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by As an encore to a similar contest from last year, the X-Prize Foundation is offering $10 million dollars to the team that designs and builds a production ready car capable of 100 mpg. More than 60 teams have signed up for the contest which is open to anyone, including established automakers. A cross country race will be held in 2009 for finalists where fuel efficiency, speed and distance will be part of the judging criteria. Many different technologies are represented, including diesel cars, electric cars and most interestingly a compressed air powered car from MDI Motors.
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Compressed Air as Energy by Brandon :: NR9 :: on 21 March 2008
The linked article doesn't go into much detail on the benefits of compressed air as a means of storing/transferring energy, but I found a fairly detailed article about the technology on the MDI website.
Towards the end there are a few images of a design a guy in the Dominican Republic came up with that would generate compressed air by having cars drive over little pumps in the road. It seems to me there would be all sorts of ways to harvest energy along these lines. Weight rooms, for example, could be designed completely around this idea - use the energy expensed by people working out to save money on electricity.
Heading in another direction ... It's articles and new technologies like this that gives me confidence we will not find ourselves in an energy shortage for a very, very long time. There are too many new and innovative ways for us to be more efficient.
RE: Compressed Air as Energy by Anonymous :: NR0 :: on 21 March 2008
The "fairly detailed article" is on Air Car Factories website. This website now has nothing to do with MDI. MDI official website is http://www.mdi.lu - check both websites for further info.