Palm | Kelapa Sawit

A small French company Moteur Development International produced an air-powered car which will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks. These tanks are built into the chassis and are filled with air from a compressor in only 3 minutes - quicker than a battery car. These air compressors can be installed at each gas station.

When the car reaches 35 miles per hour its internal air compressor will start working to add more speed. The motor for compressor will run on small amount of fuel (eco-friendly or fossil fuel).
The driver would be able to choose between fossil or biofuels.
The designers say that on long journeys the air car will do about 120 m.p.g. And in town, it will be even cheaper.
One tank of gas will be enough to travel from Los Angeles to New York.
Of course, it sounds great - to have such a little fuel expense for your car.

And it is only a matter of time when first cars will be available for sale for about $5,000 to $15,000 which is an important consideration during our volatile gas prices.

These cars will also be good for the environment - they will produce almost zero emissions.

Air cars are designed to be much more lighter than conventional cars which will make them fuel efficient and help them go faster for longer periods of time.

You can watch very interesting YouTube movie about the air-powered car.



Guy Negre, an engineer and inventor of the first compressed-air engine has been working on it for the last decade. Still, the problem is in finding individual entrepreneurs to set up factories and to find investors to produce more air-powered cars. With just a few alterations, inventor Negre claims a hybrid version of his new engine could even be used to power aircraft.

To read more about air-powered cars go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/14/air-powered-car-hybrid-france.

-Peter Y.

The Story



As we all know there is a serious effort by many drivers on the road today to increase the average MPG of their existing vehicle. Many drivers are attempting to do this out of "eco-guilt", the guilt that they feel as a result of driving their car, while others do it as a means to save money. Either way the desire is there and for the sake of economics we'll call this desire "demand", which can be defined, "as the willingness and ability of a consumer to purchase a given product in a given frame of time.."



Now lets look at this same situation from another point of view. Capitalism can be defined as, "an economic and social system in which most trade and industry are privately controlled for profit rather than by the state." Since we live in a capitalistic society we can assume that there is someone out there somewhere who will attempt to take advantage of this opportunity to make money. As we have done above, we will call this “supply” for economics' sake.

Finally, elasticity, "refers to how supply and demand respond to various factors, including price as well as other stochastic principles". Applying this definition to our scenario, we can interpret the word stochastic to represent the unpredictable behavior of the consumer.

Economic Consequences

So, as the demand increases market rules suggest that the supply will also adjust to meet that demand. However, the suppliers are at an advantage because the false sense of urgency created by the media has simulated a highly inelastic environment. The media have compounded the publics need to feel as though they are doing their part to save the environment. Additionally, the economic strife that we have run headlong into over the last 18 months has caused people to go to ridiculous lengths to save money. This is often times taken to the extreme level of spending exceeding saving for the purpose of saving.

The arising problem lies amongst the individuals and companies that are entering into this newly developing market, of modifying existing vehicles to improve the gas mileage, for the sake of earning a profit at any expense. As you scour the web for ideas and gadgets that may help you in your adventure to reduce the MPG of your vehicle you may notice many “Miracle” gadgets or ideas that promise outlandish results. However, many of these gadgets and ideas are not as miraculous as they claim. In fact, many of them have no benefit what so ever.

Buyer Beware

If you go to the links that I will post below you will learn of just a few sources that have given a dose of reality to the preposterous claims of some of these ideas. Unfortunately, despite the public information that these products don't work, many of them are still on the market and the companies still continue to sell their products despite understanding that they are for the most part worthless.

Therefore, I propose that before any of us go out on a limb to purchase some kind of gadget or try some kind of crazy sounding idea to reduce our average MPG, that we should do some substantial research and understand what we are getting into.

Links:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/1802932.html

and

http://www.fuelsaving.info/debunk.htm

People in the Northwest love their summers. I can personally name a handful of people who practically plan their lives around this season.

But heaven knows we aren’t used to the sunshine and heat! As soon as summer hits, I see dozens of faces burned red and peeling, (it’s called sunscreen, folks!) and people cranking up the air conditioning to escape the warmth they so desired through the long gloomy winter.

I mean, really? Don’t we all want to enjoy the summer heat? Isn’t this what we’ve been dreaming of the rest of the year in the toe-numbing chill?

So enjoy it! Take it full blast!

But if that’s not a good enough motive to turn down the A/C, that’s okay.
I can give you another reason to turn it down: it will increase your MPGs.

Turning off the air conditioner and rolling down the windows while driving can save you quite a bit of gas. Utilizing that sunroof you paid extra money for can also have the same effect.

Need some number crunching kind of proof?
Find it: here.

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower (and A/C) is broken. ~James Dent

By Ariel Son

Watching a 9-11 documentary on NGC last week, I happened to catch this short snippet. Check it out.



-AML

This web page is excellent as it contains several different ways we can all save gasoline. It's amazing how simple ideas can go a long way toward saving fuel. Many of these tips are new to me and they really make sense. For example, tip #9 tells readers that "traveling at fast rates in low gears can consume up to 45% more fuel than needed." Sometimes we don't realize that simple behaviors we think are of no consequence can be adding to environmental degradation. At the bottom of this article there are "Related Articles" that are definitely worth reading and include even more ways of saving gas, while also saving a little money in the process.
Check it out!! http://www.howtoadvice.com/SavingGas

Visit our website:

http://sites.google.com/site/ecomerge2008/