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A Solar Race Around the World
garzpacho writes "In Switzerland, two teams are vying to be the first to circle the globe in a solar powered vehicle--one team in a boat, the other in an airplane. The boat, a two person trimaran, is the brainchild of PlanetSolar, who hopes to circumnavigate the world In 80 days. Solar Impulse is fielding the single-pilot plane, which will be capable of taking off under its own power and flying all night. Both groups hope to bring greater attention to solar power, which they believe is more appropriate for alternative transportation than for automobiles."
To heat and power a house, sure. But to power a vehicle? I'm not sure. Wouldn't that require a lot of energy collecting to get to a decent speed or produce power? I understand that the sun is out for a while so It's an almost constant power sour ce.
Maybe for a tram system where the power can go to both the engine and the track?
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Solar powered airplanes make a lot of sense, since they fly above the cloud layer. During a day flight, they're exposed to a lot of sun. If plane could use this energy to fly, it could cut down on the amount of fuel required to fly. Obviously you'd carry a full fuel load because you don't want to be caught in a bind if the solar cells fail, but imagine the savings if you could reduce fuel consumption by something like 30% during day flights.
Literally.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the wind "solar powered"? So humankind has been circumnavigating the globe in "solar-powered" boats for many centuries!
Note: I know some wind currents are driven by the earth's rotation, but the earth rotates because it's orbiting the sun, right? Still solar-powered!
I was thinking about building an automated solar plane that could stay up for weeks, but apparently it's very hard to do with current tech. There was an article a while back about such a plane, but they cheated by using thermals(bubbles of hot rising air heated by the ground) for lift and only stayed up for a couple days. As the energy to weight ratio of batteries improves, it should become easier.
If you want the links in english instead of having to click on the little EN..
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http://www.solar-impulse.com/scripts/page7655.htm
http://www.planetsolar.org/planetsolar.en.shtml
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Everyone knows solar power is *WAY* more available during the day!
Wouldn't it be cheaper, faster, and more efficent to just use a sailboat instead of a solar-powered craft?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Solar Impulse is fielding the single-pilot plane, which will be capable of taking off under its own power and flying all night.
If you're flying around the world, couldn't you arrange it so it's always daytime?
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Ok I'm bored and am going to complain about a slashdot summary - yes I know...
"Both groups hope to bring greater attention to solar power, which they believe is more appropriate for alternative transportation than for automobiles."
What? That doesn't make any sense. How does a plane flying around the world or a boat floating around the world affect my commute? I don't know about you guys but solar vs gas isn't what stops me from driving a boat or plane to work. That would be cool, commutes would be fun instead of boring traffic, though I bet if everyone did it there would be crashes galore (especially the planes). Plus - why do we have to choose solar power or cars - what I want a solar powered car?
To be fair, one of the teams (boats), for some reason seems to make this comparison. I doubt there are many places where what they say is feasable. I don't care how effecient solar boats are - I can't drive one to work and I bet very very very few people in the whole freaking world can (of course, there are some - but then I bet alot of them do so to avoid traffic. It's no big deal to hit 60-70 in a boat and no traffic, not to mention the "fun" factor. I know I would do so in a heart beat).
As to what the parent article said - I don't see why this makes a difference in perception. I find the challenge pretty neat and plan to follow it (no problems there - great geeky/tech story), but making it happen doesn't really change my commute in any way. Jeese, a wind powered boat made a world wide traversal a few hundred years ago (continent to continent a few thousand years ago) - doesn't make wind powered cars any more useful or practical. A solar transversal isn't going to change much either. Again - not that I don't think this is useful or neat (anything that advances our understanding is worth it - I'm fully aware that solving thier problems may lead to some great advances and wish them great success - I want to see our dependancy on oil vanish for a variety of reasons), if thier goal is to raise perception of solar powered commute this isn't the way.
Back to geeking out - my bet is on the plane. Unless it's *really* slow I can't see it beating the boat. Especially given the plane can fly a fairly straight line (even with air space restrictions) compared to the boat. As to which will be made first - my bet is the boat. If the motor fails you still get to float, a plane loosing power is deadly.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Isn't that how Desmond got stuck on the Island? Maybe we should be tracking these guys...
Didja take a look at that website about the solarplane? All kinds of mumbo about "pushing the envelope", and by the language, it's pretty clear that anything resembling construction is a *long* way off.
But, any dolt could take a nice, efficient catamaran, replace the sales with a solar rigging and a trolling motor, load the boat down with some MREs, and start sailing.
Not saying it'd be pleasant, but I'd rather sit on a Hobicat than try to get through the night in an ultralight plane knowing that battery life would just *barely* make it through the night, with almost no margin for error. (and yes, I'm a pilot)
The kind of aspect ratio they're talking about would be mighty difficult to fly, since it would be very prone to flutter, and the difference between the cruising speed and the stall speed would be almost negligable!
Not to mention having to be both very lightweight and also very strong...
Scary!
Better to fuel up a general aviation craft on butanol call it "green" and be done with it! Really, when you read up on it, butanol is some seriously cool stuff.
1) It mixes freely with gasoline
2) It burns like gasoline, in cars unmodified,
3) It can be made from corn, wheat, cheese whey, just about any agricultural product or byproduct.
4) It handles moisture much better than ethanol.
5) It's possible to extract more energy (in BTU) as butanol from corn then as ethanol.
Seriously, the fuel of the future for the United States is here, and it's butanol. (Bio-Diesel is probably more appropriate for Europe, where they have many more diesel cars than the US which is almost all gasoline-powered)
Just as green, and much easier on the pilot!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I've seen what happens when you enter a solar race...
you get stuck on some island in the middle of the pacific and have to push some stupid button every 108 minutes...
The best way for alternative fuel sources to become popular is for them to become economically viable. By buying a hybrid engine (a hybrid car, for example), you are providing downward pressure on fossil fuel demand, and normal supply-and-demand economics tells us that this will provide downward pressure on fuel prices.
Hybrids are a "half step" toward alternate energy sources. We need full steps. Want to help save the planet? Buy an SUV. Crank up those gas prices. This will help the case for alternate energy sources, by making them more economically attractive.
Same goes for Hybrid airplanes.
What do you think, can I win this argument?
What I'd like to see is an "open source" methodology.
If you want to make something happen in say, Linux, you can look at what someone else has already done, then tweak it to make it do what you need it to do. With our advances in bio-tech, surely there must be a future in bio-engineering some specific plant life to produce high amounts of usable energy. I know that there are bacteria that produce h2 etc. but the scale is insufficient.
What I imagine is, a plant that converts prodigious amounts of energy (ie bamboo can grow 6 feet in a day) and subverting that energy so that instead of producing growth, it produces a chemical that can be used to directly power an engine of some variety. An engine is defined as something that converts energy into work done.
In the end, we need a symbiosis to fulfill our transportation requirements. Back in the days, man used a horse or a cow, to pull a cart. The animal got its food from grazing grass which got its energy directly (but not completely) from the sun.
So why can't we follow that approach ? Utilise a very efficient system that nature has "designed" and subvert it to our own ends. After all, fossil fuels are only stored solar power.
Taking nanotech into account, it may be possible to create a muscle structure that when it is working generates an amount of electrical current. The muscle would get its "nutrition" from the chemical produced by the bio-engineered plant. The plant would get its energy from the sun. We could foster the initial growth of the plant in the ocean or tanks (for safety) much like an algae bloom, so we would only have to fill our "tanks" with a green goop once a month for example. The extra compounds the plant needs to survive (minerals etc) would be provided by the dead goop we have already used (think ginger beer plant). We still have to utilise the electrical energy more efficiently of course, but our motors are getting pretty good.
I realise this is all probably very naive, and I'm not a scientist in any way, at all ! But it seems to me that all our thinking has been towards shortcuts, ie. sun -> solar panel -> power instead of taking the natural route of sun -> plant -> food -> animal -> power.
We need to aim at creating a living system.
Maybe I'm talking out of my ninth planet, but the saying "haste makes waste" seems to apply as solar panels aren't very efficient.
Of course, you could say that my ideal involves many more stages and so is less efficient, but each stage would be as close to maximum efficiency as nature has got to already.
I'll get my coat.
Next time you tank remember, it is all natural.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.