Compressed Air Engines

I've been really interested in compressed air engines lately. They're interesting pieces of technology. They're basically similar to a regular internal combustion engine, but without the internal combustion part. The air is compressed externally to high pressures and the release of that pressure drives a piston, which then turns a crankshaft. In an internal combustion engine, the air pressure is created by the ignition of a fuel/air mixture.

Here's an interesting video from Australia:



You can read about the MDI engine here. I still haven't gotten my head wrapped around how the Engineair motor works, but you can read about it here.

This seems like a far simpler way to reduce emissions produced from cars. There are no expensive electric motors or heavy batteries. The fuel infrastructure could be very easily and inexpensively put in place...almost all gas stations have an air compressor now. It wouldn't take much to install bigger capacity compressors. You don't need any fuel to be trucked in on a regular basis. The power needed to drive to compressors could come from several clean sources...solar/wind/wave.

City transit authorities such as the TTC could save a lot in terms of fuel costs by having their buses running on compressed air. They could easily refill at the bus stations every time they cycle through their routes.

Anyways, you can read about some homemade projects here and here. These guys make it seems so easy. Spinmaster Airhogs toys have been powered by pneumatic engines for a while. You can read about how their tiny engines work here.