Swiss Solar Powered Catamaran Finishes 'Round the World Tour

First time accepted submitter wokie78 writes "The PlanetSolar, a Swiss solar powered catamaran, has just arrived to Monaco (French original), its initial port of departure, after finishing its voyage around the world which it started in September 2010. Its five-member crew completed a 60,006 km trip fully powered by 537 square meters of solar panels, which produced from 500 to 600 kw/h in fair weather — which meant it could go for 300 km on a single charge. Everything on the boat was solar powered."

Comments

Impressive, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that sailing boats have been doing that with only wind power for many centuries.

Re:Impressive, but

[gstrickler]

Don't know why you were modded down, but you're correct.

Nice demonstration. It's cool that they did it, but it's completely impractical.

It would have made more sense to use a combination of sails and solar. A hybrid solar/sail would be far more practical, and would have completed the trip much faster.

Re:Impressive, but

[Holi]

And most cruising boats worth their metal have solar cells that provide enough power to charge the batteries for night time use. This is really a non story. I know some guys who would rather wait for the wind then start up the diesel.

Re:Impressive, but

[12WTF$]

Strictly, ALL power sources EXCEPT nuclear and ground thermal are solar power - formed by our sun (aka SOL) in hydrogen fusion.
Nuclear and ground thermal (earth radioactive decay) are STRICTLY stellar power - formed by star(s) during supernova implosion.
Loosely, solar power (SOL radiation from 1 million year decay of gamma radiation from 4H -> He fusion) can be conveniently
partitioned into a) non-renewable hydrocarbon fossil fuel (SOL power via photosynthesis plus millions of years cooking) and
b) renewable energy embodied in direct solar capture (PV) and wind sea and rain energy (earth system short term storage)
and medium term bio storage (bio-gas, wood) which is continuously replenished for our use AS LONG AS WE DONT TOTALY
FUCK UP THE BIOSPHERE WITH EXCESS CARBON DIOXIDE.

Re:Impressive, but

[voidphoenix]

Not disagreeing with you, but your post isn't entirely fair, because if you trace the chain back, everything is ultimately powered by the Big Bang. One step forward is gravity, which feeds fusion, which generates energy and all the other elements from hydrogen. So we have to draw the line somewhere to have a rational discussion. I'd suggest containing the discussion to our solar system. So we basically have 3 sources of energy: Solar, which feeds wind, tidal, hydro and petrochem; Nuclear; and Geothermal, which is fed by gravity and nuclear.

Re:Impressive, but

[AmiMoJo]

Nice demonstration. It's cool that they did it, but it's completely impractical.

It is very practical if you need a ship that can sail to a spot and then generate a descent amount of electricity to run equipment. It also demonstrates the reliability of large solar panels at sea, a fairly harsh environment.

Rule of thumb: if someone spent a lot of time and money doing something they probably had a well thought out reason for it, even if you can't think of it right this minute before you rush in to get an early top post.

What a load of muddled energy unit drivel.

[Anonymous Coward]

"537 sq metres of panels which produced from 500 to 600 kw/h in fair weather"
No it produced 500 to 600 kW, whether it did it for hours or not depends on how long the "fair weather" lasted.
"which meant it could go for 300km on a single charge" - meaningless. Perhaps they are talking about batteries. Who knows.
If so they are saying (somewhat unrelated to the peak power generating capacity of the solar panels) that their batteries can store 500kw/hrs. and so can be charged in an hour?? Who can tell. And perhaps they are able to run (at some percentage of peak speed) for 300km.

Of course none of this tells us anything really, since what you need for this to be "remarkable" would be to run much faster than the wind, otherwise I'd much prefer sailing.

Re:What a load of muddled energy unit drivel.

[robbak]

I'm just trying to work out what a kw per hour might be. A Watt being a Joule per second, so a 1000 watts per second per 3600 seconds-hold on, I need a price of paper - Ah! .28 joules/s/s. Hmmm. That must be ... The rate at which the solar cells, decay, accelerates! Yes! So, if they started out at 550 odd square meters, -but is that per cell, per panel, of for the whole array? let's just say it's a god thing they finished when they did!

Re:What a load of muddled energy unit drivel.

[srjh]

There's only about a kW of solar power available per square metre, and solar panels aren't anywhere near 100% efficient, so it can't be the output of the panels.

This is why it's bad to have the scientifically illiterate writing articles - they mangle the units beyond recognition so you have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

Re:What a load of muddled energy unit drivel.

[srjh]

500 kw/h per day is even more nonsensical. Energy over time cubed?

Maybe they meant kWh per day. That would almost make sense, but come on... it's not hard to get it right the first time instead of leaving people to guess which errors were made to infer the right value.

Re:What a load of muddled energy unit drivel.

[Guignol]

I suspect they meant kWh instead of kW/h, and I suppose this is how much energy the boat would harvest on a good day (?).
Not terribly well reported, but I don't think the kW/h mistake is really due to complete stupidity, it looks more like a slip to me
In french, there are two very common units in your every day life that are pronounced almost identically: km/h and kWh (french don't say kilometer per hour, but shorten it as kilometre-heure so it is pronounced almost the same as killoWatt-heure, except in one case a multiplication is implied, and in the other it's a division)

Wind?

[Hentes]

There have been ships running on renewable energy for centuries, using sails.

kW/h?

[orzetto]

That's a new unit, the kilowatt per hour, basically an energy acceleration!

I guess the real number is 500-600 kWh per day, given 1 kW/m^2 of solar constant, 14% conversion efficiency and 7-8 hours of full sunlight (morning and evening weighing less, I suppose). That's anyway a 23 kW day average in power production.

What a pointless and stupid 'achievement'

[syncrotic]

We know what solar panels can do. We know what electric motors can do. Putting the two together in a boat does not a novel invention make. Sailing it around the world is not a notable achievement.

It's the same as all those ridiculous solar-powered races across Australia: they don't bring a solar-powered car one iota closer to reality, because a solar powered car will never produce more than a few kilowatts, and that will never be enough to overcome the air resistance of a vehicle in which a person can sit somewhat upright.

Technology doesn't advance to overcome the laws of physics. Solar powered transportation of any sort will never do anything more than make possible novelty journeys for people with more money than sense.

Re:What a pointless and stupid 'achievement'

[Jeremi]

It's still less stupid than, say, the record for most hot dogs eaten in an hour. If you're going to complain about other people's achievements, why not start there?

Re:What a pointless and stupid 'achievement'

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they do dumbass,where precisely does that equipment get tested in the real world? Or how about what's the impetus to creating it for something that's possibly decades away?

What makes it notable is that nobody had done that before. But then again, I suppose that first trip by Magellan around the world wasn't notable either because they had boats and they had sails, so clearly putting the two together and using them to travel around the world isn't notable. Which is probably why nobody knows who he is.

Re:What a pointless and stupid 'achievement'

[CrimsonAvenger]

Nautilus breaking through the ice at the north pole, proving the viability of nuclear submarines and, at the same time, doing something that had never been done.

Nautilus didn't break through the ice at the North Pole. It sailed under ice the whole way over the North Pole.

Skate was the first to surface at the Pole, I'm pretty sure. Least, that's what they told us at Sub School.

Re:What a pointless and stupid 'achievement'

[Celarent Darii]

Yes, the USS Skate was the first to surface at the North Pole. My father still has stories to tell of his time on that boat! The USS Nautilus was the first nuclear powered submarine.

Just as a related question - why don't we see nuclear power on other vessels, for instance long distance tankers? It would seem ideal for long cruises and save tons on fuel weight.

Re:What a pointless and stupid 'achievement'

[dbIII]

why don't we see nuclear power on other vessels

Far too expensive for civilian vessels - except for things like those Russian icebreakers which may be military anyway. Cargo ships are designed to move things as cheaply as possible. Military vessels are designed to do the job in more adverse conditions and cost is lower proirity.
Taking a risk on expensive R&D to build a nuclear cargo vessel is not something that private enterprise is going to do due to what would be high capital costs. IMHO you would see non-government nuclear vessels anywhere until a government has done all the hard work and handed the results over on a plate. Even if they are cheap to run, the costs to build the first few would be huge.

Re:Fucking units, how do they work?

[rtb61]

Here's a better article with more images http://www.charterworld.com/news/tranor-planetsolar-catamarans-record-transatlantic-crossing. So they have outrigger panels to substantial solar panel surface area with out compromising durability in tougher weather. They could have also used a bit of methane generated from crew waste, as long a the crew were vegetarian of course.

Man I watch too much South Park

[ArcadeNut]

I read that as "Cartman" and I was like "WTF???"

Re:kW/h?

[TubeSteak]

http://www.planetsolar.org/the-boat

Surface area of solar modules: 537 m2
PV panel efficiency: 18.8 %
Installed PV power: 93.5 kW (127.0 HP)
*Puissance moteur maximale: 120 kW
Average engine consumption: 20 kW (26.8 HP)

*Maximum motor output

Even better

[gr8_phk]

A company I worked for did integration work on a hybrid electric sail boat. With electric props you can charge the battery from the wind while sailing - use the motors as generators. They produced enough power to run all electrical loads on the boat including air conditioning with a very small loss in speed. In dock you may want some solar to keep it charged.

Re:Even better

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also towing generators for sailboats that have been around forever. When you have a nice amount of wind and are cruising along you throw the generator off the back on a line and it charges the batteries as it's towed along. They're very common amongst boaties.

Redundant, we have already solved this problem

[Holi]

2 of these http://chetcomarine.com/coleman130wsolarpanel.aspx, 1 of these http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products.folder/wind-folder/airx48marine.html.

Replace my 30 hp Yanmar Diesel with an electric motor. I really only use it for docking and mooring, I'll luff through the doldrums. I worry more about too much wind rather than not enough.

Double my current 6 6v golf cart batteries. and I could circumnavigate in comfort, and use all my gadgets.

and I'd need a new boat, my little Pearson is fun for the coast but I think the ocean would break her

Just saying that we have better ways to perform the task already.

Re:Fucking units, how do they work?

[Anonymous Coward]

kW/h/day!! Amazing! Why not call it kJ/s/h/day at that point?
What the fuck happened to this place? Slashdot, your nerd card is revoked.

Captcha: perplex

Re:Fucking units, how do they work?

[artor3]

If you gonna criticize someone for screwing up their units, you ought to be careful of the difference between kW/h and kW*h.

It's not about effectiveness

[dutchwhizzman]

It's not about effectiveness. It's about proving that solar panel and electrics have come far enough to actually do this. This is a first and it's a technology showcase. Now we have a record time and some other crew with a more efficient solar only boat will probably try to beat it.

First non-stop trip around the world in a solar boat? First solo crew trip around the world in a solar boat? Expect Richard Branson to get into the race, once the time to complete a trip will fit into his schedule.