Solar Impulse's "Moment of Truth"

Is the "weather window" due to high altitude cloud cover concerns or convective concerns?
 
Who knows if electric planes will ever take off? (see what I did there...)

But I compare it to what I have seen in electric motorcycles or the formula e racing series. You have to start somewhere and to compare a brand new, fledgling technology to a 100+ year old established technology is....well, its not smart. Only a few years ago electric bikes at places like the Isle of Man race were barely finishing 1 lap and times were very slow, compared to gas bikes. Now that 1 lap time is getting very comparable to some gas bike times after only a few years.

My biggest beef with all this electric stuff is calling it "zero emissions". That's a gigantic lie as the electricity had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere had emissions of some sort.
 
ChemGuy said:
Who knows if electric planes will ever take off? (see what I did there...)

But I compare it to what I have seen in electric motorcycles or the formula e racing series. You have to start somewhere and to compare a brand new, fledgling technology to a 100+ year old established technology is....well, its not smart. Only a few years ago electric bikes at places like the Isle of Man race were barely finishing 1 lap and times were very slow, compared to gas bikes. Now that 1 lap time is getting very comparable to some gas bike times after only a few years.

My biggest beef with all this electric stuff is calling it "zero emissions". That's a gigantic lie as the electricity had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere had emissions of some sort.
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Wind and solar are zero emissions, and nuclear is a controlled emissions source that is only nasty and dangerous because we developed the wrong system because the purpose was generating weapons materials rather than energy which is just a handy byproduct. Had we developed Thorium fueled systems the situation would be much different.
 
Henning said:
Wind and solar are zero emissions, and nuclear is a controlled emissions source that is only nasty and dangerous because we developed the wrong system because the purpose was generating weapons materials rather than energy which is just a handy byproduct. Had we developed Thorium fueled systems the situation would be much different.
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Fossil fuel emissions are zero from wind and solar, yes. There are a LOT of indirect emmisions of some very nasty stuff to get that technology. The heavy metals used in the manufacture of solar cells. The petro chemicals and mining( for conductors) done to create the massive wind farms and related infrastructure.

Hydroelectric has its issues with habitat destruction. Nuclear, well enough said.

All those associated issues at a higher cost per energy unit.

Don't get me wrong I'm no hippie, but don't sell me a crappy battery powered car and call it zero emmisions. It's not. Unless we all start using sails on our cars to tack around the block its moving pollution from one source/type to the next.
 
I've seen it claimed that it's more efficient to burn the fuel in a power plant than in a car directly. Anyone know if that's true?
 
Palmpilot said:
I've seen it claimed that it's more efficient to burn the fuel in a power plant than in a car directly. Anyone know if that's true?
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Depends on the fuel and how modern of a plant. Car engines on gasoline operate 27% thermally efficient, most natural gas plants are 35% efficient, with the modern combined cycle plants pushing 50%. Coal plants run between 25% & 33%.
 
ChemGuy said:
My biggest beef with all this electric stuff is calling it "zero emissions". That's a gigantic lie as the electricity had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere had emissions of some sort.
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Not entirely.

In Iowa wind is 28% of power generation. No emissions.
 
Henning said:
Depends on the fuel and how modern of a plant. Car engines on gasoline operate 27% thermally efficient, most natural gas plants are 35% efficient, with the modern combined cycle plants pushing 50%. Coal plants run between 25% & 33%.
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And going back to the point on emissions it is Much easier to control/reduce emissions on large power generating sources than thousands of smaller ones. In addition to higher efficiencies we have emissions controls such as wet scrubbers for coal plants, and selective catalitic reduction (SCR) for NOx reduction combined with CO catalysts at most combined cycle plants and some simple cycle gas turbine plants. Also there are technologies such as dry low NOx combustion and water injection on several of the gas turbine variants that reduce emissions.
 
Somedudeintn said:
And going back to the point on emissions it is Much easier to control/reduce emissions on large power generating sources than thousands of smaller ones. In addition to higher efficiencies we have emissions controls such as wet scrubbers for coal plants, and selective catalitic reduction (SCR) for NOx reduction combined with CO catalysts at most combined cycle plants and some simple cycle gas turbine plants. Also there are technologies such as dry low NOx combustion and water injection on several of the gas turbine variants that reduce emissions.
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No doubt, it's even more easy to control, and even reclaim and reuse, the carbon dioxide and water by using solid oxide fuel cells, and they operate at 65% thermal efficiency before reclaiming the heat.
 
Well, looks like they just launched from Nagoya about 12 hours ago. I wish them luck! Look forward to seeing them in Phoenix.

It would be neat to see them airborne.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Cool, so what's it supposed to take to get across? I figure Hawaii is 4 days of so and about the same to CA from there, are they stopping in Hawaii?
 
Platoo.jpg
 
Looks like Midway would be a possible alternate.

I was surprised to learn that's it's a public use airport, although they only have jet fuel available. They wouldn't need 100LL for Solar Impulse, but I don't know what kind of fuel their support aircraft need, and I don't know to what extent hangars and lodging are available there.
 
Midway has some big assed hangars and all the support equipment that they are likely to need. The fuel support they need is sunshine, and Midway gets a lot.
 
On the ground in Hawaii. China to Hawaii in just over a month. I've got to give the guy props for staying awake and aloft for six days. :thumbsup: I think they've set a few records, and may be giving the solar-powered-really-slow-boat industry a run for its money. :D
 
Lindberg said:
On the ground in Hawaii. China to Hawaii in just over a month. I've got to give the guy props for staying awake and aloft for six days. :thumbsup: I think they've set a few records, and may be giving the solar-powered-really-slow-boat industry a run for its money. :D
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Yeah, the solar boat I think averaged 2kts on its trip around the world.

I doubt he stayed awake the whole time, normally one manages extended singlehanded ops with 20 minute naps. You're deep in the fatigue clock 36 hours in, but a week or two is manageable as long as the trip itself is low stress. It's when you are into it for a month that things start getting really freaky and the hallucinations start setting in; or if you're riding out a storm, eventually the alarm clock won't wake you anymore.
 
According to the Web site, he was taking naps.
 
Here are some photos I took this morning at PHJR. :)
 

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Solar Impulse just left PHJR and is on it's way to my old stomping grounds of the Bay Area. Some pics I shot this morning.
 

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