[Pil-pc-oceania] A World Powered by Trompes

[Laurence Gaffney]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:05:07 Tamara Griffiths wrote:- 
"Biodiesel is not necessary in a world powered by trompes."

As previously suggested some flesh on the bones of these claims together with some supportive evidence/references would be good. 

Laurence Gaffney 



Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:44:26 +1000
From: "Laurence Gaffney" <l.gaffney at bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Bill's second and final
installment/Compressed Air
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Bill Mollison said:-
"Given a modest stream and a trompe, or successive trompes, very large quantities of compressed air can be stored. In 1930, all cars, trams, trains, and cool rooms in Paris and Chicago, were supplied by miners with trompes, operated on compressed air. Light motor vehicles with 7 to 10 h.p.slide valve steam engines with a working pressure of 40 p.s.i., could travel 100 or more kilometres on 2 cubic feet of air at 1500 p.s.i. held in a drawn-steel cylinder below the seat."

These sentences are difficult (for me) to comprehend.
My understanding is that Trompes may be able to produce significant quantities of compressed air but only at low pressure. As far as I know they are not capable of compressing air to 1500psi. 
Wouldn't a light motor vehicle running off compressed air require an Air Motor rather than a Steam Engine?
Alternatively wouldn't a Steam Engine probably require on board storage of water rather than on board air storage?
The vehicle range stated (100km) reminds me of the Air Car  (http://www.theaircar.com/) as touted by Tim Flannery in his book "The Weather Makers" which has I think been a topic on this list previously and is considered a scam by many.   

Some references/evidence for Bill's numbers would be good.

confused

Laurence Gaffney
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