Another weird and riduculous proposition

[crxvfr]

What if you had a flatbed semi-truck and loaded it with a rig that would raise rows of solar panels. (somebody has probably already done this) ....

How much energy do you think you could harvest and could you rig it with no batteries? A silent and clean generator?

EDIT ADD: Yup, but seems you could easily out watt this one. ...You In?

[Sunking]

::ROFL

Sorry to laugh at your find there, but goes way beyond reality. You couldn't make a truck big enough to add enough panels to make a truck crawl. This is exactly why you do not see any solar powered cars other than concept ones built by universities with deep pockets using balsa wood and carbon fiber composite materials.

For a 18 wheeler with a very light load would take about 5 Kwh/mile. That means you would have to have roughly 250 KW of solar panels to run on solar panel alone, and that would only be a few brief hours around noon. Do you have any idea how large in area a 250 KW solar panel array is? That is the minimum size only if you could point the panels directly into the sun. That is not possible in a vehicle, so it would take a lot more panel wattage and area

I will give you a hint. At best efficiency today you can collect 100 watts/m2 or 100 watts/10.76/ft2. Give up? 26,900/ft2. Roughly 2/3 an acre.

There is no replacement for fossil fuel (diesel or synthetic made from coal)) in heavy transportation.

[crxvfr]

::ROFL

Sorry to laugh at your find there, but goes way beyond reality. You couldn't make a truck big enough to add enough.....

You are funny. You had me ROFL.

I'm not talking about powering the truck silly!

I'm talking about a truck you could take places like flood or hurricane recovery effort type places. It would be great publicity for solar.

I figured with 50 feet long, having 4 panels 10 feet wide, extending up on a rig 40 feet into the air off the truck, tilted however, even with uni-solar you could generate at least 5000 watts. Don't laugh at my math! I've got to be within a thousand or two.

...a solar powered semi, ....haha, ..and I thought I was dreaming big.

[Sunking]

I'm talking about a truck you could take places like flood or hurricane recovery effort type places. It would be great publicity for solar.

Well not sure about the publicity thing, as the truck would have to be driven several hundred miles, and at 3 MPG of diesel is silly and counter intuitive. At 5 KW is about practically useless and does not even have enough power to run an average home. In fact it could back fire if anyone used their head other than something to hang a hat on and realized they can go to any Box Store and buy a 5 KW generator that weighs less than 100 pounds and takes up about 6/ft2

[MarineLiner]

... not talking about powering the truck !
I'm talking about
a truck you could take places like flood or hurricane recovery effort type places.
It would be great publicity for solar.
... with
50 feet long, having
4 panels
10 feet wide, extending up
on a rig 40 feet into the air off the truck, tilted however,
.... could generate at least 5000 watts.

[crxvfr]

You could squeeze ten plus kw with the right stuff.

Maybe farmers or the forestry department could use them to tow from site to site for long term use.

Is everything completely useless? Geesh.

I think it would be cool.

I like the fact that it would be silent and it doesn't need fuel.

Do you think you are going to steal away the world on solar in one night? In one fell swoop? There will be lots more people, like me, doing it not because it saves them money, but for different reasons. Sending back to the grid is the only way I would consider solar if I thought practically. Personally, I just want to have a source of power when the electricity goes out, ..but to use a little too. Its not a replacement for fossil fuel, So what? ...the more we make use of it, the more it helps.

[Sunking]

So what? ...the more we make use of it, the more it helps.

Not if it is net negative return on energy. You have to have more output than input to do any good.

Look at it this way. Let's say it takes 100 pounds of coal burned as fuel at the generating station to make your solar panel and support equipment. Now put your solar equipment into service and over its life time it only generates 10 pounds of coal equivalent electricity. What have you gained?

[BajaGringo]

I agree that this is not the best use of those solar panels. Better if you put them on that trucker's house or his business. I would like to see more trucks taken off the road. The only way I see that happening is for the country to go to increased use and regional availability of rail transport with trucks only used for local deliveries.

[Sunking]

The only way I see that happening is for the country to go to increased use and regional availability of rail transport with trucks only used for local deliveries.

Well that is actually being done to some extent today. Certainly can be improved upon. However there are some products like certain produce products that cannot have that much time delay and trucks are the only option. Fortunately free inter prize and markets will take care of that.

[crxvfr]

Not if it is net negative return on energy. You have to have more output than input to do any good.

Engineers always think so end game. Big picture.

The good I'm talking about would be a paradigm shift in the way we think about solar. If all we have is people saying it can't be done or it will never work, it won't be done and it will never work.

People bought cars before there were roads.
Would they have built the roads if people weren't buying the cars?

Maybe in time things can be sorted out so it is efficient, but in the meantime I would like to see interest and effort to use solar encouraged.

Sorry if this makes no sense to you.
I am obviously more of an idealist than an engineer or scientist.

[crxvfr]

Ok, so I was WAY Way off on the numbers.

Here is a solar powered boat that is 31 feet long and generates over 100KW.



How ya like that MarineLiner?

[Mike90250]

Ok, so I was WAY Way off on the numbers.

Here is a solar powered boat that is 31 feet long and generates over 100KW.

Where do you stack the cargo containers ?
Yes, there are solar powered vehicles, boats, and airplanes, but currently, they are all demonstrators, and can't really do any work.

[crxvfr]

Where do you stack the cargo containers ?
Yes, there are solar powered vehicles, boats, and airplanes, but currently, they are all demonstrators, and can't really do any work.

You can park that boat in front of my house anytime!

[Sunking]

Here is a 31m-long-ship-completely-powered-by-solar-panels/]solar powered boat that is 31 feet long and generates over 100KW.

31 meters, not 31 feet. You only missed it by 71 feet

Now look into the numbers. It has a 20 KW electric motor. Sounds big right? Well that works out to 22 to 24 Horse Power. My riding lawn mower has more HP and goes faster than the boats top speed of 8 knots

[Sunking]

Engineers always think so end game. Big picture.

The good I'm talking about would be a paradigm shift in the way we think about solar. If all we have is people saying it can't be done or it will never work, it won't be done and it will never work.

I support solar fully. I have well over 2 MW designed/built and installed to my credit.

There are two big problems with it.

1. There is no way to store any of the energy for commercial purposes, and nothing even on the design tables yet. It has the same flaw hydro electric has. For every watt of Renewable energy you build, you have to build a matching conventional power plant to replace it at a seconds notice. That means you are paying twice. Well even more than that because RE is so much more expensive to build. But guess what, the conventional power plants are not being built. All that money that should be going into building power plants is being paid to stock holders in the form of dividends. In a very short time you will find yourself in a hole like California, Germany, and Spain. You will be importing most of your electricity from nearby states or countries and pay many times more for energy than your competitors who will soon bankrupt you.

2 My big personal problem is entitlements. Here is a clear example that should really piss you off. Last year I completed a 500 KW grid tied system for a Walmart in Plano Texas near where I live. Due to the size and scope of the project it cost Walmart $4.90 per watt installed for a total of $2,450,000. Sounds wonderful huh?

Well guess what? Between Federal, state, and forced Feed In Tariffs paid by the utilities it ended up costing Walmart less than $100,000. Care to guess where that money came from? You the tax and electric rate payer. The system generates 2.55 Mwh a day. About 5% of the energy the store uses in a day. That saves them about $330 per day on their electric bill, and at that rate will pay for itself in roughly 300 days or less. Guess where that extra profit goes? Certainly not you or me, but we made it possible and paid for it.

That is only the tip of the ice berg. Our political system is robbing you blind, and very soon we will wake up short on electric power because we quit building power plants. Guess where the money will come from when we demand power?