DailyDirt: Solar Powered Transportation
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The sun blankets our planet in about 100 terawatts of energy every year -- far more than the 15 terawatts that people use annually (largely from fossil fuels). Solar power isn't quite ready to solve all of our energy problems, but solar technology is getting better and better. Here are just a few first steps that could boost solar power use for transportation.- The Solar Impulse plane completed a journey across the US, making it the first solar-powered plane capable of day and night operation to fly from San Francisco to New York. The plane's top speed is about 45 mph, and an improved version will attempt to make it around the world in 2015. [url]
- The Solar Car Project Hochschule Bochum holds the Guiness World Record for the longest journey by a solar electric vehicle, driving 29,753 km (18,487 miles) from Adelaide, Australia to Mount Barker, Australia. It took 168 days to make that trip, and it probably wasn't exactly Fahrvergnügen. [url]
- The MS Turanor PlanetSolar is the first solar-powered vehicle to circumnavigate the globe in 2012. This solar powered boat took 584 days to travel about 37,286 miles, and it's biggest problem wasn't the technology but avoiding pirates on the open sea. [url]
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Filed Under: electric vehicle, energy, guiness record, solar impulse, solar power, transportation
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units
terawatts is a unit of POWER, not of ENERGY.
The total solar energy provided to the earth in a year needs to be expressed in units like terawatt-hours or terawatt-seconds or maybe yottawatts.
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Re: units (and HELD FOR CENSORSHIP)
1 watt is 1 amp at 1 volt for 1 second
so a 1 watt light globe (that is turned on) might be using 1 volt and drawing 1 amp, and is producing the POWER of 1 watt of light energy.
he is more correct using the term energy than power, as power is energy at work, and all the sun light falling on the earth is not 'put to work'.
So you have a lot of power falling on the earth, that has more energy than our present energy demands.
Converting energy to power is what this article is about.
Look TD got something right !!!! :)
(But I will still be HELD FOR CENSORSHIP, for 4 or 5 days) !!!!
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Adelaide to Mt Barker?
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I admit, I have no idea how much a solar panel costs. They must still be pretty expensive though, because hardly anybody on this planet uses them.
Yes, I know they require batteries too. I would think the batteries should cost more than the solar panels, themselves. Guess we need to work on battery prices too.
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Do you know this one?
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Great Scott!
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Re:
This may shock you, but the first automobile wasn't a Lexus. And the first computer couldn't run Crysis, either.
Have you ever actually designed and built anything? Was it spectacular perfection, or was it a proof of concept onwhich to build a better model?
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Re: units
[I wrote it correctly the first time I tried posting it but for some reason it didn't post. I screwed up when I tried to hurry up and re-post.]
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Re: Re: units (and HELD FOR CENSORSHIP)
1 watt is 1 joule per second
1 watt-second is 1 joule
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Re: Re: Re: units (and HELD FOR CENSORSHIP)
A battery can have say 10 joules of energy, but it does not become power until it's used.
A donut might have 30 joules of energy, but unless you eat it for burn it, you don't get that power from it.
I meant to type a joule is 1 watt for 1 second or 1 amp at 1 volt for 1 second.
1 joule of energy can be converted to 1 watt for 1 second.
Again, the point is still the same, and the correct term used by the author of this article.
Solar panels are still expensive to make as opposed to CPU's and computers because much higher amounts of raw materials are required, of high quality and there is not the economies of scale either.
A lot of cars are made too, they are not significantly cheaper then years ago, they have economy of scale, but a car like a solar panel requires a lot of materials, especially high grade (IC grade) silicon ingots.
far, far more geothermal energy available on earth that is available from sun light.
We live on a thin layer of rock floating on a massive sea of nuclear powered molten rock. (magma in the earth, lava when on the surface).
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Re: Adelaide to Mt Barker?
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