Electric Power

[wheels 543]

Sure, I was meaning things like powering transport vehicles like a Bus etc. More current available opens up other area's of transport. I was referring to the ability to drive the motor, not the motor in itself.

I forgot to include Distance between charges.

[Guest]

Well at least we have some cycleways now, not a lot , but some. Single tracked vehicles are much easier to accomodate.

[Guest]

I think the move to electric transport is gaining momentum, the plug in hybrids will be the next big jump.

 

For sailboats the technology is nearly good enough for my requirements, but I can't see the point in tossing out a perfectly good diesel at this point. But if it were to die I would be seriously looking at electric or hybrid systems.

[too_tall 15]

This is amusing. I believe that generally Wheels and I would agree on only one thing - to disagree!. But I do agree with him here to a significant point. The energy has to come from somewhere, be it the power stations, fossil fuel, renewable fuel sources ( and this included biofuel ) etc.

 

The plug in cars will create dramatic changes to the loadings on the national grid. This is going to cause quite some issues to deal with. Yes, the majority of power demand is not from 10pm till 5am, which is the obvious time that you would program the charging to occur, both from an off peak costing and also to maintain the most efficient use of the national power system, - distribution and generation. This would be untenable with what most countries could support without massive massive infrastructure changes. And couple that to the fact that significant amounts of power are generated by burning fossil fuels........

 

But, there is a flip side too. 10 years ago, who would have imagined that we would be carrying around phones which have the computing power of the computers of the time in pockets, with connectivity to burn and functionality that would stagger even the most tech savy of the time. We were being exposed to the first of the Toyota Prius hybrids, which were in all honesty, totally hopeless, achieved worse fuel economy than that of a modern Euro diesel at the time, were terrible things to drive but did pave the way for some quite revolutionary advances in fuel efficiency. Even though some of those most significant improvements did not come in the form of hybrids. 10 years ago most homes had CRT TV's, and those who didn't probably had a 42" plasma which cost $5K or more. Now to see a home that has a CRT in it is quite rare, and plasmas are ( unfortunately ) heading the same way.

 

Things move forward, but not often in the way we expect. Technology exists that we don't know about which will change the way things happen. We just don't know it yet.Its estimated that in peak sunlight, 1Kw of energy could be harvested per m2. A car could be coated in a material which could harvest around 5 - 6KW of electrical energy during optimal conditions, and still manage around 2kw in poor conditions. On a good day, this could be in excess of 50KWh of energy which could be stored. Storage is improving in the same way. Forget about batteries - the chemical reactions in those will lead to them heading the same way as the CRT TV's. There will be advances in fuel cells, super caps, etc, which will give far more environmentally friendly, high capacity storage capabilities than batteries, which to date have been challenging at best. Specially from an environmental aspect.

 

Personally, I would be quite happy to see biodiesel fuelling high performance diesels. Renewable, able to be grown quite well in NZ, very environmentally sound and it would be a very natural progression from what we currently understand. A massive factor in public acceptance. Maybe couple this to some form of hybrid drive unit that allows conservation of energy lost to braking etc, and you will be getting very efficient, environmentally sound methods of transport which scales very well from a tiny city car right through to the largest of trucks, trains and heavy machinery. Even ships could operate on this fuel, albeit at some cost challenges compared to HFO.

[idlerboat 116]

....just to add another perspective..

Like with rail transport, bigger has efficiency gains.

With marine transport its a lot more than you may think.

A large container ship does around 1000 miles per gallon per ton of cargo.

That is a huge difference to air transport, and is in fact at the very top edge of transport fuel/emission to transport ratios.

Your road and truck transport is crap in comparison.

 

However that same argument cannot be used with say a coal fired power station....sure it can be more efficient and share infrastructure costs by being bigger, but with global transport there is not a viable alternative at present.

Pure maths allows roof space on housing, for solar, that makes it real, possible and necessary.

 

 

And just as an edit, I predict that geo thermal will play a big part. Not in hot springs or other obvious ways, but more in simple temperature differential between underground static temperature and above surface temperature.

 

If the local mushroom grower here has just saved himself thousands of dollars a year, with ground loops and heat pumps then others will follow.

[Guest]

I believe 1000 watts per square metre is used for the purpose of gauging the performance of solar panels but in NZ we can get 1250 watts. Compressed air motors is another way to store energy that is used successfully. Maybe a vehicle that uses braking force and the energy from suspension compression to compress air which could be used to accelerate the vehicle. ( this would generate heaps in gissy)

the market is driven by glitz and glamour rather than essentially practical efficiency.

[DrWatson 375]

Suspension driven air compression. This is a cool idea because at the moment that energy is just dissipated at heat. But as the road surface is improved, this energy source/loss is eliminated and translated directly into fuel savings. Ever watched the difference in fuel consumption b/n rough roads versus the southern motorway? Can be 15-20% just from watching the inbuilt computer fuel gizmo.

 

re heating with ground loops. Great idea and definitely one of the more energy efficient ways to heat a home. Once you've drilled your bore. How deep?

I'm not sure how a heating bore is viewed under the RMA. They probably screw you instantly... Hopefully that's just the pessimist in me talking. Bu ti remember 20y (maybe more?) they shut down all private heating bores in the Rotorua region, ostensibly to save the natural wonders, but possibly also to monopolise the energy supply chain (caution - conspiracy theories running wild).

 

But seriously, if it cost you 20k to drill a heating bore, given the cost of electricity, it would only be 10y or so to pay it off.

[wheels 543]

they shut down all private heating bores in the Rotorua region, ostensibly to save the natural wonders, but possibly also to monopolise the energy supply chain (caution - conspiracy theories running wild).

No conspiracy, mud pools and geysers around the town started disappearing left right and center. They realised that too much water underground was simply being given a easier means of escape than by natural bubble'lation to the surface. Many of those "natural wonders" have since returned, unfortunately a couple returning through the middle of peoples homes. A long lost geyser has recently returned to start it's regular activity of shooting steam in the air.

[Guest]

Agreed, its going to get more and more complex. Even changing over to a straight electric drive means having to get the head around the electrics which is a big learning curve for some people.

[wheels 543]

the engine alternator motor combo tends to be smaller than an engine plus reversing gearbox.

Engines will be the same if power output is to be equal. Those gear boxes are pretty compact. Sure the genset would be slightly smaller, but only slightly.

Everytime you change energy, there is a loss. It would come down to which system is more efficient.

A bigger question from me would be, how many engine installs would be "significant weight in wrong place" to make having a genset positioned in the perfect place worth it all.

[Guest]

hehehe

 

[DrWatson 375]

sailing designed around minimal engine use

 

I think having a boat that sails exceedingly well in almost no wind is the key, + a set of massive sails for drifting conditions... no?

 

How about an oar for marina use? In France, all boats under 5 tons have to have an oar...

[Guest]

Bolger was good at designing boats that were intended to use oars for auxiliary power. Dovekie comes to mind.Or Matt Leyden's Paradox.

[Guest]

These look great! https://www.superpedestrian.com/#home

Electric rear bike wheel.

[Guest]

Couple of advantages for sure.....2 motors.......turns motor into a diesel generator...... the advantages of both diesel and electric with the disadvantages of electric mostly negated apart from weight.....would not need huge battery banks as the electric is mainly for leaving , entering harbour and motorsailing in light conditions.

electric should be very reliable once installed correctly. Makes maneuvering , tacking , man overboard much easier so the advantages are significant. Also no need to run the diesel for short times so maintenance ought to be significantly reduced.

I like the idea.

[too_tall 15]

I believe 1000 watts per square metre is used for the purpose of gauging the performance of solar panels but in NZ we can get 1250 watts.

 

 

1250watts per m2 of panel? The panels on my cowshed roof cover maybe 1/3 of the roof - 130m2 if it is indeed 1/2. Even at 1/6 thats around 75m2. The peak output I have ever seen is 4.1Kw sustained over a 1 hour period. Generally its about 3Kw. In theory I should be doing that with 4m2 if your 1250w /m2 is correct.

 

Where can I get such efficient panels?

[Guest]

I think you need to do some maths with the efficiency rating of you panels Too-tall. What they are saying is we get more than the rated current from panels here in NZ. I got that information from the AASolar website, who by the way, have some nice looking thin flexible solar panels on trademe.

[wheels 543]

You have not taken into account the inefficiencies of the panels BBay. That's 1000 to 1250 W of Sunlight energy per m2, not what a m2 of panel area will generate. So for example, a solar cell of 20% efficiency with a 100 cm2 (0.01 m2) surface area would produce 2.0 watts of power, or 20W/1m2.

Sorry that the graph does not come out very readable, but basically it shows that the general run of the mill Hard panels are around the 20% mark and the soft flexy panels are somewhat lower. Only very specialised panels, which we don't tend to see much yet, are reaching efficiencies up in the 40 to 50% range.

The efficiency is also assuming you have a clear bright Sunny day with Sun vertically overhead and the panel surface totally clean.

[Guest]

The standard 'rating' for solar panels is based on one getting 1000 sunbugs per sq/mt hitting it. That is the world wide standard measurement used to compare them all. But obviously the world varies in sun so if you are in north Sweden for example I think the average there is only 250 sun bugs per sq/mt but NZ our average is 1250 sun bugs per sq/mt.

 

So a 100W panel is the world average wattage and what it'll be marked as. In North Sweden that panel is effectively only a 25W one but in NZ the same one is a 125W one. Just a simple geographical thing rather than much to do with the panel itself.

 

That's the quick dirty description of what Bbay mentions.

 

No I don't no the official word for 'sun bugs per sq/mt' and I do hope it's knot a simple thing like 'ray'

[Guest]

Photons Watts Yes that's pretty much what I was trying to get across.