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Space Science

Dutch Win World Solar Car Challenge 215

Posted by simoniker from the netherlands-in-rapture dept.
Sick Boy writes "The Dutch solar car Nuna II, using ESA space technology, finished first in the World Solar Challenge, a 3010 km race right across Australia for cars powered by solar energy. Having set off from Darwin on Sunday 19 October, Nuna II crossed the finish line in Adelaide in a new record-breaking time of 30 hours 54 minutes, beating the previous record of 32 hours 39 minutes set by its Dutch precursor Nuna in 2001."
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Dutch Win World Solar Car Challenge More

Dutch Win World Solar Car Challenge

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  • ik wens u met uw overwinning in Australie geluk.
    • wooooot my first chance at being a spelling/grammar nazi in a obscure language so to hell with karma!
      this sentance might look dutch to the casual observer but its structure is wrong and "u" is used to adress ones elders, "je" or "jullie" (plural) would have been more usual here.
      my guess its a poor online translation from english

      now if only i could remember how to translate solar powered overlords to dutch :P
      • No, the sentence is correct :) But I guess the poster is belgian though, as they use "u" for everybody. We Dutch are not so polite and say "je" mostly
        • as they use "u" for everybody

          Or simply not a native Dutch speaker.
          I'm learning Dutch at the moment and I have repeatedly been told that 'U' is formal, 'Je' is informal and -only- to be used with people you know. If in doubt use 'U' is the advice I have had several times..

          Bedankt! en tot ziens ;-)
          • You should use the informal construct if you address them as "jongens", meaning "boys" or "lads".

          • In Dutch, as in most other European languages, there is a formal form ('u') and an informal form ('je'/'jullie') of addressing people. In english, the same was true in the past with 'thee' and 'thou' as the formal variant.

            As you say, if in doubt, use 'u'. However, here in the Netherlands, young people are often amazed if one uses 'u' instead of 'je' to address them. Most people feel, that if addressed with u, they're suddenly old... ;-). If you want to be polite, use 'u', but don't when the person you addr


            • In english, the same was true in the past with 'thee' and 'thou' as the formal variant.

              Erm, not correct. "thee" and "thou" are the informal variants. "you" is the formal one, and today only the formal one is used .... and in common sense it transformed by that into the informal one. So you are half right anyway :-)

              Ah ... now I wait for that guy who will mod this as flaimbait ... as usually all my posts where I correct someone get modded down as flaimbait ... likely because there isa /.er who really hat

              • If it helps any, I think it is an enlightening post that goes to show how little one knows. Oh well. I'm just happy people outside of the Netherlands / Belgium make the effort to learn Dutch. Not one of the easiest languages out there.

                What I find most interesting is that it then must be that english migrated to the courteous form, whereas Dutch seems to be converging on the informal form.

                Language can be a lot of fun, whichever language it is.

          • In German it's similar, with "Sie" being the formal and "du" the informal version of "you". But since living in the English-speaking world I've started to get quite impatient with and intolerant of these silly formalisms, which seem a throwback to times past. Besides, they just add a layer of awkwardness having to transition from "Sie" to "du" and finally "pass the cigarette" when romancing the other sex.
        • re: belgium, good guess! also, it is not my mother tongue, so its correctness is actually a random occurance
        • It's technically correct, but it's not good style.

          Ik wens u geluk met uw overwinning in Australie. (formal, as if you had won the Nobel prize).
          Ik wens jullie geluk met jullie overwinning in Australie. (informal)

      • 'Heersers op Zonne-energie' would be a good translation.
        'Persoonlijk verwelkom ik onze nieuwe Heersers op Zonne-energie' probably is the complete sentence you're looking for :)
      • "u" is used to adress ones elders, "je" or "jullie" (plural) would have been more usual here.
        'u' is used as a politeness form (e.g. when talking to your boss), afaik there is no similar construct in the english language.
        'je','jij','jullie', etc. is more informal. (e.g. when talking to friends, collegues, parents)

        Using 'u' to adress ones elders is not commonly used anymore.

        • There used to be formal and informal forms of the second person pronoun in English but now the informal one, "thou," is considered archaic.

          It's still useful to know that "thou" is informal and "you" is formal when reading Shakespeare. For example, Cassius addresses Brutus as "you" when he's talking to him, but after he leaves he uses "thou" to refer to him.
  • While it's nice that we can get power out in the middle of nowhere (and face it, most of Australia is "the middle of nowhere"), doesn't the environmental damage posed by the building and throwing away of these solar panels negate much of the benefits of having a non-fossil fueled car?

    That said, you'd think that a country with more cloudy weather would do better at squeezing the last little bit of energy out of a solar panel than somewhere sunny like Holland.

    • Re:Are solar panels really all that great? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The thing is nobody said that the solar panels were developed in Holland. Cloudy weather has nothing to do with it. Solar panels came linea-recta from ESA (ESTEC). They are Ga-As solar cells used on space sattelites.
      • Actually, the solar cells were developed and manufactured in the US by companies like Spectrolab and Emcore. They are then assembled and encapsulated by Hans Gochermann in Germany. ESA only purchased the cells and sponsored them to the Dutch team. But they are GaAs cells that were to be used on space satelites.

    • Re:Are solar panels really all that great? (Score:5, Funny)

      by pommiekiwifruit ( 570416 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:42AM (#7288799)
      Well Australia was of course called "New Holland" before the pommies got there.

      In Australia they have signs on the road every 50km or so saying "Drowsy Drivers Die". In other countries they have an alternative to keep them awake, called "scenery".

      • In Holland, we have signs that say 50 because that is how fast you're allowed to go. We have fully automated "cash machines" on 'strategic' places (read: wide straight road) that will take a picture of the license plate of every car that is caught driving 51 or more, and to complement, we have aggressive BMW drivers honking and flashing headlights behind anyone driving less than 50.0

        By the way, the Dutch weather is more like UK than like Aussi.
    • Sunny weather? Sunny weather??? WTF? For at least 3/4 of the year it's cloudy/overcast here. Not that that helped, in this case. As someone else mentioned, the solar panels used are triple junction Ga-As solar panels also used in space, by the ESA. So, the panels were made for space, not for bad weather in Holland. :-)

      Cheers,

      CvD.
    • >> somewhere sunny like Holland. HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAA That is funny, do you know where holland is located? This year sofar Holland had 1843 hours of sun. But it was an extreme sunny year. The Dutch average is 1523 a year. Hahahhaha, sunny Holland, hahahhaha

    • The best thing about solar power is that you don't have to invade sovereign countries and kill thousands of innocent people to secure sources of solar panels.
      You also don't have to blast away entire mountain ranges and snuff out the valleys and streams below with the leftover rock and dirt from mining solar panels.
      So, relatively speaking, yeah, solar panels are pretty good.
    • I wouldn't think that they just take the cars that ran in the race off to the junkyard just yet...

      And if they do, let me know. I'd like to get some solar panels for cheap (meaning free!)

  • Smoke and a pancake? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:06AM (#7288698)
    No? I zee zat zere ees no pleesing you. Zee dutch won! Iznt zat veird?

    • Re:Smoke and a pancake? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Crash42 ( 116408 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:42AM (#7288800)
      No? I zee zat zere ees no pleesing you. Zee dutch won! Iznt zat veird?
      No! No! No! that is German.
      In Dutch it's more like : I see dat der is no pliesing joe. Issent det wierd ?

      Congrats to the Dutch Team !!
      • I prefer Harry Enfields [bbc.co.uk] Dutch quote.
        "Hallo dere! It's me Captain Stefan Van Der Haast Graacht of the Amsterdam Police, and this is my partner jens, who is also my lover."
        Mind you his 'herman the German' character went further and was funnier..
        • You got a copy of that show?

          I really thought is was marvellous how well they spoke their Double Dutch; they really had all nuances perfectly!

          (that's stefanrieken apestaartje softhome punt net, dankjewel ;-)

  • Solar energy propulsion... (Score:5, Funny)

    by aaribaud ( 585182 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:12AM (#7288728)
    ...now we've got a fRying dutchman.
    --
    Someone had to do it.
    • In Oz, an a/c is regarded as mandatory, alternately, you use the breeze to cool yourself. However, these cars are incredibly well streamlined, so the driver can't exactly open the window.

      Definitely a frying Dutchman!!!!

    • Yep, definitely. With temperatures up to 50 C (122 F) in the cockpit these drivers were certainly frying, at times. :-)

  • Simpsons quote (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "I prefer a vehicle that doesn't hurt Mother Earth. It's a go-cart, powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction."

  • Point of origin (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:13AM (#7288732)
    Having set off from Darwin
    OK, you can stop there. That pretty much explains everything...

    --
    Rate Naked People! [fuckmeter.com] at FuckMeter (not work-safe)

  • Techonology transfer. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The only problem with these cars is that it is hard to transfer the technology to real cars. These solar cars are covered with panels and are streamlined to go as fast as possible. They also have to be as light as possible for the same reason. Which makes the transfer that bit harder. That is not to say the race isn't a good idea. It's a great idea which enables peaple to have fun while investigating the power of the sun.
    Michael Harris.

  • Hooray! Electric cars for all please! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @04:26AM (#7288766) Journal
    So the big question - are we getting close to practical electric cars? Ok the vehicles in this competition are a "tour-de-force" of solar technology, but perhaps one day we could really have cars with advanced light-weight cheap batterys (thanks to advances in laptop/mobile batteries), and solar panels to charge when you leave your car parked in daylight. Also add regenerative braking, a fairly rapid recharge cycle, and for longer journeys give the garages something to sell - they can "hot-swap" batteries for a fully charged one, for a price. Is that the future, or is it Hydrogen fuel cells? Or some combination of both?

    Again, I just cannot figure why we still persist with nuclear, oil, coal, with all the attendant problems (pollution, wars over oil, etc), when we could cover a small proportiion of the deserts of the world [electrosolar.co.uk] with solar cells, and the roofs of our buildings, and the coasts with huge offsiore wind farms (British Wind Enrgy Association page) [bwea.com] & tidal turbines, and have all the power we need?
    • Well, on the other hand...
      We have a large desert called the Sahara in Africa.
      Space enough, sunshine enough and enough sand to make solarpanels.
      I've read somewhere that if you put enough solarpanels in the Sahara it could produce enough electrical power to power the whole world.
      • How are you gonna stop the sandstorms destroying your panels? (or covering them up?)

        Quite apart from the fact that there's LOADS of oil under the Sahara...

      • put enough solarpanels in the Sahara

        That's one option.

        Another might be to put the solar panels in orbit and to beam down the power [nasa.gov] to whereever you needed it.

        Yes, it's fraught with danger, radiating concentrated power out of the skies.

        The upside is that you could justify funding the whole thing for military purposes, but it could end up being practical, too.

        It would make sense for stationary receiving stations; reliably hitting a vehicle undergoing unusual accelerations from LEO would be challenge.

        • Ok, we could use solar panels to collect sunlight and beam the energy to earth. But we already have such a device up there - its called the "sun". We could just use its energy directly.. radical though that may seem..
        • you've not quite got it right. The SPS (Solar Power Satellite) will be dangling from the end of a naontube tether and the power will be sent down the wire/waveguide/whatever so that no messy microwaves need be sprayed around indiscriminatly.

          These things will be the FIRST use of "space elevator" technology, mark my words. No moving parts (that "elevator" cab will prove to be a knotty technical nightmare when it comes to actually getting the sonofabitch to work in the real world, and designs that mererely sus

          • I thought Omni Magazine went out of business....

            There are going to be meny other possibilities looked at before nanotube tethers are attempted. What prevents us from wiring all this energy from the desert to elsewhere, taking the whole system horizontal? Money!

            SO, in conclusion, you owe me. Payup. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
            mug
    • Again, I just cannot figure why we still persist with nuclear, oil, coal, with all the attendant problems (pollution, wars over oil, etc), when we could cover a small proportiion of the deserts of the world with solar cells, and the roofs of our buildings, and the coasts with huge offsiore wind farms (British Wind Enrgy Association page) & tidal turbines, and have all the power we need?

      Because its already there, coal, oil and nuclear are established. Non-Conventional is intruding, and oil corporations

    • Who holds back the electric car?
      Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?

      We do! We do! /obligatory Simpsons reference

    • "Again, I just cannot figure why we still persist with nuclear, oil, coal, with all the attendant problems (pollution, wars over oil, etc), when we could cover a small proportiion of the deserts of the world with solar cells, and the roofs of our buildings, and the coasts with huge offsiore wind farms (British Wind Enrgy Association page) & tidal turbines, and have all the power we need?"

      There's a very good reason why, and it isn't politicians and evil oil companies. It's money. When alternative pow
      • Would that be in the same way governments have "subsidised the heck" out of Nuclear power then? And how much is Nuclear going to cost in the future - decommission, clean-up, waste disposal? How much does it cost to look after plutonium waste for centuries to be sure terorists dont get hold of it? And what are the real costs of continued use of Fossil fuels?

        I would admit that solar is still quite expensive, although I have seen better figures for Solar than that, particularly if used to heat water too. New

    • Again, I just cannot figure why we still persist with nuclear, oil, coal, with all the attendant problems (pollution, wars over oil, etc), when we could cover a small proportiion of the deserts of the world [electrosolar.co.uk] with solar cells

      Solar cells are not a cost effective way to build a large-scale solar power plant. You're better off using mirrors to superheat water pipes, generating steam, driving a turbine/generator.

      You're even better off building a tall chimney (100m or more) and using

      • I would suppose it depends on the cost/efficiency of the cells. I would agree that todays cells, although improving, make it a fairly pricey proposition. Amorphous silicon cells are a promising development, much cheaper to make than traditional cells, but currently not so efficient. It strikes me that the sort of plants you propose involve a lot more structure, pressurised pipes, moving parts, etc - and how do the efficiency/cost figures work out? Wouldit be better to use 30%+ efficient solar cells rather

        • It strikes me that the sort of plants you propose involve a lot more structure, pressurised pipes, moving parts, etc - and how do the efficiency/cost figures work out? Wouldit be better to use 30%+ efficient solar cells rather than water pipes at the focus of the mirrors? Or is it just better to use banks of cells, with no moving parts, if they are at the right price?

          Photovoltaic cells are typically mounted on motors so they can track the sun.

          Yes, the two designs I described require a large upfront

  • Here in Holland, we develop and produce quite a bit of hightech aerospace equipment. (Think of Stork, former Fokker, think of Estec, a Holland based ESA tech facility) Although, this usually ends up in some other country's high profile project. So it is good to see the Dutch own engineering get some appreciation once in a while. Even if we didn't develop all of the parts ourselves this time.
  • 1. This was done in the Ozzie desert, when they can get a car that does this under cloud in the US/UK I'll be a bit more impressed.
    2. I read about this over 24 hours ago, so the 'news' is more 'olds for nerds'

  • Speed limit! (Score:5, Informative)

    by valentyn ( 248783 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:22AM (#7288881) Homepage
    the report [nuonsolarteam.nl] (in Dutch) says: "gemiddelde snelheid van 97.02 km/h" and also "de gehele dag gemiddeld zo'n 110 km/h gereden, de snelheidslimiet in South Australia.". In English: "average speed of 97.02 km/h" (60.29 mph) and "the whole day an average of 110 km/h, the speed limit in South Australia". The race takes place on public roads, remember?
  • The Dutch solar car Nuna II, using ESA space technology

    Curse those wily Dutchmen and their Nutricia Chocomel-flavored Tang!

    • You mean you know Chocomel?

      I live about 20 kilometres from the Nutricia factories, so I'm used to getting my daily Chocomel -- in the French-language parts of Belgium known as Cecemel. However, once in France, there was no waiter that understood my order of either Chocomel OR Cecemel (or lait chocolate chaude). They all knew "Gouda" cheese and "Heineken" beer, however, so I was afraid that Chocomel was a little behind on being a solid Dutch export product.

      Please tell me that it's different!

  • Solar Panels bah! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:27AM (#7289076)
    Just wait till the Dutch team arrives at the Annual Windmill-powered-car Challenge next year!

  • Day five results (Score:3, Informative)

    by caffeine_monkey ( 576033 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @07:02AM (#7289201)
    are available here [wsc.org.au], in PDF format unfortunately. Rounding out the top five behind the Dutch are Aurora Vehicle Assn, MIT Solar Electric Team, Queens University, and FH Bochum/SBU.
  • Not really a world challenge.. U of Waterloo's car wasn't there due to lack on funding. Same goes for other top cars. Too bad really.

  • I work about 50m away from the finish line and I think it was nice and sunny today. Well, it was when I looked out the window in the morning. I should have gone down to the tents in Victoria Square at lunch to have a look. I gather they'll still be going for a few days yet so I'll make a point to go have a look tomorrow.

  • ...and I only have to recharge the "battery" every 700 miles or so.

    My propulsion system stores solar energy in the form of soybeans, from which oil is extracted, and converted to biodiesel. I pump it into my car (thus recharging my "battery") and drive off. Ok, it's not strictly solar power, but it's a pretty efficient use of surplus soy oil, of which the US has a fair amount. And my car drives fine even with cloudy skies...
  • The Dutch Advantage: bad weather in their homeland.

    If you get more clouds, you have to learn to be more efficient.

    The Aussies had the disadvantage that they've got 358 sunny days each year, so they didn't bother with efficiency.

    For evolutionary progress, there must be oppositional conditions. It's just another example of the theory of Darwin.

    (Disclaimer: satire. Get it? Darwin? Y'know? Ah ... nevermind. I either need to up the dosage or quit already.)
  • I thought this was a college-based event?

    According to the article the car "uses advanced space technology, provided to the team via ESA's European Space Agency) Technology Transfer Programme" and the "ESA not only provided them with engineering support via its Technology Transfer Programme but also with general support via the Education Office, previously headed by former ESA astronaut Wubbo Ockels, who is also adviser to the team."

    The article also points out that the "Nuna II also carries Maximum Power

  • After reading the article and seeing the words "space technology" used far too many times (which reads $$$$$$ to me) I think they should determine future winners based on the price of the materials used in the car compared to the time to completion.

    For example, if the 5 million dollar car finishes only 5% quicker than the half million dollar car than I think the half million dollar car should be declared the winner. Cost won't include design, only the price of the physical materials used to build the car

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