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Yes, 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
by nickff 11y ago
Yes, 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 agoWell, let's reverse the question. What do you use to base your opinion on? I've run a setup like the one described above for years and my whole house was powered from that, it was a lot more reliable than solar + batteries only.
- nickff 11y agoNobody has ever run your setup on Mars, but many have run the solar panels + batteries setup on Mars to good effect.
- jacquesm 11y agoNobody has grown cucumbers on Mars either. That doesn't mean it can't be done or that it won't be useful. Anyway, I see this is going nowhere so thank you for the exchange.