Mobile Energy: Solar & Wind Power On-the-go

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nforce4max

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Having lived off the grid back in 2001 as a kid, solar is the best low maintenance power bar none. Hell we used a wood burning stove for heat and ran the TV & N64 back then off a 400w inverter. Now I am slowly building my own setup to be able to power a modern pc. Wind works but maintenance and spare parts will be an issue unless you know how to covert old dc motors and alternators but amperage is tricky.
 

adamspc

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[citation][nom]polly the parrot[/nom]Imagine huge wind-farms with these instead of normal wind turbines.[/citation]

I LOL'd. Made me think about when environmentalists were complaining about birds hitting the big ones. Just imagine what these small sharp things would do to a flock of birds. I would love to see that.
 

jhansonxi

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[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]... we used a wood burning stove for heat...[/citation]

Thanks for contributing to global warming. I hate snow. :D
 

sseyler

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[citation][nom]TomD_1[/nom]Solar panels on wind turbines? why didn't I think of that?[/citation]

The surface area of the blades is tiny. Compared to the amount of electricity produced by a large wind turbine, it's negligible.

It's a more significant fraction on a small "personal" wind turbine like the one shown here. Nevertheless, it produces a tiny amount of power from the tiny surface area, not to mention that orienting your turbine in the direction of the wind is most likely going to compromise the optimal placement of your solar panels for incident sunlight.
 

squiggs77

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[citation][nom]aneasytarget[/nom]If the blades are moving, how much solar energy can they absorb?[/citation]
As long as they aren't rotating in and out of shadows I don't think that will matter. Solar energy doesn't rely on heat, but light.
 

pharge

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I like one concept people had/have out there... building solar cells into the window glass.. so the glass with mini-solar cells inside can produce power while acting like a tin glass...

well that is kind of like the concept I have seen... I am not sure have you see that pictures or not... an solar cell sun glasses which like like the infinity sign..lol
 

kalogagatya

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[citation][nom]aneasytarget[/nom]If the blades are moving, how much solar energy can they absorb?[/citation]

in theory, because the speed of light is much much bigger than that of the wind, it will be the same as a regular solar panel.

Optimizing for both maxium solar and wind energizing will be a challenge!
 

klavis

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now add that to a capacitor and you have the ability to store and generate energy, that way it will be much more useful, then I'd think about owning something like this. If all I can do is charge one small device at a time and all the other energy is wasted, I'd feel like I would be wasting my money.
 

jellico

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I hate to be a spoil-sport, but stuff like this is really just an exercise in "that's kinda cool" but offers no practical solutions for our energy problems.

As I've said before solar and wind (even combined) are a bust. We currently get 49% of our electricity from coal and we (the US) consume 2.75 MILLION tons of coal PER DAY. Additionally, we consume over 20 MILLION barrels of oil PER DAY. When you wrap your head around those numbers, you quickly reach the inescapable conclusion that wind, solar, bio-fuels, etc., just won't cut it! Our only hope for deliverance from fossil fuels is for someone to invent a revolutionary new technology. So, while we're waiting for naquadah reactors, zero-point energy, matter-antimatter reactors, and cold-fusion, the only thing that even comes close is nuclear power.
 

klavis

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[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]I hate to be a spoil-sport, but stuff like this is really just an exercise in "that's kinda cool" but offers no practical solutions for our energy problems.As I've said before solar and wind (even combined) are a bust. We currently get 49% of our electricity from coal and we (the US) consume 2.75 MILLION tons of coal PER DAY. Additionally, we consume over 20 MILLION barrels of oil PER DAY. When you wrap your head around those numbers, you quickly reach the inescapable conclusion that wind, solar, bio-fuels, etc., just won't cut it! Our only hope for deliverance from fossil fuels is for someone to invent a revolutionary new technology. So, while we're waiting for naquadah reactors, zero-point energy, matter-antimatter reactors, and cold-fusion, the only thing that even comes close is nuclear power.[/citation]

Don't forget about orbital solar collectors, that is now a viable option. That could revolutionize energy production. The US military is thinking about setting up a system to utilize this technology, once they start using it, the costs for the technology involved will drop and eventually it will make it into our public power grids.
 

TomD_1

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[citation][nom]aneasytarget[/nom]If the blades are moving, how much solar energy can they absorb?[/citation]

If the sun is directly above, I think (guess) that the solar panels will only be in the sun half the time, due to the tilt of the blades casting a shadow over the solar panel
 

miocene

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this is a stupid idea. First, due the horizontal axis design of the turbine the solar panels are rarely facing the sun (which is usually up).
Secondly, the design of the blades has clearly been compromised in order to accommodate the solar panels and a similar sized turbine with better blades could most likely generate more power purely from wind.
 

jellico

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[citation][nom]klavis[/nom]Don't forget about orbital solar collectors, that is now a viable option. That could revolutionize energy production. The US military is thinking about setting up a system to utilize this technology, once they start using it, the costs for the technology involved will drop and eventually it will make it into our public power grids.[/citation]
Orbital collectors would be very cool, but I thought they still hadn't worked out the downlink power transmission. If you use a focused laser or microwave to transmit the power down to earth, you'll lose too much going through the atmosphere. We would need an orbital tether, but here again, the loss via heat of power transmission over that great a distance would be non-trivial.
 

sublifer

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[citation][nom]TomD_1[/nom]Solar panels on wind turbines? why didn't I think of that?[/citation]
Maybe cuz transferring the energy from the blades is going to take additional (unreliable) contacts which will add friction and cause lower efficiency to the wind turbine? Just a thought
 
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