[behringer]

This article seems to assume we'd convert the compressed air to electricity, but I could think of a bunch of applications that could use mechanical air power instead.

Blenders, washers, dryers, dish washers, garage door openers. Basically anything that uses a motor.

[tedk-42]

Energy as electricity is like money. Pretty easy to convert to other forms of work and readily accepted as an input to many systems.

I doubt there's much of an ecosystem/incentive to build a compressed air --> <something> conversion systems that are general enough for anything to use.

[myself248]

For things like garage door openers that only run for a moment and only once in a while, the payoff would likely never come. But for things like dryers where it's a simple continuous motion for hours on end, I could see it easily justifying an air motor conversion.

Bonus: Compressed air is inherently dry. It'll come out of the motor cooler than ambient, but pass it through a heat exchanger and you'll get almost-room-temp super-dry air. (And maybe use the exchanger to condense some of the moisture out of the dryer's exhaust; you're halfway to a ventless condensing dryer already!)

I wonder if refrigeration appliances would be designed differently if they assumed compressed air as the power source.

[BHSPitMonkey]

You might be interested in this comment further up in the thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24784669

[jacknews]

And cooling, especially in humid climates.

[_underfl0w_]

Is your blender powered by a hand crank?

[hakcermani]

I just saw this on a India trip last month ... roadside vendors crushing Aloe for a refreshing summer drink using a hand crank blender ..! I was thinking I need one for myself too ..