Swiss Solar Powered Catamaran Finishes 'Round the World Tour 110
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."
Impressive, but (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that sailing boats have been doing that with only wind power for many centuries.
kW/h? (Score:1, Insightful)
I knew the french were stupid, but kW/h? This article might be interesting if it made any sense.
What a load of muddled energy unit drivel. (Score:4, Insightful)
"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:Impressive, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
What a pointless and stupid 'achievement' (Score:4, Insightful)
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' (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Fucking units, how do they work? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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