Cars that run on liquid nitrogen

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Check out this website: Cool Car

I found it while trying to find out how liquid nitrogen is produced. I haven't had time to explore the links yet. I don't think electric cars are the "wave of the future" either. I think they're a stop-gap measure until something better is developed or we run out of oil or all die of pollution. Even my gas-electric hybrid car is only stopgap, even though the power is much better than a purely electric car. But they're better than continuing to crank out the gas guzzler pollution mobiles. I'm not a scientist, so I don't know if this idea is workable. But it sounds hopeful!

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001

Answers

Liquid nitrogen and other gases are produced by taking a core of atmosphere, chilling it to below freezing and it seperates into layers where it is drawn off for further chemical treatment.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001

It's a neat idea, but liquid nitrogen isn't cheap, and it's been going up in price. It costs me about $100.00 to have our nitrogen tank, which holds 4-5 gallons at most, filled four or five times a year! Maybe it'd be cheaper if this caught on?

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001

Well hey your the only one I know with a hybrid Joy. Hows it workin for you? Is it real quite? What kind of mileage?

Ford motor thinks the next 100 years will be the age of the fuel cells. We will see.

Rebekah what do you use the nitrigen for and where do you buy it?

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001


Hey, Joy, cool idea for powering a car. I do wonder, however, how much energy is necessary to produce a given amount of liquid nitrogen. Intuitively, it would seem that there is no net energy produced from the process at all, and that it is rather a method for storing energy. But so is the fuel cell, for sure.

Assuming I'm correct about the nitrogen not providing any energy on its own, I don't understand the claim that liquid nitrogen would cost only ten cents per gallon when mass produced, and still send a car two or three miles on a gallon. I'm skeptical, I guess.

JOJ

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001


JOJ wrote:
I do wonder, however, how much energy is necessary to produce a given amount of liquid nitrogen.

Right, that's why I was interested in how it's produced. Another site that I found, and did not save the URL for, was talking about how cheaply liquid nitrogen could be made using nuclear power! Yikes! I don't think that solves any problems. What about the nuclear waste? Just a DIFFERENT kind of pollution.

Kirk, I like my little car a lot. I have the Toyota Prius. It is supposed to get 45 mph on the highway and 52 in city driving. I know that's backwards of what we usually expect, but the electric motor provides the initial "oomph" to get it started rolling, and I was told that this is where a large amount of gasoline is expended. It also is where a large amount of the pollution is created, which, with the better mileage, is why this is a "greener" auto (still FAR from perfect).

I have been averaging, overall, city & highway, about 46-47 mpg. Lots of hills in this area, and that really cuts down on the mileage. Driving down to Rockford in May, mostly on bigger roads, I got over 52 mpg. If I keep track (it has an information screen that tells you all sorts of stuff) of mpg only while in slow moving, rush hour-type traffic, on fairly level terrain, it does get about 52+ mpg.

It has a 1.5 liter engine, and certainly does not have the pickup of many other (larger) cars. Boy, you look at the gauge showing your mpg plummenting, and it really dampens your desire to accelerate so quickly! But I don't find that to be a bad thing. It's quite a comfy car, even the back seat. It is classed as a compact. The trunk, for the size of the car, is quite roomy. It was designed to hold two bags of golf clubs (important to the Japanese I guess!), and IMO, a whole lot more. I've gotten a LOT into the trunk.

As luck would have it, I parked right next to a Honda Insight (their hybrid) when I went to the energy fair, so it was easy to compare the appearance. The Honda is considerably smaller, really only a two seater, and has much smaller cargo area. I have heard they get 60-70 mpg, but I don't know. I didn't even know they existed when I went to test the Toyota.

Supposedly, Toyota is selling these for quite a bit LESS than it is costing them to make them. Certainly, they are limiting the purchase to one per customer, and making you provide your SS# to ensure that no one is buying them cheap to sell higher. I was told this was to introduce them and build demand, so that they'd go into higher production and be able to lower their costs. They also plan to raise the cost to the customer in the future, so that they're no longer losing money on them. Unfortunately, it took me nearly 6 months to get mine, and I suspect that the wait is even longer now. But I was committed to going "greener" as soon as it was feasible.



-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001



Kirk, I use the liquid nitrogen to keep the goat semen frozen ( for artificial insemination). It has to be kept at about 320 degrees below zero. A man cames by and services the tank every three or four months. He's an A.I. technician, and has a route that covers hundreds of miles in the area, filling tanks for both goat and cattle breeders. The other thing that occurs to me is that liquid nitrogen is SO cold! It comes boiling out of the tank even in the winter, and will evaorate in a very short time if it's not in a highly insulated container, however the container cannot be tightly sealed or it could explode. I am trying to imagine how it would work to fill the tank on a car? It would be interesting. And don't let any kids get near when filling the tank! We are talking instant frostbite here!

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Well, maybe the fear of being flash frozen would eliminate tailgating . . . ;-D

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

I see I didn't answer all your questions, Kirk, about the car. Yes, in general, it runs quietly, but it does have the gas powered motor. It's kind of spooky when you're moving at very low speeds -- it's just the electric battery power and there's no sound. And when you stop at a stop light, the gasoline motor stops. But you get used to it. The electric batteries are charged up by the gasoline motor and also when you apply the brake, so you don't have to plug the car in, in case anyone is wondering.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

But Joy, I thought that everyone in Wisconsin plugged their cars in at night! :-)

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Only in the winter!

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001


I swear I will never buy another gasoline powered car!!! I've just got to hold out a bit longer. I hope.....Kirk

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

What I don't understand is why all the city slickers don't drive electric cars. You can even drive a golf cart around town legally here in oregon, as long as you don't go too slow, and cause a hazard to fast traffic. Since you can get a golf cart, used, for a couple of grand, and they'll go twenty-fivish mph, they should be fine for running around town. And they supposedly only cost about a penny per mile for electricity to charge the batteries. Plus they have no transmission, no pistons, no carburetor, no starter, no, well, you get the picture: they don't ever need any maintenance, to speak of. And they are quiet.

If we ever get the county public works dept. to put in the bike path along the old highway, like they were supposed to do years ago, I'll probably buy one to drive the ten miles to town and back, even.

In the "for what it's worth" department, the hybrids get more miles per gallon in town because there is a lot less wind resistance at town speeds than highway speeds. The reason most cars get lower mileage in town is because of the stopping and starting, and sitting at traffic signals with the motor running. The hybrids don't lose mileage from this; they recharge the batteries instead of using brakes, and they don't have any motor running when they are sitting still. Way cool.

JOJ

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001


Hey Joe, I can assure you that in the city nearest to me, if you went only 25 mph top speed, you would be run over and flattened or rear- ended. Unless you had something motorscooter-sized so they could get past you. And no way would you be able to do anything like 25 mph with all the hills (and I'm not talking about hills like in San Francisco). Now, if you could convince everyone to have them, maybe there wouldn't be a problem. But I don't think that would every happen!

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

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