Some truth to people who think we can be 100% renewable

[jimandthom]

So, the car can recharge at a rate of about one gallon of gas a day

, IF I leave it outside (and not in my more secure garage), in the sun, during a 95 degree day, making the interior temperature about 120 degrees. No Thanks.


In the same idea as highlighted in the red------ the first plane only carried 1 person and flew a couple hundred yards. Despite that little distance then--we can now carry 300+ on mult- thousand mile flights.

There were many other attempts before Wilbur and Orville, they just happened to get the math right. Maybe Ford will get the math right and have a better idea than whats on the Prius.

Our you suggesting unless perfect something isn't worth the effort --be it solar car or plane?

 

[CardsFan]

So, the car can recharge at a rate of about one gallon of gas a day

, IF I leave it outside (and not in my more secure garage), in the sun, during a 95 degree day, making the interior temperature about 120 degrees. No Thanks.


In the same idea as highlighted in the red------ the first plane only carried 1 person and flew a couple hundred yards. Despite that little distance then--we can now carry 300+ on mult- thousand mile flights.

There were many other attempts before Wilbur and Orville, they just happened to get the math right. Maybe Ford will get the math right and have a better idea than whats on the Prius.

Our you suggesting unless perfect something isn't worth the effort --be it solar car or plane?

You are entirely correct, and MAYBE there will be substantial progress quickly. In the meantime, no thanks. Let the folks with money to waste be the early adopters (just like TV's. computers, andn cell phones)

 

[ERD50]

So, the car can recharge at a rate of about one gallon of gas a day

, IF I leave it outside (and not in my more secure garage), in the sun, during a 95 degree day, making the interior temperature about 120 degrees. No Thanks.

In the same idea as highlighted in the red------ the first plane only carried 1 person and flew a couple hundred yards. Despite that little distance then--we can now carry 300+ on mult- thousand mile flights.

There were many other attempts before Wilbur and Orville, they just happened to get the math right. Maybe Ford will get the math right and have a better idea than whats on the Prius.

Our you suggesting unless perfect something isn't worth the effort --be it solar car or plane?

And this is the problem with stuff like this, and why I say I hate these ideas earlier. People want to make comparisons to computers or some other early tech, but they are doing it w/o taking into account the laws of physics, and then think that it can be done if we just try real hard. Everything is easy if we ignore (or are unaware of) real world limits.

So here's why solar panels on a car can never (and I almost never say never) progress like some other tech:

If the car is using high-tech solar panels, they might be ~ 20% efficient. So the pure math says they can't be any better than converting 100% of the power that hits them (which is limited by the Sun!) so 5x better is an absolute limit. But of course real world rarely hits 100%, and the physics of solar cells limits them to a certain wavelength, about 1/3rd of the spectrum. We might get to multi-layer cells, but even then, I think 80% would be about the best we'd expect, so maybe, maybe 4x better. But it will NEVER be 300,000x better, like your airplane example, because it can't. It just can't.

But regardless, it's a stupid idea. Put those panels where they should be - in the sun,at the proper angle for the latitude, all day, every day. So you see, this has nothing to do with something not being worth it if it isn't perfect. There are better alternatives, so we should do those. It's not about not doing something, it's about doing the best thing that we can. Especially when "best" is cheaper and with a longer life.

To put it another way, anyone in favor of this is actually pushing Renewable Energy efforts backwards, because they are getting less RE for the effort and $. That's not smart. We need to be smart.

What do you suggest (that works within the laws of physics)?

-ERD50

 

[CardsFan]

^^^ What ERD50 said.

I am OK with pie in the sky ideas. I am not OK with ideas that defy physics. I am not against renewable energy, but any one who thinks will get there in 1 or 2 decades is deluding themselves, and anyone who listens to them.

 

[NW-Bound]

Toyota has a Prius Prime prototype that recharges from super-efficient solar cells that cover all possible surfaces at the rate of nearly 30 miles/day.

Problem is, IIRC, those super-efficient solar cells are so expensive they're currently only used in space...

https://www.inverse.com/article/594...l-love-in-apple-s-free-iphone-software-update

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...prius-prime-with-solar-panels-to-test-mileage

I reported on this same experimental car earlier in post #593.

The article I read said you can drive 4 days/week, and 50 km each day. That works out to 18 miles/day.

 

[NW-Bound]

actually the way to get storage wiil come when electric car batteries can no longer deliver power at the rates demanded for a car, you put them at home as batteries...

Some car makers have been thinking about repurposing weak EV batteries for home use. This sounds reasonable, but the labor involved may be too costly to make this proposition worthwhile.

Many DIY experimenters are doing the above for fun, but their labor is free.

One thing is certain. Car makers have not yet set up facilities to process worn-out batteries to recycle the material. This will have to be done when there are more EVs on the road.

 

[NW-Bound]

And I imagine that means you have a sunny place to park it? How many times is our only option for parking in the shade, or inside a parking garage?

Unfortunately, I think doings things like this is a disservice. Too may people will look at that, and think "Well, computers advanced so much, pretty soon, all our cars can be powered with a few solar cells on top. Problem solved!".

But in reality, those solar cells would be doing so much more good if they were part of a solar 'farm', and just charge your EV with a cord. The panels on a 'farm' (flat commercial rooftop?) are going to be optimally placed and angled. You can't do that with a car. And the car loses some efficiency having to carry around the extra weight of those panels. And if panels are good for 30 years, most cars are not, so they panels will need be re-used somehow. And probably more cars than rooftops are totaled over a 30 year span.

All in all, it's a negative.

-ERD50

+1

Because solar cells on a car cannot provide that much power, it's silly to put them there.

The idea is about as sound as that of the "solar road".

 

[NW-Bound]

Here's another solar EV prototype car called Sion from Sono Motors, a German startup.

It has 81 sq.ft. of solar PV cells spread out all over its body. In favorable conditions in Central Europe, the solar cells will provide 19 mi/day of range, and about 6 mi/day averaged over a whole year. And yes, it can be plugged in for faster charging if the 6 mi/day solar charge rate is too slow for you. Estimated range is 160 miles.

Production is planned for mid to late 2020. Price is 25,500 euros.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sono_Motors_Sion

 

[jimandthom]

And this is the problem with stuff like this, and why I say I hate these ideas earlier. People want to make comparisons to computers or some other early tech, but they are doing it w/o taking into account the laws of physics, and then think that it can be done if we just try real hard. Everything is easy if we ignore (or are unaware of) real world limits.

So here's why solar panels on a car can never (and I almost never say never) progress like some other tech:

If the car is using high-tech solar panels, they might be ~ 20% efficient. So the pure math says they can't be any better than converting 100% of the power that hits them (which is limited by the Sun!) so 5x better is an absolute limit. But of course real world rarely hits 100%, and the physics of solar cells limits them to a certain wavelength, about 1/3rd of the spectrum. We might get to multi-layer cells, but even then, I think 80% would be about the best we'd expect, so maybe, maybe 4x better. But it will NEVER be 300,000x better, like your airplane example, because it can't. It just can't.

But regardless, it's a stupid idea. Put those panels where they should be - in the sun,at the proper angle for the latitude, all day, every day. So you see, this has nothing to do with something not being worth it if it isn't perfect. There are better alternatives, so we should do those. It's not about not doing something, it's about doing the best thing that we can. Especially when "best" is cheaper and with a longer life.

To put it another way, anyone in favor of this is actually pushing Renewable Energy efforts backwards, because they are getting less RE for the effort and $. That's not smart. We need to be smart.

What do you suggest (that works within the laws of physics)?

-ERD50

Guess what---- I agree that not every idea is going to work out or is based on good or bad science. It used to be bad science to suggest that the earth moved around the sun.

You however seem to suggest that it is not possible to learn something from an idea that did not work even if it is not fully thought through.

It doesn't matter if this version doesn't work, just like it didn't matter that the earliest airplanes didn't fly--somebody. somewhere, learned something that ultimately worked and worked well.

Sure our present understanding of physics says that something can't be-- how many of our present laws of physics are because someone defied the "physics" of the time and proved otherwise.

 

[jimandthom]

If Toyota wants to waste money on this version of the Prius I guess they can and should. Toyota only has to respond to its shareholders.

Ain't capitalism grand.

 

[NW-Bound]

Sure our present understanding of physics says that something can't be-- how many of our present laws of physics are because someone defied the "physics" of the time and proved otherwise.

No, the laws of physics are immutable. The progress what mankind has made over time is not by defying the laws of physics, or by changing them. It is made by technology advances, which still work within the same boundary of physics.

For example, we progressed from the steam engine to the combustion engine, then kept improving the efficiency of the latter. But eventually we will hit a limit imposed by the laws of thermodynamics. We simply cannot build a perpetual machine.

Old cars had terrible aerodynamic drag. We learn how to make the cars more streamlined, so they can slice through the air better (and that's why most cars share a similar shape now). We know how to make better tires, and we pump them to higher pressures to reduce rolling resistance. We did not defy any laws of physics. We simply know how to conform better to the laws, by reducing aero drag and rolling resistance with better technology.

In the case of the solar car, we don't even have to build a prototype, in order to know the limitations of one. We know how much juice an EV burns to move one mile. We also know how much a solar cell can produce over the course of one day, and of course it depends on the orientation of the cell, i.e. whether it points to the sun, or away from it. We can then know what kind of miles per day we can drive our solar car, without having to build it.

So, the above Sion from Sono Motors can go 6 miles/day on the solar charge. How do we get it to something more usable, like 60 miles/day?

We need the combination of solar cell efficiency plus car mileage efficiency to improve by a factor of 10x. Let's say we shoot for 2x on the solar cell, and 5x on the car. We do not know how to do either one!

If we can improve either the solar cell by 10%, or the car mileage by 10%, that is progress that we can apply immediately to the commercial solar farm, or to the production EV right now. And that still leaves out the solar car as impractical.

 

[jimandthom]

No, the laws of physics are immutable. The progress what mankind has made over time is not by defying the laws of physics, or by changing them. It is made by technology advances, which still work within the same boundary of physics.

For example, we progressed from the steam engine to the combustion engine, then kept improving the efficiency of the latter. But eventually we will hit a limit imposed by the laws of thermodynamics. We simply cannot build a perpetual machine.

In the case of the solar car, we don't even have to build a prototype, in order to know the limitations of one. We know how much juice an EV burns to move one mile. We also know how much a solar cell can produce over the course of one day, and of course it depends on the orientation of the cell, i.e. whether it points to the sun, or away from it. We can then know what kind of miles per day we can drive our solar car, without having to build it.

So, the above Sion from Sono Motors can go 6 miles/day on the solar charge. How do we get it to something more usable, like 60 miles/day?

We need the combination of solar cell efficiency plus car mileage efficiency to improve by a factor of 10x. Let's say we shoot for 2x on the solar cell, and 5x on the car. We do not know how to do either one!

My point was that what were considered laws of "how things work" in the past were challenged and became our present laws of "how things work".

I don't believe in absolutes. There very well maybe a 12 year old in the UP that will someday successfully challenge one of our immutable laws--- unless you believe that in these immutable areas we have learned all that can be learned.

 

[NW-Bound]

If the laws of physics could be changed, they would not be called laws.

For example, back from the days of bows and arrows until the rocket age, Newton's law of " F = ma " has not changed.

People have been improving the technology, but they cannot repeal the above law. They can make the force F larger, and the mass m smaller, in order to make the acceleration a larger.

That's how we make cars that accelerate faster by building more powerful engines and lighter cars, but we do not repeal the above law.

And then, in making the engine more and more powerful and the car lighter and lighter, we reach a point where the strength of the material limits what we can do. So, perhaps we can find a new material, a new alloy. But we are still working within the limits of physics.

 

[NW-Bound]

We have seen tremendous advances in electronics, and people often quote Moore's Law to expect the same advances elsewhere. It is an unfortunate misunderstanding, because Moore's Law applies only to chips that we make.

When we make a transistor smaller, it runs faster and consumes less power. And we can fit more transistors on a chip, once we know how to make them smaller. More transistors allow better complexity and sophistication onto a chip, and the chip gets cheaper with time too. And that's how the semiconductor industry has been constantly finding ways to shrink the transistor.

Other things don't work the same way. When we shrink an engine smaller, it does not become more powerful. If anything, jet engines are a lot bigger than their predecessors. We build bigger rocket engines, because smaller engines do not produce more trust.

If everything became better when it was shrunk, like the transistor does, we would have it made.

PS. Actually, they do make some transistors bigger when they want more power handling. The transistors inside the EV that control the flow of the battery juice to the motor are fairly big in physical size. They have to be, in order to handle power up to several hundred kilowatts.

 

[GreenEggs]

It seems that a perfect location for solar arrays would be above parking lots, where they can charge cars and also provide shade for the cars and the pavement (and reduce city heat in general). I haven't seen them installed over parking lots, so maybe there's a safety issue?

With global warming I'd think retailers would like to be able to offer their customers shaded parking. Everyone hunts for the few shaded spaces in hot parking lots, right?

 

[morriss003]

It seems that a perfect location for solar arrays would be above parking lots, where they can charge cars and also provide shade for the cars and the pavement (and reduce city heat in general). I haven't seen them installed over parking lots, so maybe there's a safety issue?

With global warming I'd think retailers would like to be able to offer their customers shaded parking. Everyone hunts for the few shaded spaces in hot parking lots, right?

Costco has done that on Maui, but they provide electricity to the store. There is one slow charger.

 

[ERD50]

Guess what---- I agree that not every idea is going to work out or is based on good or bad science. It used to be bad science to suggest that the earth moved around the sun.

You however seem to suggest that it is not possible to learn something from an idea that did not work even if it is not fully thought through.

It doesn't matter if this version doesn't work, just like it didn't matter that the earliest airplanes didn't fly--somebody. somewhere, learned something that ultimately worked and worked well.

Sure our present understanding of physics says that something can't be-- how many of our present laws of physics are because someone defied the "physics" of the time and proved otherwise.

I'm sorry, but this kind of thinking will not solve our problems, in fact it will delay finding solutions. And that saddens me, I want solutions, I assume you do too, but this thinking gets in the way of that goal.

Bear with me, this is not closed-minded thinking, it is just facing facts. When we face facts, we can solve problems. But let's be open-minded and look to the future:

In our current world of understanding, you just cannot get more energy out of a given area than what the sunlight puts into it. We have no way around that, it is a current fact. Try all we want, no matter how many "versions" we attempt, we don't get more energy out than goes in. So we should not waste time trying to do this, we should be more productive with our time.

Now, if in the future, we come to some understanding of how this can be done, then we can start designing things with this new knowledge. But we don't have that knowledge, no matter how much we try, we just can't get there today.

It would take some very basic research at a very high physics level to come up with new laws of physics. If someday we get those, then we can see if there are ways these can be realized. That s not today, so there is no sense in trying to do it with today's tools.

Let me make an analogy: Today, we have computers that can do millions of calculations in a second, and print the results on paper. But 200 years ago, no matter how hard you tried, no matter how many people and gold coins you threw at the problem, you would not make a machine that could do millions of calculations in a second, and print the results on paper. We just did not have the things and knowledge to do that.

That doesn't mean it is impossible, but it would be a waste of time to try in the year 1819. You could put your money, time, and people to better uses.

So today, we have relatively low cost solar cells that convert ~ 20% of the sunlight hitting them into electricity. That's a great achievement, and we should set about understanding how to make the best use of that. But if we think that we can get thousands of times more energy out of them, we are on the wrong path and wasting our time - until/if the basic understanding of science changes. And that will not change by simply trying to make better solar cells or better EVs, there is a fundamental shift in everything we know that must happen first. Then we can try, but not before.

It would be like asking our 1819 student to program a modern computer with 1819 tools like an ax and a hammer and chisel. It just won't work.

edit/add: Sorry, I missed a bunch of posts between your post and this reply that covered much the same ground. I'll leave this stand as a slight different view of it.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

It seems that a perfect location for solar arrays would be above parking lots, where they can charge cars and also provide shade for the cars and the pavement (and reduce city heat in general). I haven't seen them installed over parking lots, so maybe there's a safety issue?

With global warming I'd think retailers would like to be able to offer their customers shaded parking. Everyone hunts for the few shaded spaces in hot parking lots, right?

I agree this is a much more sensible approach, and I think we will see more of it in the future. Although these Walmart fires might be raising liability concerns about putting them over people's heads and cars (which contain a lot of energy in the form of gasoline or charged chemicals).

One thing I do want to make clear though, and maybe this is a bit of semantics, but when you say the solar panels should be "where they can charge cars", we need to remember that the solar panels will be feeding the grid. Any EVs that are charging will get their energy from the grid, whether the sun is shining or not. Its all fungible power. Solar panels feed the grid, EVs (and all other things we plug in) drink from the grid. If no EVs are charging the solar power goes to the grid. EVs and solar power are two separate things, they stand on their own, independent of each other.

I think earlier in this thread we discussed the artists rendition of solar panels around the EV charging stations. Many people would assume these solar panels are powering the chargers, but all the panels they show ( a lot of them!), would only provide a very small % of the power that will be sucked up by charging on average. The solar panels are sort of window dressing, and to fool some of the public.

-ERD50

 

[GreenEggs]

I realize that it would take much more than one parking space of solar panels to charge an empty EV battery. I was mainly thinking of a profitable way of utilizing the shade that would normally be wasted in a solar farm. I'm increasing the efficiency of today's technology by utilizing a secondary use, and a third savings if you consider the real estate costs savings.

That's pretty good compounding, right? (Especially since all I really originally wanted was a shady place to park. )

Anybody wann'a "Go Fund Me"?

 

[NW-Bound]

If Toyota wants to waste money on this version of the Prius I guess they can and should. Toyota only has to respond to its shareholders.

Ain't capitalism grand.

The Prius with solar cells on the front hood, the roof top, and the rear lid is just a toy demo that Toyota built for fun.

Toyota already said there was no plan to produce it. They will not waste any more money than they already did.

The Sion car by the startup Sono Motors is something else. They intended to go into production with it. Let's see how people are going to use a car that can get them 6 miles/day from built-on solar panels.

Now, 6 miles/day is a round-trip commute for someone who lives 3 miles from where he works. I think it would be faster and healthier for me to ride a bike, or even walk.

 

[explanade]

Actually I read somewhere that solar panels above farm land has worked well, even improved crop harvests.

With crop prices plunging for many commodities, it might be a good way for some farmers to get an additional source of income by leasing their lands.

Also there was some study where they estimated that using like 5% or even less of farm lands for solar panels would provide all the global electricity needs.

 

[NW-Bound]

Actually I read somewhere that solar panels above farm land has worked well, even improved crop harvests...

The solar panels would have to be mounted very high, in order for the combine to pass underneath.

Also, the span between posts must be huge! How expensive is this installation going to be?

 

[RetiredGypsy]

Here's another solar EV prototype car called Sion from Sono Motors, a German startup.

It has 81 sq.ft. of solar PV cells spread out all over its body. In favorable conditions in Central Europe, the solar cells will provide 19 mi/day of range, and about 6 mi/day averaged over a whole year. And yes, it can be plugged in for faster charging if the 6 mi/day solar charge rate is too slow for you. Estimated range is 160 miles.

Production is planned for mid to late 2020. Price is 25,500 euros.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sono_Motors_Sion

It seems like the better idea would to make the whole car a battery, instead of a solar panel. Internal storage of power for the user beats having to keep the car absolutely spotless for 100% chance to be 20-30% or whatever percent efficient with solar cells.

 

[NW-Bound]

It seems like the better idea would to make the whole car a battery, instead of a solar panel. Internal storage of power for the user beats having to keep the car absolutely spotless for 100% chance to be 20-30% or whatever percent efficient with solar cells.

If the goal is to have a longer range, then yes, it is far better to spend money on a larger battery than on the solar panels that do not give you that much.

However, some people believe in trying getting that little bit of solar power, no matter how much it costs.

Most people would have spend the money for a solar array at home or in parking lots and plug in their cars when not moving, compared to carrying the little but expensive panels with you that add so little to your cruising range. Perhaps the buyers do not read the fine print that they only get 6 mi/day. They are going to be mad.

 

[explanade]

Central Europe has a lot of sun?