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North Korea's solar-powered bus / Yonhap
Posted on 11/08/2015 6:27:41 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Posted : 2015-11-02 16:29
Updated : 2015-11-02 20:33
NK tries out solar-powered bus
North Korea's solar-powered bus / Yonhap
By Kim Hyo-jin
North Korea is operating a solar-powered bus in the western city of Nampo, the North's state media said Monday.
"Nampo created a bus powered by solar energy and it is now being used for public transport," the state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV) said, quoting a member of the city's science and technology committee, Jeong In-sung.
According to Jeong, the bus uses 32 100-watt solar panels, 50 batteries and a direct-current motor.
"It has run 800 kilometers so far, and was able to a carry maximum 140 passengers at 40 kilometers per hour," KCTV quoted Jeong as saying.
North Korea has been encouraging people to use renewable energy in a bid to meet electricity demand.
In recent months, more households have been installing solar panels on their balconies or in their windows, reports say.
According to reports, state propaganda released by the ruling Workers' Party in February reads, "Develop and make effective use of wind, tidal, geothermal and solar energy."
The reclusive country has long suffered from a chronic electricity shortage.
P!
3200 watts is only 4hp; presumably the motor is a lot more powerful than that so the thing will spend more time charging its batteries in the sun than it does actually moving.
I thought Kim jung-un could stand next to this and the batteries would be instantly charged. NorK media says this. The Kims are sacred to all doncha know.
and it still runs on Diesel
Their population is in desperate need of food and energy, yet this feckless dictator wants to tout one solar bus. God help them, as the Chinese won’t. If the Chinese and South Koreans were really interested in the lives of North Korean people, they would call for the ouster of this pathetic childish dictator, and the reunification of Korea. How many more lives must be lost before truth and justice prevail?
Why? So North Koreans can be even more miserable than they already are?
You can see the ground under the seats- Flintstone powered.
Those panels wouldn’t power two of my wife’s hair driers and they want me to believe it carried 140 people as well as the weight of the bus at 40 k/pH?... yeah, sure...
About 4.3 horsepower. If you can get it to charge up all day long, (say 12 hours) you will have 38.4 kilowatthours, which works out to be about 50 horsepower for one hour.
Hardly enough to run a bus under even the most minimal conditions. I dare say someone is charging those batteries from the grid, but they aren't talking about it.
Just more crapulence from North Korea.
Isn’t North Korea prone to not having sunny days?
South Korea is just trying to avoid being nuked.
So far have gone 30 miles, might be tougher uphill push harder.
It doesn’t require much power, since the passengers are all starvation skeletons, are all unemployed, and none of them really have anywhere to go.
That’s 3200 watt/hours under ideal solar conditions.
My LEAF takes about 8 hours to charge at that rate, a car that can more 4 passengers and cargo about 80 miles under normal driving.
Straining math, capacity, and credulity, we could suppose that bus somehow requires 10x those power requirements to haul 140 passengers under flat straight and slow conditions.
That’s at least 10 days of charging, assuming ideal weather and panel orientation... And I notice those panels don’t look like they can be moved at all.
My experience with solar is that actual performance is much worse than advertised, so I expect that bus will need to sit in the sun for a full month to charge enough for just a few hours of operation.
What do you suppose the payoff time is on those panels? 30 years?
And that’s peak power. They’d be lucky to get half of that on a regular basis.
more = hold
Dang autocorrect.
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