) but no wind-powered engine or turbine can run without wind (and no normal car without diesel or petrol).The design is free and the only restrictions are adherence to safety and technical rules. The WPV may carry an empty battery which can be charged during the race. Outside dimensions: length ≤ 4m, width: ≤ 2m. Maximum height of the complete vehicle is 3.5m. Maximum rotor area 4m2. The maximum speed equals (more or less) the wind velocity. E.g. wind force 4 = 20 to 28 kilometres per hour. The participants are Technical University Risø (Denmark), Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), Center for Renewable Energy Sources (Greece), Fachhochschule Flensburg (Germany), Technical University Kiel (Germany), Technical University Stuttgart (Germany).
.......Edward Teller demonstrated deuterium/tritium (D/T) inertial confinement fusion (ICF) via the reaction D + T → He4 + 14.2 MeV neutron here, on Earth, at more than full scale way back in 1952. Many called this ICF demonstration the "hydrogen bomb" because Edward needed a fission device to heat a capsule of D/T to the 200-million-degree ignition temperature. However, laser-initiated ICF research achieved >50x liquid D/T density at temperatures of 200 million degrees more than a decade ago. Although the U.S. is withdrawing (again) from the European Union's magnetic confinement ITER project in France, the single shot/day Nd:glass ICF National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is nearing completion. Design studies funded by the Department of Energy (DoE) for Prometheus ICF with krypton-fluoride (KrF) laser or heavy ion (HI) ....
Last week, in the post "Six (Or 7) Ways To Power A Vehicle With Wind" I left out a super-fast land yacht now waiting for perfect weather in Perth to try to set a world record in wind-powered land-yacht speed (didn't even know there was one of those, did you?)
Ride Like The Wind, Greenbird
Engineer Richard Jenkins has built the Jetson's/Forumula 1 version of those wind-powered vehicles right now racing the beaches at Race Aeolus 2008 in the Netherlands. Jenkins' craft, named Greenbird, now has a sponsorship deal with U.K.-based Ecotricity and sports its logo, and Ecotricity's managing director will ride along when the wind and the weather gets good enough near Perth for the record-breaking attempt (the previous 1999 record is 116.7 miles per hour).
Vertical sailing wing, rather than a turbine
Instead of a turbine, either vertical or horitzontal, Jenkins' craft has a rigid vertical wing like an aircraft's wing, which theoretically allows it to travel at six times the speed of the wind. Jenkins told the Guardian:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/another-wind-powered-speedster.php
With the wingspan of a commercial airliner, the two-man Solar Impulse (pictured above) is designed to climb on solar power to almost 30,000 feet during the day, and then gently glide on thermals, uplift and battery power down to 6,000 feet at night—repeating the procedure for several days at a time.
