An inventor has created what he claims is the world’s first motorcycle powered by fresh air.
Jem Stansfield says his converted Puch moped produces cleaner air than found in many town and city centres and so can actually reduce pollution.
“It actually fires out cleaner air,” said 37-year-old Stansfield, who used to be a sheep herder.
The University of Bristol aeronautics graduate fitted the Puch with high pressure carbon fibre air cylinders used by fire fighters as breathing apparatus in burning buildings.
The cylinders power two rotary air engines which in turn drive the chain to the rear wheel.
Unlike electric scooters, it takes just seconds to recharge from larger air tanks filled by a diving compressor.
With a top speed of 18mph and a range of just seven miles between air top-ups, Stansfield admits it’s never going to be good for trans-continental touring. But hesaid: “You could definitely run a fleet of delivery bikes on it.”
TV presenter Stansfield built the scooter for a National Geographic channel documentary, Planet Mechanics.
Viewers can see him test ride it in Bristol when the programme is aired on June 3 at 6pm.
6 Comments
Let’s think this through for a minute.
The compressor is run by electricity that is generated at the power plant. Then you have the efficiency losses in the electric transmission lines, electrical transformers, compressor motor and compressor itself.
Okay… so you have moved the source of pollution generation from the engine of the vehicle to the electric power plant site. If all of this “pollution free” slight-of-hand gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside just remember - you don’t get something for nothing (Mother Nature).
Shifting pollution sources has always been a problem for ‘alternative’ transportation, but do we have to be stuck in a carbon-based energy production model forever? What about solar or wind based production? When more people think creatively — like Mr. Stansfield — at least we’re moving in the proper direction. Congratulations on coming up with a novel and practical idea!
This is clever. It will be interesting to see if it catches on. I wonder what the knocks are on it?
Best,
Kyle Park
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Great article. Air motors, now that is slick!
I read a great article about this topic called “Scooter Polluter” found here: http://economicefficiency.blogspot.com/2008/08/scooter-polluter.html
It laid out a number of the issues like smog pollution vs. gas consumption and that there are non-EPA certified scooters in the US, so watch out!
In Shanghai, when I was there in January, I was told they had outlawed new scooters and folks could only buy electric bicycles. Too bad they forgot that they have to burn coal to generate that electricity.
That’s pretty awesome. I could definitely see people using something like this to get around town, and go back and forth to work, etc.