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As with the previous cases, the patient is a dairy farm worker who came into contact with cows that tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, or avian influenza.

The person reported eye symptoms only, received oseltamivir - an anti-viral treatment - and has recovered, the CDC reports.

The spheres, which resemble tiny Death Stars (or, perhaps for a more niche Star Wars reference, normal-sized training remotes), are 30 times smaller than solar panels, with 7.5 times the output. Astoundingly, she said they are more than 200 times more efficient.

These are the basic stats on US annual fuel consumption:
137,240,000,000 gallons of finished motor gasoline consumed in the US during 2023.
56,261,100,000 gallons of distillate fuels consumed in the US during 2023.
3,200,000,000,000 total miles driven by all US drivers per year.

Now Let's consider the energy required to "charge" air powered cars that weigh about 1,000kg:
85,000kPa = 850bar
100kPa = 1bar (sea level atmospheric pressure)
3,600J / 3.6kJ = 1Wh

kJ = (P2 - P1) * V
kiloJoules = (Final Pressure in kPa - Initial Pressure in kPa) * Volume (in m^3)
kJ = (85000kPa - 100kPa) * 0.253 = 21,479.7kJ = 5,967Wh

We'll assert that our compression process is about 80% efficient.  Some compressors might be more or less efficient, but 80% is a good value to use for industrial scale air compressors.  That implies actual compression energy is about 7,458Wh.  That amount of energy provides about 100 miles of driving range for our air powered car.

32,000,000,000 * 7,458Wh = 238,656,000,000,000Wh = 238.656TWh

Constant power output of about 27,243,835,616Wh is required.  This is equal to the output of 27 1GWe nuclear reactors.  Spread across all 50 states, about 545MW, which is equal to the output from two large commercial electric power gas turbines.

However, we want to do this without consuming hydrocarbon or nuclear fuels or specialty metals, so we won't be converting any of that solar thermal power into hydrocarbon fuels or electricity.  President Biden's administration blocked environmental permits for proposed new Copper and Lithium mines here in the US, so they clearly don't want EVs, either.  Maybe someone in his administration finally figured out how much worse EVs are for the environment compared to burning oil.  At the same time, Democrats block all new nuclear reactor permits, and see it as their duty to ensure that no new reactors are built.  In conjunction with President Biden's continuation of the trade war tariffs with China, that's driven a stake through the heart of photovoltaics, wind turbines, and battery production expansion attempts.  They're being taxed, tariffed, or otherwise regulated out of existence.  We're essentially left with nothing, and unsurprisingly, we're not happy.

In an earnest attempt to both skirt around Democrats' apparent unwillingness to do anything constructive to reduce hydrocarbon fuel energy reliance, while actually addressing a minor aspect of climate change in a cost-effective way, I'm proposing using solar thermal power to compress air so we have workable and affordable energy to use to power our vehicles.  I would think that this solution is the most environmentally benign of all options presented.  It requires far less specialty metals input from Russia or China, unlike EVs.  It's the option with the longest service life and lowest total cost of ownership.  It's a poor man's solution to a rich man's silly game.  The new "fuel" (compressed air) will be taxed to pay for the roads and bridges, since our haughty EV owners don't contribute anything to their upkeep.

Solar thermal requires quite a bit of steel and some Aluminum coating material to reflect and thermalize photons, as well as salt to store thermal power at night to continue production at a reduced rate.  My materials of choice are steel, concrete, salt, air, and water in a closed loop subsystem for waste heat recovery from air compression, for purposes of additional mechanical power generation to improve overall air compression efficiency.  Maybe we can improve overall energy utilization efficiency during compression to about 85%.  Alternatively, we could supply flash-evaporated fresh water.

If our drivers had an affordable alternative to a gasoline powered vehicle for their daily commutes, then the US could potentially reduce our annual gasoline consumption by about 95%.  We'll still need gasoline for light aircraft, power tools, and some off-road uses, but the quantity consumed will plummet.  Providing a cheaper alternative to gasoline is the only viable way to end our reliance on it.  Price sells cars and energy.  EVs don't sell because they're too expensive for what they provide to most owners- a commuter type vehicle.

At 33,700Wh per gallon, we consume 4,624,988,000,000,000Wh worth of gasoline per year.  That's about 19.38X more energy than compressing enough air to charge the tanks of air powered cars.  This is not to suggest that the energy was used inefficiently, because the total weight being moved was not reflected in the top line energy consumption figures, merely that a light vehicle powered by air would consume a lot less energy.

At 250Wh/mile, if every vehicle on the road was a Tesla Model 3, then we need to supply 800,000,000,000,000Wh of electricity for our drivers to cover 3.2 trillion miles.  That's about 3.35 times more energy than 1,000kg air powered cars would require.  All their electrical and electronic gadgetry eats up a lot of power, and battery operated vehicles are almost twice as heavy, which is part of why they cost more and consume more energy.  Heavy vehicles require more energy to operate, period.  This also suggests that air powered vehicles could be made twice as heavy while still consuming no more energy than EVs.  Air powered cars can't beat EVs on range or acceleration, but across every other metric EVs are toast, even before they self-immolate.