I don't quite understand, so maybe someone can explain this to me.
We have cars.
We have solar panels.
We have tools and methods to attach the two together.
Why haven't the two ever met each other?
And if they already have, why have I never seen a single solar powered car in my travels?
It just simply does not make sense to me. In fact, the lack of solar powered cars actually confuses me. The media and the general public has realized, "Hey, maybe all of this oil won't last much longer," but has continued to ignore the problem. However, maybe the public does want to take action? Maybe the politicians are holding up the process? For what reason has there not been hundreds of legislative bills offering plans or processes to make the switch over to solar powered cars? Mind boggling.
Essentially, the cars wouldn't have to even been entirely solar powered. I could dig a car that used solar energy as its primary "fuel" (let's say 75%) and gasoline as a back-up or an alternative fuel. Just imagine if you needed a quarter of a tank to take you as far as a full tank would. How much money would you save? How much carbon emissions would you reduce? How much would your dependence of foreign oil subside? Mind boggling.
So this is me, just getting the word out; solar power does exist, and sometime soon we better be converting to it.
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It doesn't seem like solar panels can generate as much power as fossil fuels, to me at least. We'd probably go at speeds of about 10-20mph or so, and though it's efficient in energy use, it's inconvenient for those we need to get somewhere quick. All in all, this is just my way of thinking, I can't imagine it generating the same amount of power gasoline can.
Solar panels are nice when trying to offset some energy use, but they're not horribly efficient. The military base where I live has like an acre of solar panels just set up, and it only offsets like 1-2% of their total power use in a year. We'd be better off finding another way to power our cars, and leave the solar panels for something that doesn't move, like a house, or lining on the freeways (which Germany does around the autoban, I believe).
~C
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A square meter of land on a bright sunny day receives about enough energy to continuously light a 60 watt light bulb while the sun is shining.
If you completely covered it with solar panels you might get 4 square meters of surface area on a car. How how fast do you think you get a car going on 240 watts?
Here is a clue: 1000 watts is about equal to 1 Horse Power. My lawnmower has 2.5 HP.
Solar panels are wonderful things. Every year we travel up the west coast of Australia to a sheep station (BIG farm, ranch, whatever you want to call it) called Ningaloo Station. When we get there we have no electricity, no running water and no toilet facilities, just a bare patch of sand right next to the beach to set up camp on. We take with us a large car ridge and freezer to keep the fish we catch and the food we brought with us fresh. The problem is that the 4 truck batteries that we use to power them run flat within the day. The two large solar panels we take with us are enough to top up the charge in the batteries a bit and keep the fridges running a little longer but each night we have to turn on the petrol powered generator to fully recharge the batteries to ensure that they will keep the food fresh through the night and the next day.
The panels we use would be big enough to cover the roof of a standard mid-sized car and they won't run two energy efficient compressors by themselves. How could we expect to run a massively inefficient thing like an electric motor with them?
Progress is being made in solar technology thanks to competitions like the World Solar Challenge http://www.wsc.org.au/ that we host in Australia. Solar powered cars drive from Darwin to Adelaide right through the central deserts each year. In the 20 years that the race has been held we have seen the cars go from slow lumbering day time creatures, to fast efficient machines that can run through the night on stored charge. Unfortunately none of these cars are practical for any form of normal use. Each one is ultra light weight construction and has all the available space in the vehicle taken up with banks of batteries and wiring with just the tiniest compartment for the driver to squeeze into. Each car costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and are notoriously unreliable.
In addition to these disadvantages did you relaise that each of the solar cells that power them are energy negative? That means that the energy required to manufacture them is greater than the energy they will output over their useful life. Right now solar power doesn't make much sense in terms of an alternative energy source. Hopefully things will change in the future, but we still have a long way to go.
Solar power that makes sense
There is a project under way at the moment that might make solar power generation a reality in Australia. On the NSW/Vic boarder there is plans for the construction of the worlds tallest structure in the form of a power station's chimney. Unlike other power stations though its only emission will be hot air. The chimney will be over a mile tall and at its base spread over a mile radius. The plan is to super heat air which will then rush up the chimney driving turbines to power generators. Still even in the most optimistic terms this project will take over 25 years to recoup the energy spent during its construction and some 50 years to recoup the vast cost of construction. Hopefully though this sort of solar energy can be refined until it is more cost and energy effective. We have to start some where. http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/project.htm
Alternative power sources are worth investigating and developing, but right now a lot of the alternative power sources don't make economic nor environmental sense. Lets hope they do sometime soon.
Cathii
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Those who know everything have learned little from life.
Solar Power on cars is less than efficient, but I we do need something else to power our cars other than fossil fuels. A car I had seen in a magazine articles actually has magents in the wheels that would actually move the car; 160 miles to the gallon for that one
Nevertheless, I'm a huge supporter of solar panels on houses. I'll be going to college next year for architecture and I'm hoping that I'll be able to incorporate solar panels into most of my designs.