up the electric companies chimney. Concentrates the problem
> 	of pollution also.

Actually this is an advantage.  First of all by doing all the "burning" in one
place, you can realize economies of scale.  Second, it will generally be
cheaper and easier to install one really good pollutant filter on the power
station's stack than to put little ones in all the cars. 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Consulting, San Diego CA
Internet:  jeh@cmkrnl.com, hanrahan@eisner.decus.org, or jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,eisner,uunet}!cmkrnl!jeh