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Wind turbines? We're going to ship 30 meter blades to Mars so we can barely power a microwave and a few lightbulbs? A 1MW installation in a good location on Ear
by merpnderp 5y ago
Wind turbines? We're going to ship 30 meter blades to Mars so we can barely power a microwave and a few lightbulbs? A 1MW installation in a good location on Earth will average ~300kW. On Mars that will likely be 1% because of the air density difference, or 3kW.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- xyzzyz 5y agoSolar power on Mars would also give you around half the energy you get on Earth, per unit area. It’s basically like running solar panels on earth well beyond Arctic circle.
- godelski 5y ago30m sounds small. Also, not only is the atmosphere thinner, but sand particles are 4x smaller. Have fun repairing those moving parts with that erosion.
- nicoburns 5y agoAnd this is one if many, many reasons why Mars is and always will be orders of magnitude harder to habitate than earth.
- ncmncm 5y agoGiven the different conditions, you would use a different design on Mars: probably a no-moving-parts ion-release system.
- slipframe 5y agoThere simply isn't much energy in that wind, no matter how you plan to harvest it. It's like trying to get water from a stone (possible, but you won't get much.)
- ncmncm 5y agoYou just need to process a great deal more of it. But there is no upper limit to the size of an ionizing grid, and the mass is negligible.
- mncharity 5y ago> On Mars that will likely be 1% because of the air density difference, Power goes as v^3, so a few x wind speed compensates for density. There are design sketches for a couple of kW at 10 m/s, ~10 kW at 25 m/s. Getting those speeds does require prioritizing it in site selection. IIRC, turbine mass is competitive with solar under dust storms. I'd link to recent work, but sci-hub doesn't have it. :/