I am always surprised at the development of supposedly zero pollution cars.  This week there was news of a car powered by compressed air.  Sure it will be pollution free at the point of use but the air was compressed by another energy source, probably electricity and that meant someone else had the pollution ( unless it came from a wind farm!).

Honda are advertising a non polluting hydrogen car but ignorring the source of the hydrogen which is probably electrolysis of water using electricity again.

I just wonder how many of the general public are being taken in by this missleading information.  I suspect quite a few.

Zero Pollution (I'll get to Carbon Neutral) is applied at the Point of Production, and is probably one of the more sensible Green Theories.

An area (such as California) can therefore legislate for the sale only of Zero Pollution vehicles within its boundaries, for example (I'm not saying they do).

Zero Pollution charging facilities could be set up for them using renewable energy sources such as wind or water power.

In more practical terms, using Zero Pollution methods, an authority could use its powers to force ZP usage in certain areas, while it would still be obliged to address the pollution if its power were generated using fossil fuels. The important thing to bear in mind here though is the economy of scale, as it's easier to capture and process the pollutants at the point of production ie the power station, than at the point of use, ie tens of thousands of vehicles for example.

The Carbon Neutral fiddle is however, to use The Fox's term "The public being taken in by misleading information".

This is merely a sop to the rich, be it individuals or businesses. What it basically says is that provided you have the money to buy Carbon Credits, you can carry on producing as much carbon as you can afford, and have no reason or motivation to cut that production.

However, if you're poor or not making much profit as a business, then you will be hammered into the ground by legislation and costs involved from carbon reduction legislation.

Isn't it great what having a few bob to spare means, a bit like Uncle Ken's Congestion Charge, which drove the peasants off the roads in London, while those with expenses continue to waft about the city without a care (and have returned traffic level almost to their pre-charge levels). Now Uncle Ken is revamping the Congestion Charge to be a Pollution Charge. As I always say with these schemes - give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Now that the charging structure is in place, they have to find a way for it to make more money than it costs to administer, and will be playing with it whenever they can, and changing the charging criteria until they can make a profit.

Thanks to the skills of the Government's mindbenders, when talk turns to pollution (or zero pollution) and things like the new tax-god of the holy Carbon Footprint, the majority immediately think of those nasty, sinful cars.

This is great for all the other polluters, as it basically gives them a free hand to spew away merrily, and only have to worry about a few nutters who might jump up and down and try to get them noticed.

One of the great insanities of the 21st century has to be bottled water, which has shot to the top of the 'Cool' chart because Celebrity Vermin can always be counted on to be clutching it. Even now, costing more than fuel, bottled water has shown that you can indeed 'Fool some of the people some of the time', and must be the present day equivalent of the tale of the 'The Emperor's New Clothes'. There are now 'Water Waiters' employed by exclusive restaurants to tell the 'Cool People' which water to have with their meal, and 'Water Bars, where you can select your favourite water from dozens on offer. Restaurants love bottle water, because they can now charge the same for tap water, arguing that they have to pay for the purchase of the jug, and the time it takes the waiter to fill it from the tap, and maybe throw a few ice cubes in as well.

We have drinking water on tap - and not for 'free' we all pay for water - and it's monitored and has to meet standards, bottled water... doesn't. You get whatever's in the bottle, including Perrier's famous dose of benzine. And, that water is now being shipped all around the world.

A bottle of Evian has 600 times the 'Carbon Footprint' of the same amount delivered from the tap, and the water suppliers claim people carry bottled water for convenience. Duh, if that was all then they could fill a bottle from the tap each morning before they go out the door.

The BBC spends £300,000 a year on bottled water - and that's only the bill for their London studio!!!

Morally, some bottled waters are being imported from countries where much of the population has no access to clean drinking water, bottled or otherwise.
             
Panorama                   
BBC One                  
Mon 18 Feb, 20:30 - 21:00  30 mins                  
                 
Bottled Water - Who Needs It?

Reporter Tom Heap sets out to discover if the popularity of bottled water is a triumph of marketing over common sense and challenges UK consumers to end their love affair with the bottle. Environment Minister Phil Woolas says the amount of money spent in the UK on bottled water is approaching the 'morally unacceptable'. He is urging consumers - who spend two billion pounds a year on bottled water - to go back to the tap.

Like I say, it's the modern version of the The Emperor's New Clothes, and the Cool are scared to be seen saying, 'But he's got nothing on'.

I don't think I have ever drunk bottled water, mind you I rarely if ever drink water straight.  Useful contaminants have proved to be coffee and tea but never the amber liquid, it comes with more than enough in it already.  

I remember a family visit when I was informed that a nephew only drank Volvic.  I topped his bottle up from the tap several times and he never noticed the difference.

Mind you there could be an even bigger timebomb buried in all this bottled water business as the plastic leaches out a chemical which mimics oestrogen or one of the hormones and it could be affecting young woman by enhancing their male characteristics (psychologically).  This has been mooted as one of the causes of the Ladette culture.

Fox! You don't mean to say you couldn't see the Emperor'a New Clothes either

I quite like the 'contaminated' varieties of water you mention too

However, returning to the original subject...

Here's a little known device which has singularly failed to make it onto the news, or have anyone beat their chest and shout about.

(Maybe those in power don't wan the masses to hear about it, because if it was to become widely adopted and reduce the use of petrol/ diesel, THEY'D HAVE TO TAX AIR!!!)

The Air Car:

http://www.gizmag.com/go/7000/

And the Air Car Site (which is rather sparse with regard to how to get your hands on one, or even have images of their products), which has no technical details on how it works:

http://www.aircarfactories.com/

Er! Why don't you enlighten me Apollo as it seems I have indeed missed something.

The air car mentioned is the design running on compressed air.  I assume that the engine is basically the same as a reciprocating steam engine.  I have in fact seen one of these running on compressed air and despite mediteranean temperatures the exhaust was below O*C.  

Afraid I can't enlighten you at the moment, at least not any more than you'll find on the links I gave. I'm more than a little impressed you've seen one!

Unfortunately, when you try and follow any of the links that would give you technical info to back up the stories and claims, they're all DEAD at the moment.

It would be interesting to see how they achieve the air compression density in order to carry enough energy to cover the distance claimed. The part about the chilled exhaust is as expected from the laws of thermodynamics and gas expansion, same as a fridge, and we also used to use compressed air chillers too.

Actually, I think you meant about the Emperor's New Clothes, and what I meant was that you and I might perhaps share the same vision of a bottle of water as being nothing more that 99% profit for whoever is selling it.

I had to bite my lip in the shop one day, when a local came in. Fair enough she's just been flooded out of her house, and the council had thrown a wad of cash at her AND given her temporary accommodation (sometimes I wonder not being kept by the cooncil is a BAD idea). Once I understood what she was saying, I discovered the accommodation had no supplies (food and drink), and her greatest worry seemed not to be what to buy to eat, but the 'right' brand of bottled water to buy so she's have something to drink.

Still, given where she came from, I suppose I should have been grateful not to have been asked where the Buckfast was

The compressed air engine was on a boat not a car but that makes no difference really.  The mains water pressure in Malta was quite low and fillling up a water boat (water carrier) took a long time.  The way round this was to permenantly moor a spare big one (Spa class if anyone is interested) and leave the filling valve open.  Smaller water boats then could fill up quite quickly using the Spa's pumps. Problem - the boilers were not flashed up so a couple of large cylinders of compressed air were use as a source of power.  Worker well for years.

I am only assuming that this is the technology that the car will use.