Solar-Powered Cars Race fron Austin to Calgary 217
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."
Solar Lifetime (Score:2, Interesting)
How much energy does it take to make a solar panel? Once in a while I hear someone say that solar panels take more energy to manufacture than they will produce in their entire lifetime, but I don't buy that without any numbers...
This is Uber smart :) :) :) (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyways, find these smart pups and have an open competition. Not only will the smart kids find ways to build things, but they must be economical. It is not like a lab at Motorola with millions of dollars.
And third, patent everything these kids do, by a univeristy or some trusted public group, and let anyone use the patents for free (except Microsoft, fuck them).
The genius of this system is kids love to compete and show off their genius. They will do it all for pride and because it is interesting. It stimulates their mind, they get caught up in it, and they build fantastic things. Meanwhile, everyone else benifits, no monopolies from these new inventions. And maybe the public group that holds these patents could use them as leverage against large companies, to force them to pay a fee, and in some cases to ban them from using the patent for their preditory buisness practices.
This is how a community can help itself without giving one CEO compelete power to ruin lives.
And I hope these kids build things that soon will be used in real cars, to reduce the amount of gasoline needed. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have cars with 100 miles per gallon of gas, and that emitted 1/10th the amount of pollution? It is possible.
speed limits, safety? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? Particularly given their vehicles have about zero crashworthyness?
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.
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 from tyranny to freedom (Score:2, Interesting)
One interesting impact will be that if you fail to make it all the way, you start off receiving more solar radiation (power) at the beginning of the race than you have at the end of the race, as you start closer to the equator than you finish at.
Thus, a system with a slightly better power storage system (battery) and more efficient battery cycles, might have an edge in the race over a more efficient vehicle with a smaller battery storage and/or less efficient battery cycles.
I remember being a founding member of SESCI, Inc. way back when, so this route is really fun
Re:speed limits, safety? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention how much longer one's car will last because you're not driving it like your insane.
I see these benefits for taking my time:
#1. Almost 2x the mpg.
#2. Longer lasting car.
#3. I don't live my life in a race.
#4. I don't need to worry about speeding tickets.
#5. (Probably) less accidents - my reaction time stays the same but my braking distance decreases.
Tell me why it's cool to drive (not) really fast again? People like to think they're rebels over here because they can drive over 90. Pathetic.
Oh, I even forgot to discuss the manslaughter charges when you get busted for speeds 100+. (Could be higher or lower in your state)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
<Thermodynamics nazism>
Energy is divided in two parts, exergy [wikipedia.org] and anergy. Their sum (i.e. energy) is constant, as the first law of thermodynamics goes.
Exergy is the part that you can convert in any form you like. Heat at ambient temperature is 100% anergy, since it's at equilibrium with its surroundings (yet it does contain energy, because those molecules are indeed moving around). Electricity is about 100% exergy, since it can be transformed in pretty much anything. Sunrays are in equilibrium with the sun's surface, about 5000 kelvin; therefore, they are about 1-300/5000=94% exergy. Heat used in cars, coal plants and gas turbines is exergy to various degrees depending on the combustion temperature [wikipedia.org].
As there is no such thing as a free lunch in thermodynamics, exergy is destroyed and corresponding anergy generated in any (real) process. Destroyed exergy is equal (ideally) or larger (in practice) than the energy you actually use.
So, all energy is non-reusable, because if you use it, you corrupt it to anergy, and you can't use it again; mathematically and physically it's still there, but not in a useful form: you can't use the same sunray twice. That's why quite some time ago someone came up with the word renewable, meaning that you are quite safe if you count on the sun delivering sunrays forever (at least on human scale).