An Entirely New Concept
The Second use of the "solar concentrating sheet" {let's call it} I discussed before (see previous post) is the generation of energy from traffic on road. I know you'd probably think I'm talking about some friction or speedbraker thing but..., here I have a totally 'out-of-this-world' idea about generation of electricity from traffic on road.
As you've read in the previous post; tiny reflectors on the sheet can align themselves to concentrate sunlight on any point in space above the sheet; visualise it like this:
Note that the reflectors are electronically aligned so as to concentrate on the focus.
Now,
imagine that the roof of the vehicles on road is covered with this kind of sheets. Then, whenever a vehicle enters a specific virtual zone marked by distinct radio waves, a reciever on this sheet sends a signal to the reflectors telling the to face the target. Sunlight falling on the roof of the vehicles gets concentrated on a point over the road.
A virtual zone marked by radio waves contains a single focus area.
Suppose that a 500 m long stretch of road comes under this virtual zone and in the middle of the stretch i.e. at 250 m there is a overhead post just like those traffic lights.
Now, if any vehicle enters this area, it's roof top sheet gets the signal to align the reflectors in such a way that sunlight is focussed on the overhead post in the middle of the stretch.
Did you get the idea?
Every vehicle entering the zone will focus sunlight on the post and an energy collector placed at the post will generate power.
So that's how we can get energy without even erecting a Solar power plant.
What are your views on this idea? You can provide feedback by clicking on the 'comments' link.
Thanks for reading. Share your ideas too!
7 comments:
I'm moving to Australia from Britain and am looking into ways of building an effective, low-cost solar installation.
I've been looking into using mirrors to focus light onto a solar panel and so your blog's been very interesting.
What I don't understand however is your reasoning for having this on cars. Why cars? To generate significant volumes of electricity would require large mirrors. Unless the sun is directly overhead then the mirrors would have to be angled. As soon as you angle the mirror, you change the shape of the car and in most cases would make it less aerodynamic and so it would use more fuel. Remember that an empty roof-rack reduces fuel efficiency by an average of 10%.
In addition, you'd have to fit one such mirror to the roof of every car which would be extraordinarily expensive. Surely it would be better to install the mirrors onto something solid? You'd use fewer mirrors and wouldn't affect the cars' fuel efficiency.
I like your thoughts and your blog a lot, but I need you to show more reasoning on this idea.
Dear Chris and Leanne,
Thanks for writing in and appreciating this blog.
I think you didn't get my idea clearly, let me clarify;
One thing, I'm not at all talking about Big mirrors in this idea. See the first sentence of the 2nd para, I'm refering 'tiny mirrors', tiny here means merely 1 or 2 millimeters in radius. And these type of rotating mirrors fixed on a sheet are imagined to be concentrating sunlight on a mini tower in the center.
The benefit that we'll get using tiny mirrors is that they are less costly to produced (doesn't use glass), they'll not be obtrusive (no question of air drag), can evenly take the shape of the contours of car ('cause of so small size) and we'll get Concentrated Sunlight, and this power can (maybe) easily power car AC or electronics.
You said large mirrors mean more energy, I say, not necessarily. The surface area covered is important, wether by large uncomfortable mirrors or tiny (but thousands) reflectors.
If you've heard of DLP dispays, you may well know that such a system already works there. Movable Micro mirrors are used to create a picture on the screen.
I hope your doubts are cleared, if still not, you are more than welcome to write again.
Best Regards,
Mridul
Do you thonk this idea can be applied...not using cars but mirrors of the tall buildings?
simple is that, to adjust mirrors on car is required to increase the concentration of sun rays. the get extra energy.
I like the idea. I 've also seen ideas that involve capturing (recycling) expended electricity that's generated by cars. I also recently found an interesting solar generator. See: http://www.drgcinc.com/custommade/
could there be a generation of energy turbine style with turbine axis between two lanes of opposing flow traffic?
All that momentum whizzing past innumerable points during peak traffic may be tapped for magnetic or just how could we tap into? as long as we're thinking up new techs...
I think the future is in wind and solar energy. Hopefully within the next few decades, we can be more reliable on renewable energy rather than fossil fuel.
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