Powering a Car with Liquid Air | Trailblazers | BBC Earth Lab
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Peter Dearman’s invention has inspired a revolution in the storage of renewable energy. His liquid air engine can already power a car, but that’s nothing compared to its other applications… #Trailblazers Best of Earth Lab: http://bit.ly/EarthLabOriginals Best of BBC Earth: http://bit.ly/TheBestOfBBCEarthVideos Trailblazers (2022) Meet the people trying to change the world and help the climate. This includes futuristic farming, plastic bricks, liquid air and more initiatives that have the potential to alter the future. This is a channel from BBC Studios who help fund new BBC programmes. Service information and feedback: http://bbcworldwide.com/vod-feedback--contact-details.aspx
  • @[email protected]English
    1•1 year ago

    It’s like you holding that same thing suspended in air for a year. You must put in work to do that, right?

    Your body is burning energy because it’s not good at holding a position continuously. An idling car is sitting there, burning fuel - but it’s not actually doing any useful work, just getting hot. You get the same result by turning the engine off and putting on the handbrake, only without the heat.

    Why do you think it takes work to suspend something using tension, but not to support something using compression - e.g., the same object resting on a desk?

    Work is force times distance; that’s proven to the n^th decimal place. If nothing moves, no work was done.

    I really can’t imagine someone doing this in the age of electric cars.

    Battery-electric is a way to move power. You still need to generate power in the first place - and perpetual motion would be great for the grid, for ships, everything. It just doesn’t work.

    https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2305

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 year ago

      Battery-electric is a way to move power. You still need to generate power in the first place - and perpetual motion would be great for the grid, for ships, everything. It just doesn’t work.

      I wasn’t talking about perpetuum mobile, I was talking about the magnets actually spending their magnetic energy… you would have to magnetize them again from time to time.

      Nice comic BWT, funny 😂.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•1 year ago

        If you genuinely use the magnets as a battery, they just don’t store enough energy. Wikipedia lists Neodymium magnets as storing about 512kJ/m^3, and lead-acid batteries as about the same amount but per litre - so a thousand times more dense.

        Remember that energy removed must equal energy added, so you need to find a way to pump those megawatt-hours into the battery.

        In addition, energy storage mechanisms generally have to release that same amount of energy when destroyed. A fully charged lithium battery makes a serious fire, especially if it’s a big one. A big tank of petrol makes a big fireball, when allowed to mix with air. A spring or a magnet mostly just goes ‘bang’.