Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Brian H]

Side note: air cars are being touted as an ideal non-polluting alternative. But it turns out there are, of course, catches.

1) Compressing the air takes power, which comes from wherever the grid gets it.
2) Compression generates heat, lots of it; the car air tanks would get VERY hot.
3) Absent perfect insulation, the heat would gradually leak into the ambient air, bringing the tanks down to local air temp.
4) On release, the air COOLS, massively. Unless it starts out hot, it would be deep-freezing whatever it touched, and probably cause rapid ice-condensation buildup.
5) So to keep the system functional the air would have to be heated in the tanks or on the way out. Which takes power.
6) Most designs use air injected into pistons, which produces quite a noisy contraption.

But for local and warehouse applications, it may have a (brief) future.