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Solar Energy Becoming More Pervasive
TheUploader writes "RenewableEnergyAccess is reporting that Solatec LLC has released a stick-on solar panel kit that charges your hybrid while parked. In related news, the world's largest photovoltaic system will be built, not on the roofs of Priuses, but on the ground of Nevada, and will provide clean energy for the US military."
The Prius has an MSRP of $21,725. At 10% the cost of the car, the solar panel kit ($2,195) seems like a reasonable deal, considering it facilitates 10% better gas mileage. At 55 mpg, the gas cost to drive 200,000 miles (at $2.20/gallon) is $8,000. At 60 mpg, the gas cost to drive 200,000 miles (at $2.20/gallon) is $7,333. The difference is $666. Considering the kit costs over three times what the gas savings amount to, it is hard to market on account of good money-sense. The only consolation is the concept of helping mother nature. I have limited understanding of the fabrication process of the solar panels, so it would be hard to say whether or not mother nature profits from this scenario.
Sadly, based on my understanding of the product described in the article, I don't see any way it can achieve any real MPG improvement. It only charges the small accessory 12V battery used for starting the car and running the power accessories(AC, steering, radio, etc). It provides no juice to the 28 200V main battery bank modules that power the engine.
If you're looking to heat water, the focused mirrors on pipe approach works fairly well (or just paint something black and move pipe water through it). Essentially you're just using various tricks to store heat produced from sunlight in a fairly efficient manner.
If you're looking at powering televisions and radios, though, you need to have electricity. Photovoltaics generally work best for that. Turning heated water into electricity does work, though at a lower efficiency.
There's other issues, of course. Just because photovoltaics are more efficient doesn't make them cheaper. There's the long-term costs and how much investment you're willing to make in order to get your cost savings.
A good polyurethane substitute can be produced from soy. Most plastics, lubricants, hydraulic fluids, artificial rubbers, and the host of other petroleum products critical to modern society don't have very good biosubstitutes.
However, if power becomes cheap, that's not a problem. Hydrogen + CO + pressure and heat produces a mixture of various hydrocarbons; that's how the Nazis produced oil late in WWII.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
Side note, we get less then 20% of our oil from the middle east, if they drop out completely we would just push harder on Venezuala.
On the other hand, if you buy a brand new VW Gold tdi (turbo diesel) for about the same cost (nicely loaded just under $22k) you get 45mpg (realistic estimate, not inflated EPA). So your fuel costs are similar to the of the Pirus but you have a car with significantly more power and pep. You also have a vehicle that can be feed 100% biodiesel and run with out a drop of petrol. And given the ruggedness of Diesel engines and the VW quality, you have a car that will continue to get 45mpg for 200,000. Compared to the Prius which is going to need new batteries every 3-5 years.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
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Therefore, here's a cached copy from Google:
http://tinyurl.com/7amp7
I Thess. 5:16-18. "Elephants are the only mammal not known to jump."
Don't know about the cells being used on this particular car-top application, but in general modern solar cells are built to resist wind and hail damage.
n /faqs/resid_sys.htm#faq23
for example:
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/solar/e
Can the modules withstand high winds and hail?
The panels are supported by our roofer-designed mounting system that has been tested to withstand 125 mph (200 kph) winds and can work on almost every type of roofing material. Our modules can withstand one inch (2.5 cm) hailstones at 50 mph (80.5 kph).
Of course, if your car is already doing 50 mph....
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Unless you're storing vast amounts of energy in the largest batteries known to mankind, any energy captured by solar cells is going to quickly turn back into heat again anyway. May I remind you that that is exactly what would have happened had we not captured that energy in the first place.
Now, if you covered a large portion of the planet with solar cells, and used that power to run a giant laser which blasted that energy off into space, never to return, then you might run into some problems. But we don't use energy like that.
Read up on the "urban heat sink effect" of large cities. For every 1 mile radius of city, the core temperature rises up by 1 degree centigrade. So the core temperature for a large city can actually be 10 degrees higher than in the suburbs. And urban development causes rainwater to run off 10 times faster than if it were being soaked up by natural vegetation. This has the effect of disrupting local weather patterns to the extent that a city can actually created a rainfall shadow; an area downwind of the central core which has an artificially higher rainfall (which might not be too bad unless it's acid rain). NASA have more details.
The effect of solar panels is negligible compared to what we have already done.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
A Prius' real-world mileage is less than a Golf or Jetta TDI, so it's about a wash.
Meanwhile, the Prius doesn't run on any alternative fuels, while the TDI will (with some degree of modification, NOT including engine internals) run on vegetable oil. Veggie oil kits will run you $650 to abotu $1200 depending on what kind you get. The higher-dollar kind is a single-tank conversion (from Elsbett) that lets you put diesel, kerosene, veggie oil, whatever into the same tank. I'm planning to get it for my Mercedes 300SD.
Assuming we're not going to cut down our vehicle use, there is only one rational answer to propelling them, assuming current technology: Build a bunch of hydroponic algae farms for the production of biodiesel. The leftovers can be used for fertilizer, and meanwhile the algae will be producing oxygen that we need desperately given that we're destroying oceanic life at unprecedented rates and oceanic algae is the source of the vast majority of our oxygen.
Hybrids won't help here, and the total energy cost of the hybrid is probably a LOT higher than a TDI, given the batteries and electrical system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I spoke to one of the engineers a few years ago. They clean it exactly as you would expect: with some light detergent and a hose. No rubbing-- scraches the mirrors and requires more effort then a simple hosing down.
In one test, they attached little sprayers (I think they were using the sprayers from a drip irrigation system) to the panels to spray it down every morning. Worked pretty well.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I agree it's not economical, but 10%/year degradation is FUD.
More like 1-2%/year for good panels in normal radiation.
(10-20% over TEN years)
Here's a graph..(read down)
http://www.solarstorms.org/Svulnerability.html