AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.09.2004, Síða 62

Yfirbyggingin er úr trefjagleri sem ryðgar ekki og
auðvelt er að hanna á staðnum. / The body is
made offibreglass and can be designed to fit
local demands.
ple have been searching for other
sources of power that could replace
oil. In lceland this search has mainly
revolved around the use of hydro-
gen to replace oil as it is a pollution
free source of energy. The inten-
tion is to use elecrolysis to produce
hydrogen. This process is however
costly if one takes into account the
price of electricity in urban areas
and no economic and safe way has
yet been found for the transport and
storage of hydrogen. One should
also not forget the possible dan-
ger from both tanking stations for
hydrogen and a number of vehicles
with hydrogen tanks. Most people
agree that the use of hydrogen cars
in lceland will not become common
until after 30-50 years.
More secondery sources of
power than hydrogen are however
possible to reduce pollution and free
us from the clutches of oil. Much
emphasis has been put on electric
cars, but they are expensive, the
charge lasts only a short distance,
the batteries take a long time to
charge, they are not being produced
any more and the cars have been
called in by the producers.
Ethanol could be used to an
advantage as an admixture to pet-
rol. It has been estimated that some
50,000 tons of ethanol could be
produced in lceland every year to
replace the poisonous admixture
ETBE and also reduce the need for
imported petrol considerably.
Much technical progress is now
being made in mechanical engineer-
ing, some based on old foundations
like the use of compressed air to
power various engines and cars.
This technology was quite common
already before the 20th century and
was for example used to power
trains but was pushed aside by
other technology.
The French engineer Guy Negre,
on the other hand, started some
years ago the development of an
auto engine which is quite a nov-
elty in this area and has recently
caused much interest abroad. This
engine is powered by air which is
compressed into a tank by elec-
tricity. This engine can power a 5-
seater car up to 200 km without a
recharge, but the distance depends
much on speed. This is however
more than most people drive daily in
the capital area. The tanks take 90
Vélin er bæði litil og létt. / The engine is both
small and light.
I and are made of fibreglass. These
tanks are already available for meth-
ane gas, can withstand 300 bar
pressure and are considered quite
safe, even in collisions.
A private car has already been
designed using this engine and also
a taxicab seating five, a pickup and
a van. The engine can also use
petrol, diesel oil or gas as supple-
mentary fuel and the power created
when breaking is used to add air
to the tank. A refill for the tank at
a tanking station takes 2 minutes
but the tank can also be filled at
home or work by a simple eletric
compressor plugged into an electric
socket. Then a refill can take up to
three hours.
The air engine is much lighter
than conventional car engines and
cheaper to manufacture and run.
The designers of the car maintain
that the power utilization is 70-80%.
In this way the cost of power is
less than one króna for every driven
kilometre. The power of the engine
is about 25kW at 3500 rpm and the
given maximum speed is 110 km/
hour. The engines pollute much less
than ordinary cars when they run on
usual fuel and nothing when they
run on compressed air. The cars are
very light as the chassis is made of
aluminium, the body of fibreglass
and the engine weighs little as well.
The electric system of the car is also
designed to be as economical as
possible. The estimated price of the
car is around 800,000 i kr.
Pollution in the capital area is
often above desirable ecological lim-
its. In this area there were in 1998
some 87,000 cars powered by pet-
rol that used about 87,000 tons of
petrol yearly and returned 200,000
tons of C02 pollution. If 20,000
of these cars would run on com-
pressed air, the C02 pollution would
be reduced by 60,000 tons which
would in turn bring the capital area
within these ecological limits.
The engines use a so-called
adiabetic process in which the
expanded air becomes -15 C° cold.
This opens up the possibility to use
this technology in fishing boats and
vessels where the compressed air
could be stored in hollow, empty
spaces and the clean cold air used
to cool the fish.
The designers of this car are now
selling production licences to pro-
duce the car in small factories of a
size (3000 cars a year) which could
be suited for the lcelandic market.
It is a major issue in lceland to
use electricity instead of oil to power
vehicles and ships, both to reduce
costs and for increased safety. This
car is intended for mass produc-
tion in December 2004 and 15,000
cars have already been ordered. It
would be desirable to test five to ten
cars in lceland as soon as possible.
These cars could be of direct inter-
est to electric power companies,
local authorities, the Automobile
Association, Umferðarstofa, large
polluters like aluminium smelters
and of course the general public. ■
Hugmynd að loftknúnum strætó. / Design for air propelled public transport.