World Solar Challenge Set To Begin 78
"My Alma Mater's
team (which took second in the
American Solar Challenge...go UMR!) is looking to take sweet
revenge on the evil (*g*) that is the U-Michigan Solar
Car team (which won
ASC.) Some other North American heavyweights will be
Queen's University
and U-Waterloo from the frigid north. I'll defer to Ozzies post links to their favoUrite college teams, which, along with the Japanese teams,
are often
very good. Lastly, watch out for team Solar Motions;
out for blood after
major technical problems two years ago. Their array is worth...how should I put this...a lot :)
I went two years ago, and this year I'll just be looking forward to this article getting posted on /. *sigh* Good luck and good sun to all the teams. No worries!"
Good to see this (Score:4, Insightful)
Could it be that the big oil interests have no interest in a cheap efficient environmentally friendly source of power ?
You have to wonder sometimes when good technology is ignored, is there some sort of hidden oil-company aganda ?
imagine.. (Score:1, Insightful)
How many years now have these things been gathering and we still haven't seen any kind of breakout designs, while airborne versions have leapt forward with true innovation. I think it's time we faced the fact that solar powered ground vehicles are nothing more than expensive soapbox derby cars, with the emphasis on grad papers and group photos.
Re:Good to see this (Score:3, Insightful)
But what I would like to see would be a competition for fuel-cell based vehicles. Fuel Cells are obviously the way forward for the future, so why is no attention paid to them ?
There are competitions involving fuel cells, including Future Truck [futureenergies.com] and karting [futureenergies.com]. Fuel Cells take a lot of R&D but when their price begins to decline we will see a lot of independant parties begin to become creative with what can be done... then we will see an increase in the number of races.
Could it be that the big oil interests have no interest in a cheap efficient environmentally friendly source of power ?
The big oil interests certainly have an interest in green energy... if it will make them money. Look at BP buying up all the small solar companies and cornering the market in solar cells.
You have to wonder sometimes when good technology is ignored, is there some sort of hidden oil-company aganda ?
Fuel cell technology is certainly not being ignored, it has massive momentum behind it. Most of this is from the car companies, who don't really care what goes into the engine (oil, hydrogen, etc) as long as people buy their cars. If fuel cell technology fails to take off it will be because of public apathy in supporting it, prefering to pay slightly less for old established petrol based polluting machines instead of the new and inevitably to begin with more expensive green option.
Phillip.