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Your refusal to address reality is sad but typical...Here's the reality of the steep decline in battery prices.
//www.statista.com/chart/23807/lithium-ion-battery-prices/
You will no doubt claim that the technology is now mature and can't go down in cost. But there are numerous options for battery storage and most analysts think that battery price is going to continue falling dramatically owing to volume production and technological advances.
I am not saying there hasn't been a "disposable income" crisis since the turn of the century. There has, for sure. But that is not the only determinant of whether you buy a car to own outright. It's a lifestyle choice and lost of young people in their twenties now feel they don't have to own a car themselves to enjoy everything an urban area like London has to offer.
In countries like the UK and USA, the disposable income crisis has been created by globalist policies (so called "free trade"), and the associated pressure on welfare. It is a totally manufactured crisis.
The Greater London Plus conurbation - stretching to places like Reading, Southend, and the Medway ports probably has 15% of the UK population so it is still highly representative of the UK and matches the experience in other big conurbations around the world. Young people in cities like Birmingham. Manchester and Glasgow will experience similar influences on their behaviour.
I would sum it up like this: in 1990 it was difficult to be part of the elite modern world as a young person without personally owning a car but now it is not. You could be on £100k pa in London and still not feel it's worth owning a car in your name. There would be no social discredit involved in not having your own car as long as you could display your £100k status in other ways (and you can, of course!).
I have been sceptical about hydrogen myself in the past. Storage and safety are big and difficult issues. But they are capable of being resolved at utility scale where there are specialist power generation facilities.
The problem in the past I think is that hydrogen from water was being viewed as a stand alone technology. But as an adjunct to green energy technology I think it can work. The reason it can work is because green energy costs keep falling and surplus green energy has a marginal cost close to zero - and that can drive the hydrogen production. While on Mars I favour methane production from PV energy (because methane has to be produced for rocket fuel) for Earth I am increasingly thinking hydrogen makes sense for utility scale electricity generation from stored energy.
Louis, it sounds like you live in London, which does explain something about your thinking. You think that what you see in London, is in some way typical of the rest of the world? I think you are a fantasist and have trouble separating fanciful ideas from reality. It is true that much of what we discuss on this board is highly fanciful, but discussion always needs to have some engineering judgement in the background. You seem to think that if you want something enough and do a good enough job of talking it up and cherry picking facts, you might make it real. You tend to ignore things that don't corroborate your pet ideological obsessions. Facts are things you steam roll or pick selectively on the way to your sales pitch. That is why these discussions always end up going nowhere. At no point are you grounded in reality. And without that grounding, there really is nothing to discuss. You might as well say that people can travel using magic carpets. That is about as much real science as there is in these discussions.
You also seem to be confusing small-scale strategies that people use to try and cope, as evidence that there is no problem in the first place. People unable to afford cars and taxis now have access to public bicycles, at least in Central London. But bicycle use was much higher 50 years ago than it is now. The fact that bikes exist in central London has no bearing on the UKs declining car sales. This is occurring because people can longer afford them.
So let me sum up the situation that we are in: People in developed countries have been gradually getting poorer since around 2000. The cause of this problem in physical resource depletion, especially fossil fuel energy. Energy use per capita has been shrinking in developed countries, as industries close and average incomes decline. Oil depletion was the direct cause of the 2008 Great Recession. I have explained how it happened several times before on these boards. This is reality and it is not negotiable.
Hydrogen produced by electrolysis has been the next big thing for at least thirty years. It has never found anything other than niche applications, because of the high cost of electricity, electrolysis capital costs and the impracticality of hydrogen as a fuel. What do you think has changed recently? You seem to imagine technology as some sort of magician's box, that will make real any technological fantasy that you can imagine. But in the real world, electrolysis makes use of the same alkaline cells that it has done for fifty years. Real efficiency is about 50%, because efficiency is a function of current density, and high current density cells have lower capital costs. Maybe something really amazing is just around the corner - some very low capital cost, highly efficient electrolysis technology. But it does not exist at present.
There is simply no reason to expect batteries to become a cheap option. They are manufactured products, that require high embodied energy and a high mass of rare elements. And on top of that, like all manufactured goods, their costs must amortise labour, capital and operating costs of the factory where they are made. Why would you expect some magic wand to suddenly make these things cheaper? Why would anyone expect battery production to follow different laws to other types of goods? I cannot buy a car or an aeroplane very cheaply. Why would you expect batteries to be different?
First things first. We need to establish how super-fit and well balanced individuals cope with a Mars Mission. We know by now that muscle and bone loss is no long the issue it once was. As long as you select your crew correctly, muscle and bone loss on a six month zero G trip can be compensated for, so there is no overall loss.
Space X is way ahead now but the more in space the better, one issue is NASA and the Space Agency groups across the world have not a large enough sample size to truly understand what the effects will be people, we know about the Right Stuff or the Best of the Best but not enough on random humans during tourism to the Asteroids or potential missions to Mars.
Is Bezos about to get passed out by one of his ex-workers?
March vid from the company, my gut feeling is they aren't there and their workforce seems smaller for some group that is aming high but then again many people who doubted the Private sector before were proven wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do07cCylVqkAn ex-engineer from Jeff Bezos' space company has raised $650 million for his rocket-printing startup above a $4 billion valuation
https://www.businessinsider.com/relativ … ity-2021-6
The Los Angeles-based startup was cofounded by Tim Ellis, formerly an engineer at Jeff Bezos’ commercial space company Blue Origin.They are posting regular updates and interacting with the public on twitter, maybe by the time they are on the ISS the guys at SpaceX and Musk will have moved onto Mars?
https://twitter.com/relativityspace/sta … 8185679877
'We recently finished building our latest structural test stand. '
Bumping in view of multiple posting of links without commentary.
I'd already put up a dedicated thread on Relativity Space. Why didn't you post your Relativity Space link there?
You obviously don't read anybody else's posts.
Or perhaps you are an algorithm.
Researchers 3D Print Biodegradable “Leaves” Capable of Producing Oxygen on Mars
https://news.yahoo.com/researchers-3d-p … 00132.htmlRelativity Space unveils details of larger 3D-printed rocket to launch from Cape Canaveral
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/space … canaveral/
Felix's latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r6JsCBThPo
It includes a section on the rocket company, Relativity Space. A dark horse sprinting to the finish line!
It's interesting that their rocket technology depends on 3D printing. This could be very relevant to Mars colonisation.
I appear to have been unaware of, or have forgotten about, this rival to Space X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_Space#History
Are others aware of their progress.
They seem to be serious players.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmAImVgyUsI
Excellent detailed presentation on the launch tower and mount being built at Boca Chica.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-f … -musk.html
Elon saw your post and doubled down - well divided by ten: $2 million is possible for each launch cost according to Mr Musk.
Louis, why don't you read what I actually said? What I said was "Using the wild guess (and wild guess it is) of $200M per launch". What part of "wild guess" do you not understand?
As for $20M per launch, I'll believe it when I actually see it. I haven't seen it yet. Why? it hasn't yet been built, much less flown. At this stage of the game, any cost numbers from any source (including Spacex) are still inherently vapid bullshit at best, and that's actually the nicest way I can state that!
But I have curve-fit real launch cost data for a variety of commercial launchers, and BFR/BFS should fall somewhere nearer $100-200M per launch in its initial incarnations, maybe lower with experience and design revisions. It remains to be seen whether the dreamed-of reusability actually happens and lowers that cost. Might happen, or it might not.
Point is, my educated wild guess is better than any of the wild speculations you keep getting off of internet blog sites, and believing because you want to believe numbers like those. I do NOT believe them, nor do I believe Spacex's hype! Not yet, anyway.
GW
Sorry - I missed off the link re electrolysis of hydrogen:
https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2 … on-economy
It's an interesting read. I recommend it.
As for influences on car purchases...
You do realise you no longer have to queue for half an hour at a bus stop never knowing if one is going to turn up? You can check your mobile to see if a bus is coming and time your arrival. That's a huge plus.
Until the Year of Covid, there were plans to extend the use of underground lines making some of them 24/7.
Certainly I know the introduction of the London Overground since 2007 has made a huge difference in getting to parts of London not served by the traditional tube. It has 112 stations on 9 different routes.
Uber means taxis have become more affordable for lots of people.
Electric bikes have become common - and are probably a faster way of getting around the capital than cars for many routes.
Car clubs were virtually unknown 20 years ago. Now they are common and easy to use.
Safe cycle routes and places to park up your bike have been hugely expanded in the last 20 years.
Pay as you go "Boris Bikes" were introduced 11 years ago.
At the same time over the last 20 years there has been the spread of residents parking schemes (you have to pay for a permit in your own area and you have to pay to park everywhere else) plus we now have congestion charging.
I think this has all had an effect in London at least. I think it does influence people to put off purchase of their own vehicle until they start a family.
There are two aspects to technology - the technology itself and the technology of production. I doubt that the technology of telephones changed much between 1900 and 1950 but I would be very surprised if the cost of production remained the same. There will have been numerous improvements in manufacturing technology that would reduce the price.
So it is with PV. It doesn't require a change in the PV technology for us to see steep falls in the cost of PV because cost of manufacturing is falling fast. You only have to look at pics of PV manufacture from the turn of the century compared with now. A couple of decades ago hundreds of people were involved. Now, it is very highly automated.
That we have ended up with a situation where China manufactures over 70% world PV production is to be laid at the door of globalists, not me or other PV advocates.
Re hydrogen production, in NW Europe its more likely to be achieved through surplus wind energy.
Longer term it's clear we don't have any sort of resouce problem. Asteroid mining, lunar mining, Mars mining, and, closer to home, ocean mining, all offer opportunities to hugely increase resource acquisition. Solar power technology is not going to stop developing. We will see solar power satellites beaming back energy to Earth probably within 50 years. Progress is slow but it is being made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yarhdh0I4A
We can already see the outlines of a solar system resource economy.
Once batteries are a relatively cheap option I think we will see large "oil tanker" size ships out on the ocean in sunny equatorial regions charging up 500,000 tons of batteries (using floating PV systems). At 300 whes per kg a 500,000 ton vessel would have a combined charge of 150 Gigawatt Hours of electricity. Enough to run the UK for a couple of days or thereabouts. A fleet of maybe 40 such vessels combined with an increased wind energy input and significant cheap PV roof top film systems could probably power the whole of the UK, including the millions of EVs that will supplant ICE vehicles. You can throw in existing hydro, some geothermal, heat pump systems, wave energy and waste to energy...which might produce 5-10% of your energy demand as well.
Louis, this is one of your lamest energy posts yet, out of a long history of lame energy related posts. Seriously man, you need to do some background reading.
Without a shred of evidence to back it up, you claim that the global downturn in car sales is due to some cultural phenomenon of young people choosing to use public transport, which apparently suddenly got much better around 2016. There has certainly been no dramatic improvement in public transportation in the UK in the past 20 years. Service has if anything gotten poorer and costs have risen. What has happened, and I have posted numerous links on this site that provide supporting evidence; is that people have gradually become poorer, with less disposable income. This is due to the deteriorating energy dynamic behind the economy, which is a machine the modifies matter, using energy, to produce goods and services.
I posted a link to an interview with a 40-year solar industry veteran about a week back. You swiftly dismissed it as irrelevant because it said something that you didn't want to hear. Here it is again:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/16/ … he-market/Some highlights: (1) The most important cost drivers for production costs of solar modules are the cost of capital and the price of electricity. (2) For amorphous silicon cells, there have been no significant technological developments of any importance since the turn of the century. Low costs result from cheap electricity and low debt servicing costs, both of which are unsustainable. Don't take my word for it. This is the opinion of a man that spent his entire career working with these things.
For hydrogen to be cheap, it requires that efficient electrolysis stacks are operated at high capacity factor using low cost input electricity. Solar power cannot achieve the first and cannot achieve the second in a normal interest rate environment or without the subsidy of cheap coal providing low cost input electricity. There is a strong possibility that a PV panel generating hydrogen would be a net energy sink when all inefficiencies are captured. If it is in a high latitude country, then making the panels and electrolysis units will consume more energy than they can actually produce in their lifetime.
As for Malthusianism, the facts are what they are. The energy cost of energy is rising and disposable income (wealth) is diminishing fast in first world countries and has stopped growing now even in the poorer countries. This isn't something that might happen in the future, it is something that has been happening since at least the turn of the century and will continue deteriorating in the future. Getting to Mars won't be any easier just because we pretend that problems don't exist. I take it that you do understand that the practicality of technology, isn't a function of how strongly you believe in it?
This is a type of Malthusian argument, an odd one on a forum where most people wish to see the colonisation of a planet with the same land area as Earth.
Leaving aside 2020 because of Covid, world production of motor vehicles has increased by something like a staggering 50% since 2000.
So that gives some context. I would agree you probably can't sustain that sort of rate of growth decade after decade. But also consumer trends are changing. Improved public transport and cycle routes, home working, widespread use of home delivery for groceries and other goods, and use of club cars has certainly led to changes in a city like London where young people don't feel the same pressure to acquire a car as two or three decades ago.
As renewable energy replaces fossil fuels, there will be plenty of oil available to use in plastics. Cars are now something like 50% plastic and that could go a lot higher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck2x5qu6HX0
This writer (writing 5 years ago) reckons we can make and store electrolysed hydrogen for just over 5p per KwH. Not sure if that's correct but if it is, total green energy systems cannot be far away. Even in northern latitudes like Western Europe they will be cheaper than nuclear power.
There may have been some marginal benefit to the PV industry from Chinese state capitalist investment and low fossil fuel prices but the main driver of downward PV energy prices has been technological innovation.
The global economy is now facing limits to growth due to physical resource shortages. Gail Tverberg shows that these are not primarily the result of the corona virus epidemic. Chinese coal production stopped growing around 2013. This places limits on their steel and concrete production. Global oil production reached its historic peak in 2018 and global car sales reached their peak and started declining 2016-2017. The world is now ~5 years past historic peak production for cars; 3 years past peak for oil and 8 years past peak for coal. Peak coal, also means Peak Steel.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/05/27/d … -covid-19/Gail speculates that part of the reasoning behind lockdowns and hysteria inducing propaganda, was to encourage changes in behaviour that would limit energy resource consumption. And in the western world it seems to have worked. Working from home and restrictions on foreign travel, led to sizable reductions in oil consumption, freeing up valuable diesel for real goods transportation.
One might also speculate that peaking Chinese coal production will stall any hopes of a renewable energy transition, especially projects involving photovoltaics. The two most important factors in PV manufacturing costs are the price of electricity and the cost of capital. The Chinese came to dominate PV module production, because coal based electricity was cheaper than anywhere else in the world and the Chinese government supported expansion of this sector with very low interest rate loans. The ERoEI of Solar PV in northern climates is so poor, that solar electricity is in reality just stored Chinese coal-based energy.
Between 2008 and 2016, the Chinese PV global market share went from zero to 70+%. There are now no PV module manufacturers left in Europe and the few remaining US producers, like First Solar, plan to close these operations, due to lack of profitability. For the wealthy consumer nations, purchase of these artifially cheap modules was assisted by low interest rates and low bond yields, both of which allow high capital investments with low real returns to be tolerated. So the PV industry was effectively subsidised at both ends. With Chinese electricity prices rising and inflation making future interest rate rises unavoidable, previous cost reductions in the price of solar electricity, which owed more to financial manipulation than to any technological innovation, may be in for a sharp reversal.
Plans for energy transition will therefore require a radical rethink. The is no hope whatever of replacing more than a fraction of present fossil fuel energy consumption with renewable energy. The material and embodied energy requirements are not affordable without the subsidies allowed by very cheap coal and oil based energy inputs at every point in the manufacturing process. In the absence of fossil fuels, high living standards can be maintained only by transitioning to energy sources with a similarly high ERoEI. The most promising options being fusion and fission based energy sources, or hybrid solutions involving both.
Alternative strip off the first metre of regolith and then harvest the layer that has few or no perchlorates. My understanding it is solar radiation that creates the perchlorates so they shouldn't be there in lower layers.
Not sure where to post this, so...
Researchers Create Soil Catalyst to Make Farming on Mars a Reality
Now, a team of scientists has developed a bioinspired catalyst that simplifies the perchlorate removal process and destroys 99 percent of the contaminant at ambient temperatures and pressures. The results provide “a water-compatible, efficient, and robust catalyst to degrade and utilize [perchlorate] for water purification and space exploration,” according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The new research builds on past experiments that make use of anaerobic microbes, tiny organisms that live in oxygen-poor environments. Some of these organisms can survive by harvesting oxygen atoms inside perchlorate, which effectively breaks down the pollutant. The microbes can be cultivated to do this work in industrial reactors, but it can take weeks or months to establish working stability in this process.
...
“The motivation for our catalyst is that we just want to finish the work in a single day.”“Right now, we have made it very stable, and it can survive under very challenging concentrations,” he added. The catalyst can be used to break down perchlorate at concentrations lower than one milligram per liter up to 10 grams per liter, which means it can be used in many contexts, from treating groundwater to detoxifying Martian soil.
To achieve this result, Liu and his colleagues developed a system based on the chemical element molybdenum, a metal that microbes use as part of their enzymatic harvesting of perchlorate. Using a mix of common fertilizer containing molybdenum, a binding molecule called bipyridine, a catalyst called palladium on carbon, and hydrogen gas, the researchers were able to rapidly disintegrate perchlorate in water at room temperature.
Well, obviously you locate your PV installations on Mars in areas of high insolation not medium to low as in Switzerland or Germany. Switzerland looks like it gets less than half the insolation in the Sahara per annum. On Mars we will be looking for a Saharan equivalent although there are trade offs with other factors determining where the first settlement will be (eg safe landing and water ice requirements). As things stand it looks like the first settlement on Mars will be at about 30 degrees zone just outside the highest insolation zone of 25-29 degrees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irr … lation.png
It's pretty clear that there could be a million different ways of interpreting EROI in practice, as opposed to theory.
I have always thought that the levelised (unsubsidised) price of the energy produced is the best guide to how efficient a system really is. There are still issues of interpretation (e.g. do you put a price on the nuclear industry's indemnities or how far you include "additional infrastructure" which applies to all energy forms). But price is a reasonable guide and more objective than a EROI.
What is absolutely clear is that the cost of PV system has been falling steeply and consistently for decades now and that his has chiefly been driven by technological innovation. Furthermore no analyst has yet seen a brick wall ahead for further technological development.
A significant cost in PV systems is of course the land cost which won't apply on Mars. Likewise because the weather is so benign on Mars, sturdy frames are not required to protect against hurricanes and the like.
On Earth once the price falls low enough you can use PV surplus energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen and use that as your energy storage system. Or on Mars, since we will already be set up to make methane and oxygen that would be the preferred energy storage system. Once you have energy storage you have no need to double up with energy generation and overall cost reduces dramatically.
This paper, written by two Swiss technologists, suggests that solar PV power is a net energy sink in high latitude countries (I.e ERoEI is less than 1). Obviously, system ERoEI depends heavily on annual insolation at the location of the plant.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 1516301379Generally higher energy consumption is required to live on Mars. Low system ERoEI does not bode well for the idea of using solar power on Mars to produce new solar panels, in addition to meeting the energy needs of an expanding base. Unless the technology manufactured on Mars is substantially more resource efficient than technology already deployed on Earth, solar PV begins to look unworkable as an expanding power supply for a Martian colony.
Yep, lots down. Can't say I'll be missing the BBC, CNN or NYT.
'connection failures'
https://twitter.com/mnqmlny/status/1402215575137361925
https://twitter.com/TheQuint/status/1402214657763336195
404 errors
,
https://twitter.com/The_Squirrel81/stat … 6124814338
https://twitter.com/cather435/status/14 … 8523556866Multiple global news sites down including BBC, New York Times
https://www.news.com.au/technology/onli … b59127c596
CNN, The New York Times, other news websites experience outage
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cnn- … e-n1269921
Nice evocation of life around Boca Chica. Hope they don't kill off all the birdlife with Starbase City.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyjM3HxjSUU
Loving that 48 wheel carrier thing!
Don't think I've ever seen an actual downcomer in the wild!
OK make that 72 wheel!
You didn't look closely enough. The diagram shows six engines. 3 space vaccuum and 3 sea level. In any case, that's irrelevant as they won't crowd out the potential storage space. Engines have to be below the tanks and that's what creates the storage space.
The full starship will have 3 more engines optimized for space use that will fill out the compartment.
Thanks OF...seems I didn't imagine it after all. See my other post above - there is definitely space there for some storage.
I think Louis is possibly referring back to an early Elon Musk comment about having cargo area at the extreme aft of the Starship and possibly surrounding the engine bay; this was in one of his televised broadcasts that announced the "Dear Moon" mission. I suspect that with the Raptor engine problems, that concept has probably gone by the boards
Yes I'll hunt across millions of posts on multiple sites just to...er no I won't. It's a recollection I have. That's all I can say.
But if you look at this diagram:
https://www.humanmars.net/2021/01/cutaw … rship.html
You can see there is definitely space between the hull and the raptor engines (ie below the tanks). It looks like it could be as much as 1.5 metres in width, so 2 x 1.5 metres - 3 metres as a cross section. It is here I would ensivage the stowage being. You could probably pack in small robot vehicles. I don't know how safe it would be to house batteries as well but they would obviously be great as ballast. A robot scout vehicle would be useful - one that could go into action very soon after landing.
For Louis re #1237
It would be helpful if you could show the diagrams you're reporting having seen.
(th)
I'm pretty sure I've seen diagrams suggesting there would be storage space below the tanks, parallel to the rocket nozzle area I guess, which I think you might be able to pack with small robots and EV batteries.
For Oldfart1939 ...
Thanks for your patience in trying to explain the concepts you've presented in this topic.
A (possibly subtle) point in this discussion is that Louis is both right and wrong at the same time. He has a mental picture (based upon his words) that is correct, but a rocket cannot be constructed as he is imagining, so he is wrong about the real world situation.
Somewhere recently, a member posted diagrams/graphics showing precisely what you are talking about.
If someone can find that post I'd appreciate having the link here is this topic.
(th)
But the CG is lower with low level ballast isn't it? I'm just saying that's one of the factors to take into consideration.
Louis-
I suggest you go and buy basic textbook on Statics. You are making statements about a subject that is simply straight physics as understood by every engineer that graduated from a university. Statics is the study of forces on objects at rest. We're talking about a very simple concept of center of gravity or center of mass. It must be over a polygon shape as defined by the points of contact of the legs with the supporting surface. If the system is leaning and the CG is over the edge of the polygon--it topples over.
Ballast has got to come into this equation. If you can pack heavy cargo in the lower 10% section then that is going to have an effect on stability.
What are the factors on Mars that will cause a Starship to topple over compared with Earth? The only ones I can think of (given the JPL landing sites) are:
1. Too hard landing (a matter of good rocket control technology, not leg design).
2. Ground subsidence (I don't believe that is likely given the data that can be derived from Mars satellites).
3. Sliding on landing (a matter mainly of good technology but leg design can help).
4. Gradient greater than 5% (that ain't gonna happen).
Louis-
4 Meter long landing legs only make the circle of support for landing 9m +4m +4m. 17 meters diameter is too small and it needs to be a higher fraction of the vehicle height for stability. GW has given numbers that are reasonable to prevent tip-over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRfQLcJlkaM
Straight to orbit?
Insolation is a measure of solar energy so your comments don't apply.
Low light is not "dark" in this context. Low light is just low light.
In a dust storm a lot of direct insolation is converted into ambient light. Ambient light still powers PV panels/film.
I'm really not sure what you are trying to claim about insolation during dust storms. Are you actually making the absurd claim that it goes down to 0% in normal hours of light? If you aren't making that claim what are you saying? That it goes down to 10%? OK. Then I will ask for how long during a dust storm. One sol? Seven sols? 30 sols?
You are just posting stuff without making clear what your claim is.
The eye can see even in the dark when solar produces nothing and so does a panel in only slightly more as it can not produce power until it reaches the junction activation thresholds.
https://www.alternative-energy-tutorial … r/alt9.gif
https://gcell.com/wp-content/uploads/Lux-levels.jpg
https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/sol … -intensity
If you block light from half of a panel and leave the other half in bright sunlight, you might expect that the power output will drop by half. But that’s not the case. What actually happens is that the power output will drop dramatically - you will lose much more than half the power.
https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2020 … ow-effect/
While the cell is putting out low level power its the load which is the circuit on the panel that makes it so that no power is coming out of it as the levels of light drop....
So a panel with no circuit is unregulated and you are at the mercy of the outputs loading effects which is current and voltage as soon as the load rises the voltage will drop out and you get nothing....
Nope, those pics are fine because of course you can see things, which is just the way it is in dust storm because there isn't total loss of insolation.
I've seen peak storm satellite and telescope pics of the Mars surface. You can see ground features, so clearly there is not total loss of insolation.
You've just fallen for a myth that is encouraged by a number of media outfits.
This must be another deep fake of the storm as its coming in
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/file … k=6UnfoebiJune 2018 NASA's Curiosity Rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to snap photos of the intensifying haziness the surface of Mars, caused by a massive dust storm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwqpC77XK8U
Interesting video about the challenges of being in zero G space.
It was as you indicated an "image". An artist's rendering. It's not a series of photos. If it was a photo it wouldn't have been black in daylight because there's still plenty of ambient light around in even the worst dust storms during "daylight hours".
That was the photo of the sun time elapsed for each increase of opacity from the rover before it was turned off in hopes that it might survive.
