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A Most Glorious Eco-Friendly Vehicle

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Behold the glorious future, Comrades:

The AirPod carries four people in a vehicle that is about 6 feet longand weighs roughly 450 pounds. Its single-piston engine is driven by compressed air. The tank holds 175 liters of compressed air, according to Zero Pollution Motors,and can be filled to 350 bar (5,076 psi!) in as little as 90 seconds.That's enough to give the AirPod a range of about 135 miles and a top speed of 43 mph.

Here's a picture:

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I hope the Obamessiah gets Government Motors to make these for the USSA.

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Darn it! I had just gotten use to this car.
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Only missing one of the people's options. <p>
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I was thinking of attaching an air balloon to the back of this toy car as an additional propelling device increasing its speed to 43.5 mph, but then I thought of the children who may suffer in the resulting speeding accidents.

On the other hand, this may be a good car to drive around in a big city with 30 mph limits and limited parking space, and reducing the population of both drivers and passengers by being a sophisticated eco-friendly death trap.

On the the third hand (a Party member can have as many hands as his chain of argument requires), can it really boast "zero emissions" if the air must be pumped into the tank using coal-generated electricity? Therefore, to be truly progressive, the air pump must be powered by mules walking in a circle, or, better yet, minimum-wage proles, who otherwise wouldn't be able to put bread on the tables of their their big families.

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Comrade Red Square, the proles pumping the air will exhale carbon dioxide though, thus creating carbon emissions. Unless we fit them with carbon scrubbing masks and deduct carbon credits from their paycheck, and make them plant a certain number of trees to make up for their emissions, then the whole idea crumbles.

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Red Square wrote:I was thinking of attaching an air balloon to the back of this toy car as an additional propelling device increasing its speed to 43.5 mph, but then I thought of the children who may suffer in the resulting speeding accidents.

On the other hand, this may be a good car to drive around in a big city with 30 mph limits and limited parking space, and reducing the population of both drivers and passengers by being a sophisticated eco-friendly death trap.

On the the third hand (a Party member can have as many hands as his chain of argument requires), can it really boast "zero emissions" if the air must be pumped into the tank using coal-generated electricity? Therefore, to be truly progressive, the air pump must be powered by mules walking in a circle, or, better yet, minimum-wage proles, who otherwise wouldn't be able to put bread on the tables of their their big families.

Or you could save the planet Al Gore style by blowing into the tires with your own breath, ergo, you blow CO2 into the tire, trapping the gas.

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I notice they never mention how much energy it takes to compress that air and how that compares to a gallon of gasoline in cost or CO2 emissions.

It's a well know fact of physics that nothing is 100% efficient. So every time you convert energy from one form to another, there will be waste. So instead of simply burning oil to rotate a wheel, we must first mine coal, then burn it to make electricity, use that electricity to compress air, then expel that air to rotate the wheel.

The less conversion stages between the fuel and work, the greater the efficiency, the lower the cost and likely, the smaller the emission footprint.

Wasted energy is the downside of every green scheme. There is no free lunch. Not even at the Cube.

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Do I smell thoughtcrimes Comrade Whoopie? Everyone who is in line here at the Cube knows the Cube is absolutely 100% efficient. It's achieved by gathering the hard labor energy of lowly proles. They work, we get energy, completely green energy at the Cube.

Now yes, the proles fart and produce waste in energy conversion, but this is why we have secluded them in Siberia, it will freeze, and fall back to the Earth as snow, there by keeping the waste from the atmosphere. The "snow" can be melted into water and given to the proles.

The Circle of Life comrade, now, report to your local commissar at the nearest railroad station. Don't forget warm cloths.

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Comrade Whoopie wrote:I notice they never mention how much energy it takes to compress that air and how that compares to a gallon of gasoline in cost or CO2 emissions.

It's a well know fact of physics that nothing is 100% efficient. So every time you convert energy from one form to another, there will be waste. So instead of simply burning oil to rotate a wheel, we must first mine coal, then burn it to make electricity, use that electricity to compress air, then expel that air to rotate the wheel.

The less conversion stages between the fuel and work, the greater the efficiency, the lower the cost and likely, the smaller the emission footprint.

Wasted energy is the downside of every green scheme. There is no free lunch. Not even at the Cube.


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Ahh, one of Komrade Turboski's favorite topics- how we could actually solve our dependence on imported energy (and other related issues) in ~ 10 years, with some leadership and vision.

The solution begins with the electric vehicles due to start rolling out next year, but the rest of the pieces to make it work properly are some strategic (yet relatively minor) infrastructure enhancement, and some proper visionary guidance from our leadership as well. So far we hear no encouraging noises on the latter aspects though <sigh>.

The air car engine is interesting technology, because to make it (somewhat) viable they had to greatly improve the basic rotating machine (vs a standard piston engine) such that it could extract and use a greater percentage of the limited energy that it carries in its compressed air reservoir. The improvement made shows that they do in fact understand one of the main conversion efficiency limitations of the current piston engine. Not many people do, surprisingly. The current piston engine under the hood of a people's vehicle also runs on air pressure basically- the force that eventually drives the wheels originates from (pressure x area) of a piston(s), just like the new compressed air powered prole-mobile above.

But glorious Comrade Whoopie is right on about the issue of overall reduction of "well to wheel" efficiency in this case. The good thing you can say about it, it would zip around downtown Austin gulag for example, say from UT to Whole Foods to the coffe shop to the book store and then back to the expensive new high rise condo (lol) without actually spewing any combustion by products. It would at least move these byproducts out away from the crowded inner city.

Comrade T Boone Pickens has recently publicized an energy dependence solution plan where he a) wants to plant a gigantic wind farm(s) starting in the wilds of W TX, and in fact is doing so as we speak (<ack>- it's a hideous blight on the landscape IMO/IME) (perhaps Commisar Theocritus would concur). He also b)opines that converting cars to run on natural gas rather than gasoline/diesel is the way to go as far as solving energy independence. He has ~ good intentions there (aside from his own commercial interests- he sells gas) but the plan for cars is not good IMO. Komrade can argue that the best solution is going to be the electric vehicle (with on board "range extender" of course). Again, IFF it also gets the needed infrastructire enhancements to go with it.

If it does in fact get the rest of the story from comrade leaders, then within a relatively short time, say > 75% of the entire country could commute to work and back each day, plus get their daily errands done entirely on stored electric power (in fact up to ~ 120 miles/day total available range on current battery technology: fully charging overnight, topping off while at work in the morning, topping off again while at work in the afternoon). In this case then, not a single drop of imported oil needed to be consumed over the entire commute cycle. This is profound...

If more range is needed the vehicle has an on board generator (range extender). This generator could/will be powered by a higher efficiency engine running on any fuel that makes sense. But unlike a current hybrid, this engine never drives the wheels directly. That is the primary difference between a current hybrid (like the Prius) vs the coming generation of electric vehicles.

The rest of the leadership story would be, generate that electric power with say (rough numbers here) ~ 40% natural gas, which we have plenty of here, plus also mandate that say 30% (by like 2020) be from nuclear, and perhaps 5-10% from renewable. The rest can still come from coal or whatever. In fact Austin currently already gets about half it's energy from natural gas (like Decker Lake plant). And Austin is the largest consumer currently of the W TX wind farm energy, though it amounts to only about 1% of the energy requirement currently.

Joila- we have absolutely solved our foreign oil dependence in a relatively short period of time(!) And greatly reduced greenhouse gas emmissions to boot (if it matters)...

People's agent Komrade Turboski over and out.

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Comrades,

Here is more information on the Presidential policies concerning cars plus an endorsement for them from the National Ass'n of Morticians. They cover pretty much all the points, except which type of shovel you'll want to dig your own grave, assuming you survive that car crash (or do but get government health care):



Keep in mind here we have 660cc and 800cc cars. I've ridden motorcycles with bigger engines.

Sometimes living the future can be a real come-down.

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Indeed current hybrids have always confused me. Consider large tugboats or diesel locomotives. They have electric engines powered by a smaller diesel engine that exists only to generate electric power, and are extremely efficient in their fuel consumption.

Why we don't have small natural gas/electric or diesel/electric cars is beyond me. Given the current state of battery tech it makes sense to have a primarily electric car with a small natural gas or diesel power unit to either run the electric motors or top off the running batteries when needed. Also I'm envisioning some sort of small air scoop on the car that funnels air onto a small wind turbine that helps keep the batteries topped off, and mebbe some sort of solar panel built into the roof. Not total solutions of course, but the small wind turbine and solar unit would be of some help, the wind turbine more than the solar, but one takes what one can get IMHO.

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It depends. Some of my kin live in great fields of grain where a hybrid makes no sense at all. The distances are so vast, you'll never use the battery, the extra weight of which actually detracts from mileage.

But no matter what Comrade UnPerson Kerry says, government isn't nuanced. It'll be hybrids for everyone, by law. Live in the middle of ND and drive an hour to buy groceries but your battery only lasts 50 minutes? I guess you'll need two cars, one to park half-way, except it'll crap out before home. But pushing is good exercise for obese Americans, especially reactionary ones.

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Comrade Tovarich, living in rural Amerikkka is overrated and probably reactionary to boot. If one cannot get somewhere on a single charge of a battery pack one should require special permission from the government to own an evil non hybrid vehicle. Just like in the days of WWII where each person had gasoline rations based on their need, so will people get mileage rations in the future. It's glorious, simply glorious!

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Comrades, all this talk of "hybrid" vehicles makes this comrade wish for the old days, when the proles were happy with a bicycle, instead of having to walk everywhere or ride a smelly old horse. Now they are spoiled with gasoline-powered automobiles and ess-eew-vees. If they were forced to return to bicycles for their main transportation, then little Jimmy and Susie wouldn't worry about being late for soccer practice and ballet lesson, Mommy wouldn't be hauling them around for that crap! Mommy wouldn't be able to pedal hard and long enough to cross town several times a day. Plus, Mommy would lose that voluptuous beet-and-potato-fed figure of hers, with all that exercise, and this cannot be allowed to happen!

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Colonel 7.62 wrote:Comrade Tovarich, living in rural Amerikkka is overrated and probably reactionary to boot. If one cannot get somewhere on a single charge of a battery pack one should require special permission from the government to own an evil non hybrid vehicle. Just like in the days of WWII where each person had gasoline rations based on their need, so will people get mileage rations in the future. It's glorious, simply glorious!
I thought we have bypasses for that with comrade AlGore's carbon credits.

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Comrades,

Regarding my kin, I will request a housing transfer so they can be relocated to a People's Paradise like East LA or Beserkeley.

As Party members, how can we enhance our access to the PartyCredits via our boy Al Gore? I'm eying a 1967 Pontiac GTO and could probably use some--in proletarian parlance--"pull" to get my fair share of carbon offsets.

I plan to register the GTO as a horse, for when it breaks down, it does nag me, and it eats a lot. However, registering a horse doesn't score me the People's Carbon Points (PCP) I need.

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Comrade Colonel, if I may, the train uses an electric motor due to the huge torque requirement needed to get the whole mass moving from a stop. The electric motor can provide maximum torque at 0 rpm, which is what is needed to get moving in that case. And that particular need outweighs the need for overall energy efficiency. The conversion from diesel fuel -> electric energy -> drive force is less efficient overall than diesel fuel -> drive force.

And for rural ameriKKKa, the diference between hybrid and electric is a key point. By definition, electric vehicle can only use electric power to drive the wheels. Once the battery is discharged, then it is running as the above locomotive, from on board electric power gen set. Hybrid, in the Prius implementation at least (with "Hybrid Synergy Drive", a glorified planetary gear set), can use either the motor or the engine or a combination to drive the wheels. Comrade T is right there of course, in his kin folk case the EV is probably not the best solution for overall efficiency. However, at least the EV can run its on board generator as a "gen set" and in its sweet spot, which tends to be give better efficiency than operating over a wide range. Offsets some of the conversion loss at least. But the first 50 miles or so of the drive could come exclusively from electric power, and thus unhooked from the middle eastern oil wells at least ;)

Using some rough estimates, at ~ 12 cents/kW-hr (current home electric rate), my own weekly commute (~ 18 miles one way) would cost about half what it does running on gasoline currently. My own monthly home energy usage is about 1000kW-hr, average. On average, that usage is roughly equivalent to just leaving a 1500W hair dryer on 24/7. Additionally powering the commute would approximately double that home energy usage.

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Comrade Turboski, you give a most equal explanation. Thank you. How did you manage to escape the purges anyway?

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Komrade Turboski,

Good work! However, I must ask: Are turbochargers Party- (thus, by extension, Gore-) approved?

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Comrades,

I have been alerted to a prog movie we must see called The Age of Stupid and described here in a most caring and sharing manner.

The describing website quotes a bit of promo email for the movie:
Under a section entitled Good News the email chirpily informs us:

“Good riddance to US car giant General Motors, who declared bankruptcy this week! Whilst this is sad news for the thousands of workers set to lose their jobs, it is very good news for the climate.”

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Comrade Tovarich the turbocharger must be Party approved, since nearly all laboring long haul diesel trucks are so equipped :) They mate particularly well with diesel, given the nature of diesel combustion. One slightly difficult aspect though is that diesel almost always runs well lean of stoich a/f ratio, and thus tends to have relatively low exhaust gas thermal energy available to spin up the turbine.

The Party has made them difficult for spark engines though, because of emissions issues. The vast majority of emissions for an EPA cycle occur inthe first few moments of a cold start. The turbo engine suffers there, because the turbine generally means having to place the catalyst further down in the exh stream, thus it "lights off" later. Some more equal comrades may have noticed that lately there is generally a catalyst placed right up at the exhaust manifold on modern engines. This is exactly for combating the cold start emissions issues.

Lately it is exciting to see the progress made with so called "direct injection" spark engines (SIDI). Quantum leaps in power/efficiency from a given displacment have been made lately. GM has helped lead this development in fact. The Saturn Redline (and Cobalt SS) have lately featured a 260 hp turbo 4 cyl that is only 2.0L in size(!). The base v6 SIDI engine in the luscious new Camaro <drool> boasts 304 hp, normally aspirated, from only 3.6L. Impressive.

Komrade Turboski used to day labor at an engine research institute in the mid/late 90's, shoveling diesel emissions research for the EPA and DOE primarily. At that time, SIDI was just struggling to come to life and there were many big problems, among them particulate emissions. Interesting that a recent check of the Cobalt SS forums FAQ has a bullet item for "Why does my exhaust tip show so much soot?" Lol :D Guess the soot emitting condition(s) that occurs with DI (that is yet to be tuned out apparently) is not a large part of the Party emissions certification ;)

Turboski

One good, hard kick in the door would total this thing.

I KNOW I'm not being progressive! What are you going to do? Send me to Village 63? AHAHAHAHAHA!!!

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Comrade Ivan, you are showing too much independence. We will not be sending you anywhere though. You will stay in Village 62. Locked up in a tiny room that you can neither sit nor stand in, with a bright light shining all day, and a single bucket with which to get your food, and shit in. And that is before your punishment starts. Welcome to the Glorious World of Next Tuesday(TM) comrade.


 
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