Solar car gets around the world / LJWorld.com

Archive for Friday, December 5, 2008

Alik Keplicz/AP Photo. Enlarge photo.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, greets journalists as he arrives Thursday in a solar taxi to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland.

By Vanessa Gera - Associated Press Writer

December 5, 2008

Poznan, Poland — If a solar-powered car can drive 32,000 miles around the globe without using a drop of oil, perhaps it can be forgiven for not having a coffee cup holder.

Or maybe that makes Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer’s journey even more remarkable.

Palmer rolled into the U.N. climate conference in his solar car Thursday, a man with a mission: to prove that the world can continue its love affair with the car without burning any polluting fossil fuels and still enjoy a smooth ride.

While some 11,000 delegates sought an ambitious new climate change deal to slash emissions of heat-trapping gases, Palmer was convinced that whatever they agreed upon won’t be enough to avert environmental disaster.

“Here at the conference, we are talking about reducing emissions by 10 or 20 percent,” Palmer said. “I want to show that we can reduce emissions by 100 percent — and that’s what we need for the future.”

Palmer, a teacher on leave from his job, spent 17 months driving his own creation — a fully solar-powered car built with the help of Swiss scientists — through 38 countries. The two-seater travels up to 55 mph and covers 185 miles on a fully charged battery.

“This is the first time in history that a solar-powered car has traveled all the way around the world without using a single drop of petrol,” he said, adding that he lost only two days to breakdowns.

To make his point, he took an Associated Press reporter for a ride Thursday.

Palmer lifted a light plastic flap that acts as a door before climbing in. He then flipped a switch to activate the electric engine and set off as the motor hummed softly, much more quietly than a traditional car.

For now, the aluminum and fiberglass car is still a prototype, and it feels like one. The car, designed to be light and efficient, is powered by solar cells that it hauls on a trailer. It has plastic windows, three wheels instead of four and ironically, no climate control.

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5 December 2008
at 9:29 a.m.

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gr (Anonymous) says…

“If a solar-powered car can drive 32,000 miles around the globe”Really? Hope the sun is shining when it goes across the ice.Or is it a boat, too?
5 December 2008
at 2:47 p.m.

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cthulhu_4_president (Anonymous) says…

“The car, designed to be light and efficient, is powered by solar cells that it hauls on a trailer”I almost spewed Pepsi on my keyboard when i read this. Is the trailer “light and efficient” too? Judging by the picture, i think not.