Quote:
Originally Posted by fourWheelDrift
I don't agree that hybrids as a concept are a joke although the current models may not be all that good, however whatever people might wish to be true the future is not fossil fuels. There are at least five technologies showing promise to store energy from whatever source for use by vehicles:battery (most mature), hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen ICE, alcohol fuel cells or ICE, compressed gas and liquid air. all except liquid air have already been used in vehicles, in some parts of the world compressed air is powering short range delivery vehicles,a bit like the early uses of battery vehicles but rechargeable as quickly as filling a tank with diesel.
As with alternative energy in general you can criticise any one technology because it will not solve the problem alone and use that as an excuse to do nothing, the trick is to use all the good ideas to complement one another.
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I like the idea of 'rechargeable' compressed air vehicles, but the idea reminds me of something else.
Just down the road from where I work is an old railway engine in a field by the side of the road and when you've looked at it a dew times you realise that although it obviously is a steam train, there's something not quite right about it. Then you realise there's no funnel for the smoke, and that's because it has no firebox.
Apparently it was used in somewhere like a coke manufacturing plant, so a fire is the last thing you need, and was re-charged regularly from the steam boilers in the factory so it could go about its work safely. It would seem that there aren't really any new ideas, just improvements on the old ones...