4 ms·
I was just thinking the same thing. xD This is a totally useless idea (outside of Florida). If you wanted to harvest some energy reliably, there's plenty in win
by sacnoradhq 3y ago
I was just thinking the same thing. xD This is a totally useless idea (outside of Florida). If you wanted to harvest some energy reliably, there's plenty in wind and tides and ocean currents.
.35 W/m^2 vs 250 W/m^2 (after conversion losses) for solar, 2 solid orders of magnitude more energy. Even in cloudy conditions, solar is still going to deliver 15 W/m^2.
You'd be better off harnessing the power of wildlife to turn hamster wheels than spend money for the occasions to harvest a few joules when it rains. I imagine the operational costs and idle losses swamp any gains this system could ever hope to realize.
"Solar Roadways: When failure is worth 30 MILLION Dollars!"
https://youtu.be/ff-3MhQ7ri8 https://youtu.be/ff-3MhQ7ri8
"EEVblog 1534 - Solar Freakin' RAILways!"
https://youtu.be/7vItnxhWRqw https://youtu.be/7vItnxhWRqw
- amluto 3y agoSpeaking of Florida… There are apparently something like 30M lightning strikes per year (about 1 per second!), and random sources I found suggest the average strike has an energy north of 1GJ. 1GW is somewhat respectable. Good luck collecting it.
- mindcrime 3y agoAt least some research and experimentation has gone into the idea[1]. Doesn't seem like much has come from it to date, for good reason(s). But who knows, maybe somebody clever will come up with a mechanism for this that works, somewhere down the line. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy