Solar-Powered Cars Race fron Austin to Calgary

dblizzard writes "The North American Solar Challenge race is about to start. Travelling at speeds of up to 130km/hr (80mph), these teams will race from Austin Texas to Calgary Alberta all with no non-reusable energy. Here's the race link, and here's some really cool photos of the Queens' University car."

Uhm

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

Solar isn't reusable. There's just a lot of it.

Fron?

[agm]

Can't the editors do something so simple as spell check a word a 6 year old can spell?

Re:Irony

[Black Cardinal]

Texas and Alberta are both big oil-producing regions.

Route

[JeiFuRi]

I wonder what route they will be taking. But anyways, heres a nice idea of the distance between the two locations from Google Maps [google.com]

Re:WTF? - Entropy!

[BrianMarshall]

It is true that energy is neither created nor destroyed. However, gasoline is a highly concentrated, relatively low-entropy source of energy that can be used to do things; after it is used, the energy is still around, but it is in the form of heat - first in the engine and exhaust, then in the air, then just around - a relatively high-entropy form of energy.

In other words, gasoline is non-reusable in the sense that you can get work out of it when you burn it, but once it has been burned, it is burnt.

Re:WTF? - Entropy!

[dreamchaser]

That's not *entirely* true. A turbocharger uses the power from the waste gasses(exhaust) to drive the turbine that then adds boost to the air/fuel mix. So in that sense, the gasoline is used twice ;)

Re:speed limits, safety?

[(startx)]

There hasn't been a Federal Interstate speed lmit in, oh, 10 years now. Each state is allowed to set their own Interstate speed limits. For example, it's 70mph through most of MO, and 75 in CO I think. Interestingly, the last time I drove through KS to CO, everyone slowed down when crossing the border, even though the speed limit went up! I think it had something to do with the sign that said "Speed limits are enforced."

Back On-topic: Go UMR [umr.edu]! Time for Solar Miner IV to win a second race!

Re:Irony

[wankledot]

That's the point. They are traveling between two oil towns. It would be like staging an anti-nuke march between 3 mile island and chernobyl. (obviously not possible, but you get the idea.) Or having a defense-of-marriage march through the middle of the Castro district.

Re:speed limits, safety?

[joshstaiger]

That will be an impressive feat, with the US Federal highway speed limit of 65, and a Canadian speed limit on major roads up there not much faster; 100km/hr to 120km/hr, if I recall on my last trip?(it was months ago, sorry). Why is it that nobody else is allowed to break the speed limit, but these guys are?

This alternate article [jobwerx.com] states that each car must obey local speed limits.

So it sounds like the race becomes more about efficiency and conservation of energy through the cloudy spells than it is about raw speed.

--
http://joshstaiger.org/ [joshstaiger.org]

Re:Irony

[gonk]

A little FYI. Austin Energy leads the nation in green power. From www.austinenergy.com:

"GreenChoice is the most successful utility-sponsored green power program in the nation with 383 million kWh in subscriptions at the end of 2004."

robert
(yes, I'm a GreenChoice household)

Re:Solar Lifetime

[Anonymous Coward]

The numbers I have been taught (studying sustainable development) is that a solar cell works with semiconductors, preferrably rather rare such ones, such as indium for instance. These minerals are at sparse concentrations when mining, so the energy consumtion is indeed great. However, a modern photovoltaic solar panel has an efficiency of somewhere 15%-20% of incoming energy from the sun. The energy needed to mine what's needed measures to somewhere between two and five years (depending on type. there are a dozen of them) of its lifetime in production. Solar cells usually run for around twenty years, so somewhere between one tenth and a fourth of its lifespan is used just to make up for its own production.

Re:Could anyone tell me the purpose of this race?

[vlado4]

I have been on the University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project for the past four years and this is the first race that I will be missing due to graduation. To answer your question, it is important to keep the competition going. No, cars are not completely re-designed every year, however constantly rebuilding them allows a proper evolution to occur. The UMN team is particularly interesting because we try to do as much of our own work as possible. Power trackers, motor controller, motor, encapsulating the cells, battery controller, etc, are all desgined by us. This doesn't always guarantee the best results vs. some of our competitors who outsource much of their cars to professional companies, but gives us a great feeling of achivement. Out current car, Borealis III, has few revolutionary improvements over Borealis II, but we've fixed many problems that have plagued us in the past and improved our reliability immensely. If we go back five years ago, the car we had then was dramatically inferrior. Now we have an all digital communication system (BDLC), robust power trackers, and good encapsulation. The carbon fiber body of the car improved a lot too. Before it used to crack after significant wear. For more info, check out the official lwebsite of the UMN Solar Vehicle Project. [http://160.94.140.26/%5D [160.94.140.26] BTW, we are one of the top teams, the last race, which was from Chicago to LA was tough, but we placed second afret UMR (their array generated much more power). There is also a endurance race around a track that happens in Topeka Kansas every year, which we often place first in.

Re:Irony

[beasstman]

Enmax (the major power supplier for Calgary) also has a fairly serious program to promote alternate energy. As one poster pointed out, they have a number of windmills, and claim the local light rail runs on power from it. (I find it hard to believe they actually have the power seperated out in a special grid, I suspect they just produce *enough* power from wind to run the trains, but the marketing imagery is clever anyway)

Users can also sign up to help pay for wind generation by paying a bit more for electricity. [enmax.com]

Yep, when I lived there I was a GreenMax member.

That said, I do love the choice of Austin to Calgary for a solar race. Very appropriate...

Re:Racing from tyranny to freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, the further north you are, the MORE sunlight (at least until Sept 21).

Re:Speeds up 80 clicks?

[eta526]

Actually, they have to stay within the speed limit. That's the only reason they don't go faster. UMR won last time. I'm hoping they can take it again. http://news.umr.edu/news/2005/solarprkit05.html [umr.edu]

Re:speed limits, safety?

[ferds32]

I'm also curious how they plan to keep solar cars from mixing with general traffic; there has been at least one fatal accident involving a solar car (which came apart like paper mache) a few months ago when a solar vehicle was being tested.

The rules of this race and the World Solar Challenge [wsc.org.au] are similar. (I believe this is deliberate, so a car built for one race can race in the other.) The cars are required to have escort vehicles at all times in the World Solar Challenge. I should imagine the American race would be the same.

Honestly, what was wrong with an enduro race on a closed race circuit? At least then it would be more controllable, and emergency/rescue crews would be barely a minute or two from any participant. There are numerous reasons we do our racing OFF public roads...

Racing on the roads gives vastly more public exposure to the technology. The public, at least in outback Australia and Japan, are facinated by the cars. Taking a few hybrids along means people also see the practical application of some of the technology and can even take a hybrid for a drive! None of that would happen on a closed circuit. There are circuit races as well, such as the Dream Cup [honda.co.jp], but they serve a quite different type of racing.

--
Tom Rowlands
(Sorry, I can't sign this.)

UMR

[Otto]

UMR has won three times now, I think. Before that, they always did pretty well. The solar car team is a reasonably big deal at Rolla, what with there being little else to do in that hellhole of a town. I should know, I was there for 5 years. :P

And if they lose, well, they always have St. Pats in which to drown their sorrows. :)

Re:This is Uber smart :) :) :)

[Tune]

Go to Soviet Russia for communist technology "contests" and see how far that sort of "innovation" takes you.

(That may require time travel innovation first, but that's not my point.)
As a programmer I have the greatest respect for innovation by Soviet colleague. These guys put astronauts into space in stuff that's more reliable and energy-efficient than anything NASA or ESA could come up with, yet their "hi-tech" computer hardware had a disadvantage of some 20 years. Imagine that.