Solar Round The World

For those whom this is old news, my apologies....

http://www.planetsolar.org/bateau.en.php

 

"The ideal shape and size of the boat for the chosen route will be determined by in-depth research."
Will, did you get on the team?

 

Sitting by the phone, waiting for the call.....
sorry, can't chat... could ring any minute....

 

Rrrrrrinngggggg....................

hellooh...
jeah hello Mr Allison, just one question.... how much would you charge me for a reliable forecast of cloud covering???




bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......... bzzzzzzzzzzzzz........bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........bzzzzzzzzzz........

 

I guess it is easy for me to joke about this but the research needs to be done. Future boat design will be affected by the need to allow for solar collection.

 

Is that really the crux issue, Richard?

Very clearly, these guys are routing their voyage to maximize solar exposure, they have significant battery banks on board for less than optimal conditions and best of all, have the luxury of timing their routes between stopovers to take full advantage of prevailing conditions.

As they say on their site...

"A whole range of studies will need to be conducted in areas such as the boat's hydro and aerodynamics, the materials used, the management and storage of energy and, finally, the power plant and the optimal routing."

Personally, I hope this whole enterprise works and works well. I'd truly like to see this kind of techonology work successfully so that more work in the field can be generated due to eventual commercial interests.

Let's face it guys. Cash is King. If commercial shipping interests see that this potential is out there and successfully functioning to the point where they could realize savings on fuel for a given transport activity, it will only be a matter of time before they latch onto the capability.

Of course, you can also take the line of thought which gave us the term Fulton's Folly. Now there's a real interesting take on technological progress for you. ;-)

 

Ahhh, jaahh
where is your sense of humor mates? Did we say anything against the project?

 

rather a mouth full aint it


Length: 31 m
Width: 15 m
Length with flaps: 35 m
Width with flaps: 23 m
Height: 6 m
Weight: 60 t
Surface of solar modules: 470 m2
Panel output: 22%
Power received by the sun: 103.4 kW (138.7HP)
Average engine consumption: 20 kW (26.8HP)
Average speed: 8 kt (15 km/h)
Maximum speed: 14 kt (25 km/h)
Crew: 2 skippers
People that can go onboard: 200
Autonomy: Never-ending solar navigation




cant really say what

BUT

one helluva media crew
maybe won the nigerian lotto?
200 on board ? gawds troof why?

 

apex,
That is my humor. It dose'nt always translate well. I think most of us are on the same page here.
Gary

 

Unfortunately, Richard, this medium has some serious limits when it comes to the reference of humor in one's written postings. You'll have to take my word for it when I tell you that I did see the humor and subsequently tried to respond with a mix of satire and substance when I also wrote on the topic.

I think that we both know by now when the other is actually out hunting for a scalp. Suffice to say, I prefer humor and even salty satire to out and out face punching any day of the week.

And besides, my Teutonic Bubba... I happen to like your sense of humor quite a bit. Consider yourself invited to my next backyard BBQ. We tend to eat too much, drink too much, tell too many wild stories and wind-up being told by our wives to tone it down before the neighbors get upset. You might just fit in nicely. ;-)

 

I doubt it will ever get off the ground, lets be realistic here, how much do you think 420m2 of solar panels are going to cost, it is not going to be cheap to install, wire up, and the electronics to monitor all those cells, then in 5 years the cells will be dieing and need replacing.

Its a great concept to prove that it can be done, but i can't see a commercial application all for 8 kts. Not when well designed multihull can sail faster than that at a way cheap price.

But hopefully ideas like this drive the challenge to make better solar cells, and bigger and better super capacitors so down the track this concept more of a reality than a dream, we can only hope.

Dave,

 

I suppose that if you play with some of the figures, it makes some sense. Average solar insolation at my latitude of about 34 degrees on a June day is 6kwh/M^2 on a flat surface. This is the same number they are using if we assume they calculate on 6 hrs equivalent insolation at optimum angle. Their numbers are 1kw/M^2 x 470 x 0.22 = 103.4 but this is only at optimum angle. My guess would be (assuming they can really get 22% solar cells), 103.4 x 6 = 620.4 kwh/day or average of 620.4/24 =25.8kw or 34.6hp.

Making enough power for a 26hp engine to run 24 hours and all the other electrical stuff aboard begins to look more problematical. My guesses may be off but it looks like there is not a lot of overage factor. Getting all those cells to give 22% conversion all day may be iffy too.

 

Interesting to compare with what Paul MacCready achieved in 1981 with Solar Challenger, and Rutan and Yeager in 1986 with Rutan voyager.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Challenger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager

kind of makes the boat look rather bloated to me, but I guess in some ways solar around the world by boat would be harder than by plane. Wonder how you'd get over the 'night' problem in a plane?

 

If you fly high enoug and in the right direction and position you have an advantage over boats. Does circling the poles count

 

Efficient gliding can almost do away with battery payload by storing peak surplus energy during the high sun hours as potential energy. This greatly augments the efficiency as motive power is MDg/L , where D is drag M is total mass L is lift and g is 9.81 ms^-2.
Essentially climb whenever possible then level flight when there is no surplus power, and glide down in the dark.
Not really applicable in a boat so you're stuck with lugging heavy batteries around. The best that can be done is make the batteries a large proportion of total displacement to reduce total disp as much as possible for a given energy storage capacity.

The other factor in all this is the inescapable ERoEI considerations, which is dissapointingly, very low for photovoltaics. Until photovoltaics can be produced for much less of an energy cost, they will not be truly viable as fossil fuel replacement technology.
A boat that can cruise around the world endlessly non stop; Feasible , Yes , Practical/usefull? I doubt it.

Lastly it is important to consider scaling laws with a solar powered boat:
Surface scales to the square , volume scales to the cube.
As required motive power can be consiered to be roughly proportional to disp. , whilst available power is proportional to panel area, so it follows that the smaller the boat the more advantageous a position to go solar.
In fact, some simple calcs reveal that it would be a very poor investment to cover the deck of a large ship (cargo/tanker) with photovoltaics. With a 200 kg model/unmanned boat however one can expect good knts/$