The Oil Drum

Update: I received responses to my follow up questions from Louis - see the end of the Q&A section.

In the wake of my last post on The Air Car (The Air Car - A Breath Of Fresh Air Or A Waste Of Breath ?), IT-MDI's Louis Arnoux made a lengthy comment at the tail end of the commenting period, arguing that we had been overly harsh in questioning the practicality of the vehicle(s).

It’s great to feel the excitement, interest and intrigue about the MDI “air car” as posted on The Oil Drum – Australia and New Zealand. However, a large number of those comments are in my view mistaken and made without the required knowledge and expertise. In this posting I wish to clarify a few matters.

To call the MDI vehicles an “air car” is a misnomer. It is no more an “air car” than a “gasoline car”, or a “diesel car” or an “ethanol car” or a “rapeseed oil car” or a “what-have-you car.” The point being that the MDI engines (there is a whole series of them) are being designed to accept a very wide range of primary energy inputs including fossil fuels, bio fuels, waste heat recycling from other processes and thermal solar energy. Transport is only on aspect of the applications of the MDI technology. Power generation at the point of use, on customer premises is another. Power generation applications are at least as important as the transport applications.

“Is it for real?” many people ask. ...

As few people were likely to be following the comments at that point, I asked Louis if he would like to do an interview to answer some of the questions we had about the MDI technology.

The primary impact of peak oil will be felt on our transportation systems. As road transportation is the primary consumer of oil, this is where we will need to make the most changes in order to adapt to less available oil. There are a number of ways of adapting - most, if not all, of which have been discussed at length in the peak oil blogosphere. These include expanding mass transit systems, redesigning cities and towns to make them easier to walk or cycle around (or combining both of these approaches in "transit oriented development"), making greater use of electric cycles (or mopeds), using lightweight materials in vehicle construction, and - most commonly - switching to electric vehicles (particularly, in the medium term, plug-in hybrids).

One variation on the oil free car alternative is the "air car", which is powered by compressed air. The Age recently reported that IT MDI-Energy will be setting up a manufacturing plant in Melbourne, with cars expected to go on sale next year for less than $8000 and with running costs "80% lower than current comparable vehicles" (2 L per 100 km).

All of this sounds very promising (and the company promotes it as the solution for both peak oil and global warming). The question is - is it for real ?