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."

Comments

What about Stirling Engines?

[AK Marc]

I thought http://www.stirlingenergy.com/ was a better solution

Re:Not my kind of option...

[Adult film producer]

You need something like this then... although it's not really suited for anything other than hotdogs. http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/light/solar_ho tdog_cooker.html

There are plenty of designs available for nice solar ovens & fryers.. anything collapsible is usually a little more work, but worth the effort.

Re:How to market!?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yeah...but, it looks like CRAP. Can't they make these 'green' cars look nice and sporty?

They hit the economy car segment first, because that is where is is marketable as a gas saving feature. For sports cars, however, you'll be seeing hybrids very soon from a number of different manufacturers and they will be very, very fast to accelerate off the line, given the benefits of stable power at the low end of the spectrum. Toyota and Mitsubishi's concept demos this year seemed particularly nice.

Hydrogen Farming

[Nom du Keyboard]

I think it would make more sense to put solar cells out in the desert (there's lots of square miles of desert) near water and existing natural gas pipelines. Use the sunlight to make hydrogen, oxygen, and heavy water. Ship the hydrogen through the natural gas system (yes you can do this) as a substitute for natural gas. Take the oxygen away in tanker trucks for industrial use, and sell the heavy water to the government. There is no pollution, demand peaks, or major changes necessary to make use of this resource.

Then pay me my commission on this idea that I never hear talked about otherwise in any serious manner.

Put solar on your house, not the car

[protonbishop]

disclaimer: that's what I do(I have a electric car, so I plug it in at night).

Putting solar cells on your car is dumb:

1. deal with aerodynamics (not a problem with my house)
2. can't orient cells correctly (hard enough finding a close parking space, now you have to have one in the sun, with a WSW tilt (for us northern hemispherians)
3. ANY SHADE across solar panels, even a tree branch, dramatically decreases its efficiency (like having one dead battery in your flashlight: the whole thing fails).
4. size matters... 1kW system is about 120 square feet -- that's just not going to power much of a car. Consider 400wh to power car one mile & assume you get 5 equivalent hours/day parking & 30 square foot car top. That's enough power to drive 4 miles when the sun shines.

Having PV grid-tied, means you feed electricity onto the grid at typically peak usage times, then recharge your car at night at off peak rates.

Re:How to market!?

[wattersa]

> Why are people even buying cars in the first place? If you city has good public transit, you could take the bus back and forth to work each day, and rent a car for the weekends for less then the price of owning a car. $15 a day to rent a car, plus $15 a day for insurance, that's $30 a day, times 8 days for weekends in a month, and you at $240 a month.

I'll answer the economic question first and the philosophical question second. I live in San Francisco near SF State, my job is 12 miles away on the Peninsula, and my commute options are:
*Driving*
Ford Crown Victoria LX: $15488 in August 2000, pre-owned with 23,000 miles.
4.6L V-8, 200 horsepower, 17/25 mpg (22 overall). 88,000 miles driven in 5.5 years = 16,000 miles/year. Gas costs at $2 per gallon avg over last 5.5 years = $1500 per year = $4 per day.
Insurance: $68 per month with all my discounts = $2.27 per day.
Maintenance: 3 oil changes per year at $60 at Jiffy Lube plus misc. maintenance averaging $300 per year = $480/yr = $1.30 per day.

Total consumables cost per day of car use for ownership: $7.57 per day, assuming equal use on all days of the year (long trips on weekends make up for non-use, etc).
Depreciation: car now worth $4500 = $11,000 depreciation over 5.5 years = $2000/yr = $5.50 per day.

Total cost for car ownership, daily use for commuting and pleasure, etc etc: $13.07 per day.
Time spent commuting: ~35 minutes per day for a 24 mile round trip. My car is in my apartment garage so I walk directly to it, drive to the office garage, and walk into the office.

The question is whether public transit costs more than that amount per day.
*Public Transit*
Bus to Daly City BART station: $1.50, 10 minute walk away, ~5 minutes spent waiting for the bus. 5 minute ride to BART.
$1.75 for BART ticket. 5-10 minutes spent waiting for train.
20 minute train ride to Millbrae.
Transfer to Caltrain, $1.50 ticket.
10 minute train ride.
Walk 5 minutes to office in downtown San Mateo.
One-way cost: $4.75
Time spent: 62 minutes.
Double it for daily total: $9.50, 120 minutes avg.
Assume use is halved on weekends for recreation, $4.75 and 60 minutes.

Car: $4770 per year = $13.07 per day avg.
Public transit: $2825 per year = $7.70 per day avg.

Car: 35 minutes per day transit time
Public transit: 98 minutes per day
The question now is whether the time difference makes up for the higher cost of ownership. During the week I make $45 per hour. I save over an hour per day by driving. So I can work more per day and still have the same amount of leisure time as if I worked less and took public transit. If I work the full extra hour, I make an extra $39.63 per day by driving!

Now the philosophical argument.

For people under time pressure, public transit is the worst. You end up wasting a lot of time waiting around, getting tickets, waiting in line, waiting in the terminal, walking between trains, climbing stairs, and the like. Then you have the often neglected and graffittied vehicles filled with somber, depressed people. Not to mention panhandlers, drug addicts, and blabbermouths on their cell phones trying to catch up on work and not getting much done. I would rather work (and get paid for it) than spend time sitting in a train waiting to arrive at the next station. In my car I have the ultimate freedom in transport: I'm reverse commuting, which means no rush hour traffic and no waiting, I have my iPod hooked up and I can replay the same song 100 times in a row if I want, and I can take a beautiful leisurely drive on highway 280 south, "the world's most beautiful freeway," and luxuriate in the knowledge that if nothing else, I made it in life to the extent that I can afford to drive to work until gasoline reaches about $18 per gallon because I use less than two gallons per day and made that extra $39. Driving makes absolute sense to me, especially as cars get more efficient. Add to that the freedom of being able to go wherever I want at any

Re:Facts don't see to match hype.

[pdawson]

It's called "conservation of energy". The energy in that 12V battery has to come from somewhere. If it comes from solar panels instead of from gasoline, you're using less gasoline. Period.

Yes, but even if it eliminated the need to charge the single 12V battery at all, that does not account for 10% of the car's energy usage, 1-3% perhaps, as compared to the 28x 200V NiMh modules.

Re:How to market!?

[drinkypoo]

Actually, the problem is that you don't get instant torque from a gasoline engine. Electric motors make peak torque at 0 RPM. However, my car has only 155bhp and 155ft-lb stock, and I have nothing more than intake/exhaust for performance, and I will roast your little bimbo box hybrid off the line, because I have a hard suspension (no squat) and a close-ratio transmission. Trust me, I've done it before :P (And for all those others out there reading this, no, I don't think it was an impressive feat.)

And uh, clutches were meant to be trashed :)

Re:Go VW! Diesel is more!

[Kadin2048]

The other thing that needs to be considered is what kind of driving you do.

A gasoline hybrid like the Prius gets its best mileage in city, stop-and-go driving, because of the regenerative braking.

A diesel engine gets its best milage while cruising on the highway at a basically constant speed, in the transmission's highest gear.

I used to drive a diesel VW and *loved* it. It was fun to drive (torquey as hell) and had excellent highway range, well in excess of 500 miles to the tank. However that mileage went into the toilet if I had to do a lot of stop and go driving. Still better than a conventional gasoline car for the same driving, but nothing like a hybrid.

I think there will be a place for both types of vehicles in the future, and which one is most efficient for you depends on the type of driving you do. For me, it's almost highway driving -- a hybrid wouldn't have much of an advantage.

The other thing to consider is the air conditioning and heating requirements. I have heard it said that the hybrids derive a lot of their fuel savings by being able to shut off the gas engine when it's not needed (in city driving), but that if you have the A/C running, it won't shut off because there's no way to run the compressor electrically. If anyone can verify this I'd be interested ... but if it's true, it could seriously impact the efficiency numbers in certain climates. A diesel engine sees some efficiency hit as a result of the A/C compressor, but its not that significant. (I measured the MPG of my VW with the compressor running and not, and could never get a good handle on what the change was. It was below the error caused by month-to-month differences in my driving style, anyway.) I don't know about anybody else, but I am not prepared to drive without air conditioning, at least until gas is well into the double-digit dollars per gallon.

What I would like to see is a diesel-electric hybrid: combine the best of both worlds.

I also wish that there was some sort of tax relief for diesel passenger vehicles on the diesel fuel taxes, which are really excessive. They're aimed at truckers, but they've had the side-effect of making diesel artifically expensive relative to gasoline, and hurting diesel car development in the US. This is too bad, because it's a technology that really has a lot of potential. There are better/alternative ways of taxing trucking than putting a tax on diesel fuel. At the very least, we should have some sort of rebate program to allow diesel passenger car owners to get back the difference in taxes they pay over an equivalent amount of gasoline (if not the amount of gasoline that they would have needed to buy to drive the same number of miles, which would be more fair).