We read so many comments about using electricity especially power generated from coal and the carbon footprint that leaves.
Few people think outside the square, few people grasp the huge paradigm shift we are about to experience, as the planet needs to replace its dependence of fossil fuels, for many the changes and adjustment will be huge. Maybe more research is needed to find ways (that MDI are already looking at) to make filling air tanks more environmentally friendly

• In the future look for a solar element to this process
• Refueling stations near wind farms
• Home based Compressed Air iPower units supplying your household, refueling your car and excess generation going back into the power gird.
• Turbines can be installed alongside fast flowing rivers and air filling stations located on river banks.

And other yet unexplored ideas - new technologies bring new innovations.......Read More

MDI is based in Luxemburg and operating in France and the enormous Tata are just one of many (40+) MDI licensees. Tata will make product in India for the Indian domestic market only.

IT MDI-Energy Ltd will make MDI product in Australia for the Australian domestic market expected to commence in 2008.
IT MDI-Energy Ltd is 20% owned by MDI and 80% owned by IndraNet Technologies Ltd (NZ). http://www.itmdi-energy.com

The MDI technology heats air outside the engine to expand it then the air enters the engine and is used twice, firstly by pushing a piston and then by expanding on top of a second piston. Its very simple stuff - no need to go looking for complications that aren't there. Watch the CNN and CBS and Ch9(Aus) TV news clips and videos of the engines running on test benches. Source
 

• Amazing New Air Car - It's NOT About the Air!
• And it's not even about the car!
• It's a whole new way of thinking about energy!

Every now and then an idea comes along that will change the world - and gets mostly ignored..............
MDI has a good chance of creating an amazingly efficient little car, and that's cool. But what's REALLY exciting are all the other potential industrial applications. Read More  Source

For my money the answer lies in compressed air vehicles, because they are simple, 100% clean, and show levels of efficiency comparable to modern cars. The first should be going on sale in Australia in 2009. Running on compressed air, alone, the car can cover 94 miles (150 km) with a top speed of 69 mph (110 km/h). But when the air is heated externally and incorporated with a fuel source, such as ethanol or diesel, it is possible to travel the 2,239 miles (3,604 km) or in other words, America coast to coast.
  The car will retail for less than Au$8,000 (US$7,073) with running costs 80% lower than comparable vehicles. It can be refueled by plugging it into a conventional compressed-air supply available at most service stations and also has its own onboard compressor. So it can refuel as you drive.
  I supposed critics might say - yeah, but what about the power that runs the air compressors - okay, got me there, but I’m pretty sure that small amount of power could be covered by solar and or wind power at the garage itself.
  To me the other big advantage is that the air motors from the car will also be sold as home power generators, thereby bringing clean green power to homes and decentralizing the grid, something every green-orientated person desires.
  Another advantage is that the exhaust is not only normal air, but also cold air, and can be used for a car or home’s air conditioning, and could also be used to hugely assist industrial refrigeration units while at the same time running them. Think of the cost, power, and emissions savings right there.
   Although it is hard, we just have to make a clean break with the past and ditch the internal combustion motor once and for all, and get rid of huge centralized electric power stations. What I am saying now sounds radical, but once you raise the earth’s temperature by more than 3 degrees centigrade, it’s game over folks, so time to get radical.
They also have a radical new broadband solution and the air motors are sold as household power generators.  Source

   Businesses have had a chance (major car manufacturers) to develop a clean car for decades, why has this not happened? It is the comfort in large profits and a trait found in the human species called ‘GREED’. The internal combustion engine has not really changed since ‘FORD’ mass produced it in the 1930’s. It is very inefficient as it looses a hell of allot of energy through heat loss. The electric car will always be expensive due to the elements to produce the batteries etc. They are not called RARE EARTHS for nothing.
   Peak oil is another issue as well as climate change that will have a huge impact on these engines. Good to see somebody in the world trying to do something.
   It is much much EASIER to sit here and knock inventors than for people to get off their AR$es and either support or help. Where would we be without the wonderful inventors, MAD or otherwise.
   Keep it up MDI!!! It may only be part of the solution, there will be no SILVER BULLET to save this planet from the copious and pungent carbon pumped into the atmosphere everyday.
   Private business have had 10 years to try and curb this toxic processes but ‘NO’. A big stick is needed for those CO2 producers and a great carrot is required for those who are trying to invent a cure or at least help diminish the problem. Source

Well you know what Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Looks like we’re beginning to exit the laughing phase and the fighting can’t be far off.
MDI deserves every opportunity to succeed, in my book, as one of very few companies offering a way forward that is sustainable, interesting and fun.
Their concept of decentralized manufacturing based on locally sourced materials, and labor, as well as locally sourced power generation is something that could well be one of the answers to the larger questions of what we’re going to do with the planet over the next 50 years. Source

It appears that the oil companies may have missed this one, and now it’s too late!

I can’t believe how amazing this is! A car that runs on nothing but AIR, with zero emissions is about to go on sale with the help of Tata Motors the Indian company who brought us the worlds cheapest car.

The car was developed by a French inventor and Formula One engineer who has now teamed up with Tata Motors with what is said to be ‘an environmentally friendly and scalable technology’. The idea can be used in cars, commercial vehicles and even power generation. Source

MISCONCEPTIONS
Dr Louis Arnoux wishes to clarify comments posted on The Oil Drum-Australia/New Zealand (Part 1 at end of blog)

IT MDI-Energy – What’s it about?
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.  Read More

THE AIR CAR PART 2 - Q & A With Louis Arnoux of IT MDI-Energy as posted on
The Oil Drum-Australia/New Zealand (Part 2) I asked Louis if he would like to do an interview to answer some of the questions we had about the MDI technology. Read More

IT MDI-Energy has announced their first factory to be set up in Melbourne, Australia to produce Air Car and also Air Engine for power generation. NEW COMPRESSED AIR ENGINE with Thermodynamic cycle. Enables impressive cost reductions for manufacture, operation and maintenance of low cost, zero emission vehicles and environmentally sound distributed power generation.

MDI is set to become the biggest technological advancement of our time, as it is every environmentalist dream. Source

"Our business model is to produce cars in small factories close to markets. Our start up business partners will build cars in their countries which I think is a new concept " said Mr Guy Nègre  The cars will hit Indian and Australian roads first, France will see the air car in 2009. Source

iPower - Power generated at point of use (home or business) using compressed air engine, solar technology and meshed network grid will give about 80% efficiency compared with today's power generation at about 20% efficiency.

Tata Motors agreement with MDI strengthens IndraNet - MDI joint venture for Australasian markets and potential exports of combined IT-MDI distributed electrical power generation technology package.

PEAK OIL - CLIMATE CHANGE?
 

Dr Arnoux and Mr Nègre both pointed out that while the challenges of Climate Change are real and pressing, the challenges of Peak Oil and of the peaking of other fossil fuels are much more immediate and potential dire. Source

BEGINNING OF CHANGE?

"The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life."

The world had to move quickly towards the massive deployment of renewable energy and to a dramatic increase in energy efficiency, both as a way to combat climate change and to ensure that the lights stayed on. "If we did all this we may not have an energy crisis."

Well the Indranet Minder is another way of delivering high speed Broadband and information for the Internet and other applications. It does this by using a new kind of technology called a Mesh Network instead of using the traditional phone line.  Read More

Broadband is a word that we hear all the time from marketing company’s trying to get us to sign up to faster internet speeds. But do any of us truly know what Broadband is? Well here’s my explanation for what broadband really is and how the Indranet Minder can help achieve this........  Read More

iPOWER - INTELLIGENT POWER

In the near future we will begin to see changes in our power industry. Two of the firms leading the way in this change are Indranet with its wireless meshed network and MDI with its compressed air power generator. Combine these two technologies and we have a new era in complimentary power generation. Read More

Having read some of the growing tide of literature (Flannery, Simmons, Meadows etc) I am firmly of the belief that unless technologies like IndraNet's succeed, life on this earth for the human race and all creatures is at best temporary and tenuous.

IndraNet's core technology is a new architecture for networks. It is compatible with, applicable and complementary to, most network technologies whether they deal with sewerage, water, transport, energy, computing or communications.

All existing networks require extensive communication at a distance for their operation and management. The further aim of those networks that are telecommunication networks is to also enable people to communicate over large distances. All existing networks are designed around the assumption that communicating with another place is expensive.

IndraNet’s view is that communicating across distances can be low cost, easy, and of high quality. Once communicating is cheap, then most other networks that require communication become cheap too. IndraNet has found a way to achieve this and has satisfied itself that its solution works. It is poised to deliver significantly higher quality and far more economic services than at present or than are currently envisaged for the near future."

Four years ago, Indian automobile manufacturer, Tata Motors, promised to produce a small People's Car priced at about two thousand five hundred dollars for the ordinary Indian. The company says the car will hit the roads next year.

The company wants to capture what could be a potentially huge market in a country where incomes are rising rapidly, but where cars are still out of reach for many people. Only eight in every 1000 Indians owns a car. 2007

Automobiles that run on compressed air are a God send to humanity, global warming and a major contributor to world peace and international economies!

I can see solar powered air compressors fueling these compressed air vehicles making the air cars truly zero emission qualified. Ironically, there are already solar powered air compressors in use along oil pipelines that are used to power air tools.

A compressed air refueling infrastructure will be able to be implemented almost over night due to the user friendly nature of compressed air. A large percentage of residential shops already have an air compressor. So, people are already familiar with compressed air. I can envision compressed air availability at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, 7/11 etc., besides service stations.

Compressed air cars make hybrids, hydrogen, electric and bio-fuel cars obsolete. Air cars are the future, here and now. Compressed air is the most cheapest and abundant commodity on the planet so why not use it.

There is no question in my mind but that oil will rise to at least $100 a barrel within the next two years. It is easy to see a scenario of $125 a barrel price in the same time frame. The triple digit price of oil will become the norm. Recently it has been trading in the $80-90 range, and as it approached the upper end of that range the media began again covering the story with “sky is falling” concern about what this might mean for the economy. This reminded me of the comment that James Schlesinger, the first U.S. Secretary of Energy made about the country’s approach to energy: “We have only two modes – complacency and panic”................

Long term, the upward price of oil is not just a pocketbook issue just as global warming is not just about the polar bears and the ice cap. We need to quickly find a middle ground between complacency and panic. If we remain complacent for too much longer, we will most certainly experience society wide panic attacks in the not too distant future.
http://www.evolutionshift.com/blog/category/peak-oil/ 

ENGINES IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The coolest car engine in all creation is one that runs on God's own atmosphere. The fuel tank contains compressed air. The exhaust is so clean you can breathe it; it's so low in temperature you can use it for air-conditioning. Gasoline engines are ponderous hunks of iron because they must contain the heat of exploding fossil fuel. The air engine, in contrast, is made of aluminum and weighs in at a featherlight 80 pounds. Christopher Steiner describes it in " Driving on Air". Source

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