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Not sure what potential liquid air might have for the Big Island but any new ideas are worth exploring.....
I've been very interested in compressed air powered cars developed in India and the Dutch have used compressed air (windmill powered) to light up football stadiums. Compressed air can be stored at near 100% efficiency, unlike electricity and batteries. This guy in England has a new twist on storing wind powered energy, liquified air. I used to drive an old Vauxhall around England myself years ago.
What do you think?
Car Runs on Nothing But Air
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/vintage...d=18738263
....In Slough, on the outskirts of London, a tall, white cylinder sits in the middle of a power plant that's about as large as a hockey rink. The words "liquid air" are printed on the front, a tangle of white pipes leading off of it. This is Highview Power Storage.....
.....The plant stores energy created by renewable power sources when supply is high and demand is low -- say, when wind blows through wind farms at night, and local houses aren't using electricity.....
....Highview takes the "wrong time" energy and converts it into liquid air.
The plant then expands the liquid air using the same process as occurs in the car, exporting electricity back onto the grid without any effect on the environment.....
Assume the best and ask questions.
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The compressed air cars were in the test stage when we retired...Popular Mech came out with this article a couple of years later, highlighting the the "Air Car" - they do have a few reservations on this concept hitting US markets...esp this version:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/new...pt/4217016
The biggest 2 stumbling blocks here that I can think of are:
1. the need for more infrastructure (already some areas have here have multi-fuels for different vehicles, a sparse smattering of electrical refuel stations, compressed air would need refueling networks...which is real estate & equipment, along with the development & SALES of the vehicle - probably the biggest stumbling bloCk because..) &
2. the resistance to changing the way things are done here (here is general...but how many car dealerships on THIS island are selling new electric vehicles, even though there is market interest here (Leaf had a few pre-orders from this island & the local dealer refused to offer them & to get an electric Ford, you also have to go off island)... totally insane to have the state & feds giving incentives & the local dealerships blocking access... but that is the way it is here...
If you were to design an all new transport world, then I really do like the Comp Air model, esp as an energy "battery"- It would be neat if some of the areas scraped away by recent floods would have to install ideas like this...but reason #2 will probably still rule...
(the environmental equations are soo borderline... if you NEED a new car, then reducing carbon fossil fuels is better... some are surprised that a total carbon equation places hybrid vehicles behind lower milage vehicles as a hybrid has 2 separate power generations systems - BOTH an engine & a motor - are not as carbon friendly in manufacture & maintenance as a vehicle with one OR the other.... then there is the carbon cost of installing new infrastructure...& the cost of motivating the populace....it really does get complicated...)
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Peugeot is planning a hybrid compressed air to be in production by 2016, apparently the hybrid being the compressor carried on-board:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo...r-yes-air/
Behold a New Hybrid Car Powered by Air...Yes AIR!
An India car company is supposed to go into production this year with a completely compressed air car, with a range over 100 miles and 60mph. It is how they are using the compressed air, as a heat process, rather than thinking about it as just a pressure release process.
http://www.gaadi.com/Tata-MiniCat
Tata MiniCat
It is about the storage tanks and there are massive strides being made in materials science these days. To use compressed air as a pressure release process conventionally, it would take a 45,000 psi tank to get this kind of range and performance, far beyond even this technology, though. Using it to create a heat reactor, Tata is saying they can use a 4,500 psi tank with their heat reactor. It is conceivable that solar panels charge batteries that run air compressors that fill the tank.
The American car requirement is a 500 mile range before refill and 100mph. Only fuel cells are approaching this and it has taken several years to achieve 10,000 psi, which would be about a 350 mile range before refill and 80mph. 15,000 psi will be reached this year. Volkswagen has just made a deal with Ballard fuel cells to have production fuel cell cars in 2016. With fuel cells, water is disassembled into oxygen and hydrogen, the oxygen being released into the atmosphere. The hydrogen is compressed and stored in a pressure tank. Honda is evaluating solar powered hydrogen fuel stations:
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/SolarHydrogenStation/
This comes at a cost of using clean water and the electrical components of the station but clean water is returned to the environment by the "exhaust" of the fuel cell. The prohibition has been the cost of the fuel cell. Honda's first fuel cell cars leased to California a couple years ago cost $2 million each. Again, rapid advances in material science could see production cost levels in a few more years.
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If we all had electric cars ,we would not have electric to to watch TV on Big isalnd
Oil is here now! What do you think makes electric here?
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Mostly the sun at my house 
David
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We need less dependence on oil and wind power needs a more efficient storage system. What I found interesting in the article is the use of liquid air for storage of wind generated power.
Assume the best and ask questions.
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The Tata car mentioned does not use liquid air, only compressed air. I have no gut feeling about how efficient liquifaction of air would be. I do know that you have to take a massive amount of heat out to make air condense and we are talking about cryogenic temperatures. All this is different from plain old compressed air. In a sense the liquid air would be much better because you would be operating like a steam engine but instead of burning coal or oil to make water boil, you are using the ambient heat from the environment to make liquid air boil. Somewhere there must be very big engines and radiators to make all that heat flow uphill, so that later you can reap the benefit as the heat flows back downhill from the ambient air to the cryogenic air.
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Would be nice if we put 4-8K watts on a roof oh homes connected to a compressor. You could have huge cylinders being filled daily.
Then... Those cylinders would be hooked up to generators that would be power by compressed air. I wonder how much more efficient that would be vs. using LONG wires to run down to big battery banks. You would eliminate charge controllers, inveterate and the loss of power of power going into the batteries themselves.
Also, you could run an air tank down to ZERO and never worry about destroying it. Try doing that with a battery and you'll be buying new batteries in 3-6 months. Plus no maintenance on batteries ... I would assume having an air tank's vs a lot of batteries ... No worries of them burning down your house or taking on electrical lighting strikes. Would be interesting... One really cool thing would be endless storage. As long as you had a bunch of empty tanks to fill up, you could possibly ride out a whole month of cloudy days and never worry about having to buy a gas backup generators.
Ahhh, such a perfect system --- sounds too good to be true tho.
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob Tucker
We need less dependence on oil and wind power needs a more efficient storage system. What I found interesting in the article is the use of liquid air for storage of wind generated power.
It isn't just wind power that needs a more efficient storage system, it is all energy, especially solar. Right now, it is mainly batteries, or thermal storage (liquid salt). The other is capacitors, rather ultra-capacitors. It's the ultracapacitor that's allowing rail guns, mobile lasers, and linear motor catapults for aircraft carrier take-off. Several companies have failed to bring their consumer level ultracapacitor to market. There is now an ultracapacitor that will allow for levitating hoverboards and to charge a car in less than 5 minutes with a 500 mile range and 200mph. The problem is figuring out how to fabricate it.
"It was a majority decision to descend into the Dark Ages. Don't worry, be happy, bang on da drum all day!"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*
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