Weather stops plastic waste car reaching South Pole
A car made from waste plastic has been forced to abort its mission to the South Pole because of bad weather.
Solar Voyager was set to be the first solar-powered expedition to reach the world’s most southernmost point.
But despite it being Antarctica’s summer, unexpected heavy snow has meant progress has been slow, and now the team have had to turn around.
The team from Holland say they’ve still achieved their main mission: to prove plastic waste can be put to good use, though they’d rather people avoided using single-use plastic altogether.
HT/PM
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Betcha didn’t know; The current drought in California is 62 percent more severe than it would have been without human-caused climate change.*
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/us-southwest-already-mega-drought/578248/
kinda funny, eh?
Seems somewhat mild for a megadrought:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/cmi.gif
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/palmer.gif
Should have been wind powered … just like in the 1400’s ! PROGRESS!!!
Too much snow??? LOL
Not enough global warming you mean
Call for sponsors: -Polar expedition on solar quadcopter (when available, if available) entirely made from recycled solar panels model 3 Tesla’s.
Donations of less than 6 figures need not apply.
And last summer some idiot tried to sail a solar powered boat through the Northwest Passage. Of course it ended up wrecked on a beach long before even reaching the difficult part. Not that it would have made much difference if it had. Only 2 out of more than 40 yachts and ships made it through this year.
And now Hurtigrutten (a Norwegian cruise company) claims that they will have a “hybrid electric” cruise ship ready for the NW Passage in 2020. In reality I suppose that it will have ordinary diesel-electric propulsion which is known to be very suitable for ice-breaking vessels, but “hybrid electric” sounds more PC. Though 2020 will have to be a better ice year than 2018, for not a single cruise ship got through this year. One didn’t even make it to the starting-point of the cruise in Resolute.
Oh come on – this is too easy – the diesel engines power the electric generator which charge the batteries which power the electric motors which turn the propellers – so yep – electric cruise ships.
Scientific doomsday.
Will they return their vehicle to base and dispose of it properly or leave it as recycled trash somewhere on the hard antarctic shoulder?
But it is summer down there. Who knew it would be cold and snowy instead of sunny and pleasant.
Also in the museum of epic failures is the world’s slowest circumnavigation: 584 days, using a ship powered by solar photovoltaic cells. . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BBranor_PlanetSolar
Now don’t exaggerate. Magellan was slower.
Not only that, but he didn’t make it.
I know it’s OT but did you herd about try to change earth climate through CaCO3 (Calcium Carbonate I suppose).
[As a collective body, the mods will not be stampeded into believing everything they’ve herd about any imagined or real solution to real or imagined counter-CAGW schemes. mod]
Anyone for a solar powered canoo expedition to the North Pole next summer?
Some idiot actually tried just that through the Northwest Passage last summer. Guess how it went?
So how far did they go? No place on earth gets as much sunlight as the south pole in December–546W/m^2 TOA average as I recall. And it’s the the driest desert, 2 miles high, hardly ever snows–takes a million years to get 3km of ice. It’s hard to believe a snow storm did them in. –AGF
The South Pole station is obviously at -90 (south) latitude, but it’s significantly lower the Russian’s Vokhotsk Station over at latitude -78.5 south.
Normally, you’d be correct in assuming the beam direct normal irradiation (BDNI) sunlight at the South Pole is higher than anywhere else because the maximum solar TOA radiation is 1410 watts/m^2 in Jan 5 near the southern Solstice on Dec 22, and the North Pole TOA is much lower on July 5 (close to the northern solstice on June 22) at only 1315 watts/m^2. “Average” yearly values of 1/4 these amounts are useless in comparing day-by-totals.
Careful! Beam Horizontal irradiation is what lands on a horizontal sq meter on the earth’s surface at that latiude, elevation and day-of-year. BDNI is only important if your solar panel is rotated up perpendicular to the sun, constantly changing its angle and its vertical axis to track the sun perfectly as the earth rotates. (As if you could continuously control your “radar receiver” to do this on a earth-bound motor vehicle bouncing through snow drifts on an ice highway as the road turns and the earth revolves and the solar elevation angle changes. The hydraulics and antenna arms and turret alone would take substantial weight and power that can’t be used for propulsion….)
So anyway, the sun gradually increases a little bit in power at TOA between 22 Dec and 5 January, but the solar angles each hour decrease. The result is a back-and-forth competition between the South Pole and Vostok station for “most sunlight on earth” over those days. Those rooting for highest sunburn index (“flat power” on a horizontal surface need to look at BHI total for each day. Radar operator turntable and tilt fans should use BDNI. And the North Pole and Greenland icecap at 3000 meters ASL fail far, far behind.
But the Vostok station is at 3489 meters above sea level, substantially higher that the South Pole’s 2835 meters. (And, of course, way above the North mere “sea level” elevation of 1.0) Higher elevation = less atmospheric attenuation. But being away from the pole means slightly lower daily radiation totals, but not very much.
Long story “sunnary” table follows.
So, to review, they proved:
1) That really cool things can be made from recycled plastic. Yeh, we knew that. You can pretty much make anything you want out of recycled materials. So what? The point is, is it worth it?
2) That solar power works, and can be useful. Sure, we knew that too. But the conditions have to be right, i.e. the sun does in fact need to be shining, with few or no clouds. And again, cost-effectiveness seems not to even be considered, though for the Antarctic, due to the enormous expense and practical difficulties of transporting and hauling fuel, I suppose an argument could be made for the usefulness of solar. But elsewhere, not so much. And it sounds like this thing didn’t have a lot of power, crawling along at 4 mph. One wonders how warm the cabin was (or wasn’t) as well.
3) That Mother Nature can and will thwart man’s grandiose plans, especially those which are ill-considered like this one was.
So what’s the real reason for failure? Probably not a snowstorm in the Antarctic desert of the high plateau, where the sun shines 24 hours a day this time of year–average December TOA insolation is the highest in the world, any month, any place, higher than the north pole by about 20W/m^2 (closer to the sun). And at 3km high not too much is lost in the air. This machine must not have got very high. –AGF
(I thought the internet ate my first comment.)
Much of the new Apple MacBook and Mac mini are recycled materials, including plastic and aluminum.
So, “ their main mission: to prove plastic waste can be put to good use,…” was a total waste of time, money, and effort.
Quite a cost with no benefit.
Instead of making the solar panels bi-faced, why not just design them so they can be flipped over?
That seems to me to be a design flaw where at best 50% of your panels are of some marginal use. I guess weight and wasted resources didn’t factor in as a design spec.
Giving them a HUGE benefit of the doubt, perhaps the panels on the other side were expected to collect some of the energy being reflected off the snow.
MarkW
Remember, they MUST drive “straight” towards the south pole.
From their perspective, the sun is revolving around their PV-vehicle.
SO, from their perspective, they can either mount their solar cells on a revolving tray and support to continuously track the sun,
or mount their (single) solar PV panel on a revolving tray and manually travel around the vehicle as it bounces and drives along the “straight” road towards the south pole,
or they can mount two cells vertically (one on each side of the vehicle) and reduce PC panel weight and mounting complexity and “hope” the sun will shine on one side at a time as it rotates around them in its 24-hour “day” down there,
or they can mount 4x panel vertically and try to get “some” usable power from each quadrant as the sun rotates around them each hour of each day, regardless of which directly they are traveling that minute or which angle the sun is at that hour and that day.
That latter would be my choice. But it requires 4x panels. But carrying 2x vertical panels wastes absolutely 1/2 of your panels, 1/2 of your weight and load.
Yes, “some” energy is re-reflected from the sun off the snow and ice around your vehicle. But that is diffuse light, notoriously bad for PV power and concentrating cell PV panels. Far better to have 4x panels, get ALL the sun ALL 24 hours, regardless of the road direction or sun angle, and get TWICE the reflected solar power form the snow and ice around 360 degrees of the vehicle.
Antarctica has enough mountain ranges, that driving straight towards the pole all of the time gets difficult.
Oh, so true. But let us pretend it can be done, starting Nov 30.
Each day’s “total” radiation is the sum of each hour’s irradiation for that day’s latitude and day-of-year and elevation. Watt-hours. Elevation each day is in meters. every other day, starting Nov 30, DOY = 334, is assuming an equal distance distance traveled south (towards the pole) and “up” to the elevation of the South Pole.
Typical efficiency of a PV panel receiving direct beam normal radiation is 16 – 18%, typical efficiency of a solar panel receiving “diffuse” radiation is 10-12%. So 21,000 watt-hrs in 24 hours direct radiation = 21 kW-hrs/6 = 3.5 kW-hrs going to the motor or battery. IF (and ONLY IF) the panel is kept directly aimed at the sun ALL 24 hours!
Looking at the actual (pretend) numbers, the best thing they could have done is put vertical PV panels on all four sides of the “roof”. Those 4x panels would pick up the BDNI (beam direct normal irradiation) regardless of where the car is driving or the sun is.
Then, add a diffuse-capable FLAT 2 meter sq solar panel on the roof above the 4x vertical panels. This would collect ALL of the GHI (global horizontal irradiation) coming from above, again regardless of where the sun is or the car is heading. PLUS, it would a collect a portion of the diffuse horizontal radiation coming from ALL directions of the compass EVERY day, regardless of whether clouds or haze or clear sky were present.
But I’m just an engineer with a spreadsheet for latitude, elevation, and day-of-year.
AWG – See longer explanation below, in MarkW’s answer.
Bottom line? You’re right.
Wouldn’t they get an optimal yield with ball-shaped solar cells, or oval ones?
Non Nomen
Nasty question. There are no “good” answers. Every oz (well, gram) of weight you add has to be pulled by the motor, adds friction, add wind resistance (if on a panel sticking up), and has to be :pulled uphill” to the end at the South Pole (elev 2835) from McMurdo (elev 10 meters, lat 77.833 south) .
A writer above claimed 1600 km, http://dateandtime.info/distancesouthpole.php?id=6620770 claims only 1353 km, if done in 30 days, that would be 45.1 km/day.
Let’s simply to 45 km/day, and somehow assume the drivers will be steadily going uphill the whole time, be able to go in a straight line, and “never” be in the shade or in a canyon trying to climb up ice hills, or be behind clouds. We will ignore the power needed to “lift” everything uphill that far, and ignore the efficiency of the solar cells and the motor and the tires as they skid and slip. Let’s try to find out how much solar energy is actually available to them.
In other words, a climatologists’ assumptions for PV power for the world, right? /sarchasm
77.8 latitude to 90 latitude = 12.2 degrees latitude, .4066 degrees per day.
Checking things, 1 deg latitude = 111.7 km at the poles (is north pole same as south pole? Earth is really an oblate spherois with different radii at both ends. I digress. They failed. Which is worse waste of money and time?) .40666 x 111.7 = 45.42 km/day. Close enough.
To continue, since I’m calculating this as we speak, this would be each “start of travel at 0600 each morning”, if the trip began at McMurdo on day 0, and continued until day 30 on Dec 30 this year.
Now remember, they MUST travel this far each day or they will fail.
They MUST go uphill this far every day, or they will fail.
Two things help them: The elevation increases, so the atmosphericc attentuation each hour reduces. More PV power!
The TOA radiation levels increase slightly each day (now – Going back to Mcurdo they will get much less TOA radiation!)
The sun is “revolving” around them as they drive straight. For PV cells, ONLY the single group of cells directly aimed at the sun will generate usable power! Every other cell is dead weight that must be dragged uphill, and dead weight that inceases tire drag, increase snow resistance, and which the PV-powered motor must pull uphill. And its wires, its frame, and its nuts and botls and connectors and fuses and panels…..
Thanks for your reply. From your data I can see that it was a really nasty question. Some additional thoughts are that during antarctic summer the sun shines almost 24h/d, unless there is cloud coverage. The yield ought to increase. Under the inclement conditions of the antarctic, the mechanical components of such a vehicle undergo quite a lot more of mechanical stress, so I assume. They have to be reinforced to ensure proper operations. Doesn’t that compensate?
Wind influence can be so strong that it is impossible to direct flat panels to a somewhat optimal sun position, altough it is possible by means of max/min detectors to optimize that. There seems to be no alternative but to do it as the ancient sailors did in their sailing ships, adapt to wx, wind and sun. That increases the duration of these trips.
It seems to me that this is a problem pretty hard to solve w/o compromises and adaptation.
“… compromises and adaptation.” You are asking a lot from people who tend to do neither, Non Nomen.
If they started from McMurdo they would be on the Ross shelf ice running horizontally on flat easy shelf ice without crevasses, almost at sea level for about 400 miles, then comes a difficult uphill haul about 7000 feet over 120 miles up the Beardmore glacier, fairly rugged glacier ice with crevasses. Then they are up on the plateau with only a very slight uphill slope for about another 400 miles, also fairly easy going, but not as easy as down on the shelf.
This is generally considered the optimal route and was used by Shackleton and Scott. Amundsen started further east which gave him a longer run on the shelf and a shorter one on the physically demanding plateau (colder, thin air), but at the cost of a much more difficult route up the Transantarctic Mountains. It has not been used since as far as I know.
“The team from Holland say they’ve still achieved their main mission: to prove plastic waste can be put to good use, though they’d rather people avoided using single-use plastic altogether.”
Apparently these guys never heard of polar fleece, some (or a lot) of which is made from discarded plastic bottles. I’d bet a lot of them were wearing fleece to keep warm. Cheers –
At the South Pole, the highest temperature ever recorded was −12.3 °C (9.9 °F) on 25 December 2011.
How did these plastic fools escape? Why in their diesel powered backup trucks.
“The team from Holland say they’ve still achieved their main mission: to prove plastic waste can be put to good use”
I’m sorry, what good use would that be? To prove there is no end to means by which one can waste other people’s money? I don’t think they accomplished anything of any value to anyone.
It looks like the design assumed only light breezes during the trip.
So this latest attempt at virtue signalling failed because the weather was against them. Perhaps they can try wind power next time and get to the South Pole that way. They can use sheet plastic sails.
It doesn’t burn any fossil fuel and it doesn’t work. Solar was a bad choice. I think nuclear would be a better choice.
To most Dutch people any excuse for saving money, then telling others how much smarter they are than other people is seen as an art form.
Please don’t blame them for the exaggerations they have to make because they live in a predominantly desperately boring flat country, but are allowed to smoke as much weed as they like when they like.
This adventure was pure Dutch art at its finest,-
It probably started on one those weekend they had smoked so much of it, a crackpot adventure in some kool summer place (above sea level for a change) just sounded like a great inspirational idea, then you know what Euphoria comes with high altitude working…eh?
Okay, bit worried here.
8kph max speed and food for 47 days.
Now my quick research suggests the quickest way to the south pole is the McMurdo–South Pole Highway which is 1601km long, which in return suggests a 3202km round trip. Assuming nothing goes wrong and they drive 24 hours a day at best speed (8kph) this will take just under 17 days, giving 30 days of food to binge on when they get back to the coast.
However if anything goes wrong, or they can’t drive 24 hours a day, or can’t make 8kph for extended periods…
Dunno, maybe they were planning to barter some fresh food along the way from the penguins.
This summer brings some heavy warming to parts of Antarctica. This is also the reason for the heavy snowfall. Look at the temp change from those surface winds crossing deep into the continent. I have never seen it like this in 4 years of paying attention to the daily changes. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=168.56,-92.34,672/loc=-62.152,-83.819
What you are seeing is föhn, which is characterized by exceptionally low humidity, not snowfall:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=relative_humidity/orthographic=167.54,-83.10,3000/loc=-38.647,-82.595
Thanks for explaining that part.