Slashdot Mirror
7th World Solar Challenge Underway
downundarob writes "At around 200310182230 UTC the World Solar Challenge will leave the start line. Entrants will traverse more than 3,000km of the Australian continent from tropical Darwin to balmy Adelaide, in cars powered by nothing more than the sun.
One of the unique propositions of the World Solar Challenge is that it is run in one stage. Once competitors have left Darwin at 8am on the first day, they are on their own. Apart from compulsory stops at the seven checkpoints, each team endeavours to travel as far as it can each day, but must make camp by 5pm each evening."
Proving that solar (and other alterntives) have come on leaps and bounds in the last decade or so. Why do we still persist with nuclear, oil, coal, with all the attendant problems (pollution, wars over oil, etc), when we could cover a small proportiion of the deserts of the world with solar cells, and the roofs of our buildings, and the coasts with huge offsiore wind farms & tidal turbines, and have all the power we need?
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
I mean realy, it doe snot extend our knowledge about solor power, it does not inovate or make new solutions. all it does is give universities with lots of money the ability to build super lite cars that run on solor power. big deal.
I want to see an S prize. the first group that can develope the best price/performance ratio for solor power gets money or something, then the next time, the next prise it set to be 5% better than the last performance, and the money increases as the ratios get harder to reach.
that would be exciting stuff.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Volkswagon Phaeton
$60k-$100k is currently out of most of our price ranges, however it does exist.
A further possibility for controlling the atmosphere in the Phaeton is offered by the sliding sunroof. It may be had in both glass and solar versions as an option. The sunroof is operated via a preselector in the roof-mounted console. The solar sunroof is the biggest of its kind on the market. The 28 integrated solar cells provide 24 Watts of energy, which is also used to power the electric fan when the vehicle is at a standstill. In the summer this reduces the interior temperature by up to 20 degrees. Unpleasant air currents and loud wind noise when the roof is open are prevented by a speed-sensitive, electronically-controlled wind deflector.
wheeeeeeeee!
Oy, govnah. Sounds like Mad Max, it does- only a might quiet'ah, none of them pesky cannibals an' bettah scenery.
I dare someone to show up with a crazy looking vehicle and start taking out contestants with crude weaponry. Extra bonus points if your vehicle spews fire, brandishes lots of pointy edges, and gets under 5mpg. That'll show those eco-freaks who's boss.
Please help metamoderate.
When it turns to night could participants use their sparcs, ultras, and enterprises to keep going? You did say Solar as in Sun right?
MoFscker
It's too bad this year's winner of the American Solar Challenge couldn't raise enough money to ship the car to Australia and compete.
Solar car challenegs showcase and advance the state of high efficiency photovoltaic (PV) cells and bugger the price. To be useful as a real-world energy source, PV needs to be looking for better dollars per watt. If I could get PV at a low enough $/W I'd shingle my roof with the stuff.
Some might say that low-cost PV will be a spin-off of this research, but I doubt it. Low cost PV technologies can't effectively use silicon, or gallium etc due tothe high amounts of energy required to make large areas of the stuff.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
..Expense.
Solar power has evolved massively in the last decade or so, but the sort of very-high-efficiency cells used here - and they have to be because of the small surface area - are still very expensive, they need "chip grade" silicon. What is more cost effective for stationary generators are amorphous cells - much lower efficiency, but potentially very cheap to make. If you could get the efficiency of these cells up then you could have genuine solar/electic combo transport. Oh you need cheap, light batteries too, another technology that is evolving quickly - look at mobile phones..
As a supplementary charger there may be some value to solar in a car, but at the moment not as the prime source for a full sized/weight car or truck. You need to get some power from elsewhere..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
I don't like this mandatory 5 pm camp time. It seems to me that a critical test of solar technology for travel is being able to move even in low/no light situations, and thus of batteries. Why not give a start time and destination, and simply go by first across the finish line? If someone manages to build a machine that gets the optimal balance of power gathering plus battery capacity to maintain the highest average speed across lighting changes then they win.
You can follow the progress of the Queen's University Team here. The Queen's team came 7th in this year's American Solar Challenge and is looking to finish in the top 3 in this competition. One of the unique features of the Queen's car is that it is a two-seater, one of the few in the world.
There's a lot of technical information about the Queen's car here (Pages 4 and 5)
Teams drive from 8 to 5 -- that's 9 hours, they don't stop. Fatigue gets to be a real issue, if there were no rules, there's a very large possibility that drivers (and passengers) would end up with severe dehydration, or, even more likely, cause an accident. It's usually at least 40 degrees Celsius inside the cars.
Parent made an excellent point, apparently without realizing it:
Activities like this give aspiring engineers of various disciplines an opportunity to work on a large project. In engineering fields, work experience on large projects is invaluable.
Also, activities like this expose many of the people who would be designing the cars/power plants/??? of the future to solar power.
In that sense, these activities are more important than the X-prize (or "S-Prize"), because it exposes people to these technologies, making them more comfortable using them in the future. It doesn't matter if you have a 98% efficient solar panel costing $1/MW, if no one in design is willing to risk using it.
As the parent implied, solar tech is not ready yet, but I maintain that in preparation for the future when the technology IS ready, activities like these are needed to allow for more rapid adoption.
No, it's not the principle of harvesting power and running at night for solar powered cars. It's the suggestion that you might even *THINK* about doing it in *this* race in particular.
Take a look at a map.
Now, although this might not be entirely clear to some, the road in question is two lanes for most of the distance. I believe it's even sealed bitumen for all of the distance too (not sure) - an excellent quality road. However, the point is, you are not talking about a built up freeway or something here.
At 5pm in summer in NT and SA the sun won't be down for at least half an hour (hopefully). That gives plenty of time to stop everybody and make sure that nobody is on the road at dusk. In Australia, dusk is typically when the wildlife starts moving. For the 'roos and wallibies certainly, and considering the streach of road, probably quite a few emus too.
In all these cases, you have modern braking and a very solid frame on your car. If you're lucky, you may be able to steer well and only clip the animal in question.
Now hit it with an amalgum of solar panel and fiberglass with regenerative braking systems designed to conserve as much power as possible. Note that steering won't be as good either for swerving while braking.
Made my point yet?
(For the record, if you're not experienced in driving in Australia, you should NEVER swerve to miss wildlife. You've far higher chance of walking away if you hit something on the road than if you roll the car or hit a tree instead.)
Not to mention the fact that between Katherine and Alice Springs your crossing cattle country, and this road is UNFENCED. Having just driven the Darwin - Alice Springs track you need to add Cows, and Donkeys to the list, and possibly even camels closer in to Alice and southwards.