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Wind turbines meant to work at the South Pole and Mars
- mynegation 11y agoBeing able to withstand extreme cold is one thing but is Mars atmosphere density enough to even turn the blades?
- moron4hire 11y agoWhy do you assume they wouldn't have considered that?
- jacquesm 11y agoThat's a variation on the 'but whey don't the theme'. In this case it is a valid question though, because the atmosphere of Mars is almost 200 times less dense than Earth's. So you'd need a pretty big machine to get real power, the advantage is that mars gravity is 2.5 times or so less than Earth so making a large windmill is a lot easier than it is here. You might even get by with very thin shelled blades.
- jacquesm 11y agotoo late to edit, s/whey/why/
- nickff 11y agoYes, with the correct blade design, wind turbines could work on Mars, but they are probably not a great idea, because they will have a low specific power output (W/kg). Cost to transport items to Mars is mostly based to weight, so any power generation system should be mass-efficient, and play to Mars' strengths. Spare parts and maintenance are also likely to be issues, and dust will probably cause issues with any exposed parts or moving seals, so turbines are likely to cause problems. Mars has lower insolation than Earth, but a significant amount of sunlight reaches the ground, especially in the UV spectrum (because of Mars' thin atmosphere). Solar panels which are more efficient at shorter wavelengths (compared to their Earth-bound bretheren) would generate more power than wind turbines of similar mass. The Solar panels also have the benefit of being solid state devices, thus they require no maintenance other than occaisional clearing of dust, and they even operate quite well and for a long time when that is not done (as demonstrated by NASA's probes and rovers).
- jacquesm 11y agoBut windmills complement solar, on Mars as well as on Earth. The sun isn't always visible and you will want to have multiple inputs to reduce the amount of storage required. Upgrading your battery after a couple of years is probably a bigger problem than shipping a windmill once.
- nickff 11y agoThere are no clouds on Mars, so why do you need an inefficient, labor intensive system to complement an efficient, reliable, and predictable one? NASA rovers and probes have been getting very good results with solar panels, do you think they would have gotten better results if they also had wind turbines? I think you can make a strong case for bringing along hydrazine (or at least hyrdogen to make methane in situ) and/or substantial battery banks (if you can't manufacture batteries in situ), but the case for wind power is even weaker on Mars than on Earth (and it is quite weak on Earth).
- jacquesm 11y agoMars has a day-night cycle.
- nickff 11y agoBatteries + Solar Panels > Solar Panels + Wind Turbines Batteries + Solar Panels = Higher efficiency, higher performance, lower maintenance, lower weight.
- jacquesm 11y agoYes, but the most reliable set-up is batteries + solar panels + wind turbines.
- nickff 11y agoHow do you arrive at that conclusion? I assume that you are stating that for a given mass of power generation equipment, you'd prefer all three, but I am not convinced that this will be more reliable, and I am sure that it will have a lower output.
- jacquesm 11y agoYes, but there won't be a whole lot of power unless you make a very large machine.
- aqme28 11y agoHey neat! My dad helps run another harsh-environment wind turbine company, Black Island Wind Turbines[1]. >Black Island, Antarctica. One of the harshest wind turbine installations in the world. Routine category 5 hurricane winds. Top speeds reaching almost 89 meters/sec (200 mph). Temperatures falling to minus 57 degrees Celcius (minus 70 degrees Farenheit). Marine environments. Super-critical loads. One wind turbine prevails--the HR3, a high-reliability 3 kW wind turbine that Black Island Wind Turbines will soon be offering for commercial sales to satisfy the most difficult site and customer demands around the world. [1]: http://www.blackislandwindturbines.com/ http://www.blackislandwindturbines.com/
- jacquesm 11y agoDid your dad have anything to do with the Crowley Ridge turbines? I went there to have a look, those are really special machines even though they look ordinary at first glance. http://www.gettyimages.nl/detail/foto/crowley-ridge-wind-power-alberta-canada-royalty-free-beeld/78480243/gallery http://www.gettyimages.nl/detail/foto/crowley-ridge-wind-pow...
- jacquesm 11y agoOnce upon a time there was a man named Jacobs who designed wind turbines. In 1933 Admiral Byrd set one of these up on the South pole and many years (and many storms) later the machine was still working. No maintenance, no parts replaced, just incredibly durable and very well designed: http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/wind-power-history-zmaz73ndzraw.aspx http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/wind-power-h... I took a lot of inspiration from that model (but used many modern materials such as Neodymium magnets which were not available at the time). The Jacobs brand survives to this day. I really don't understand how Ars could have missed this in their research for the article.
- mrfusion 11y agoI always wondered if we could generate power in Antarctica from harnessing ice sheet movement. Perhaps Have it pull a cable geared up by some crazy amount and turn a generator. Anyone know if this has been investigated? It could produce more power than hydro electric since these sheets are massive. (And constantly renewed by snowfall)
- dTal 11y agoThere's a lot of places in the world you could generate electricity in crazy ways. For example, you could spin up a giant gyroscope at one of the poles and generate power from Earth's rotation. The problem is distribution.