Out of curiosity I looked up the diesel fuel consumption of Combines. It ranges from 1-1.6 gallons per acre. Which roughly would translate to 12-20 kWh of electricity per acre. So for a 100 Acre field you'd need 15 to 25 tesla battery packs. Yikes.
On the other hand you'd need a 1200 ft long cord for a 100Acre round field presuming the center pivot is used. I bet those combines are already very efficient, running at a constant load most of the time. There are some applications where using liquid dino fuels just makes a ton of sense, large scale farming is probably one of them. On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 1:49 AM, Martin WINLOW <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear List, > > I was having a chat recently at work (which is nothing whatsoever to do > with EVs!) about how vehicles that traditionally use lots of energy would > ever be able to switch to electric power due to limitations on energy > density. Fuel cell tractors came up amongst other things and then one of > my colleagues who, on learning of the enormous amounts of power required by > combine harvesters and plough-pulling tractors, jokingly suggested using 'a > very long extension lead'. Whilst he is an ill-informed bumpkin, the > thought did occur that in an agricultural context powering machines > directly from the grid might not be so daft. I immediately thought of > those enormous irrigation contraptions that work their way up and down huge > fields, laying and unlaying the hose that supplies the irrigation water as > it goes. Could not the same technique be applied to tractors etc? Each > field would have a connection point with power brought in either above or > below ground in the 'usual' way. > > An alternative idea would be to have mobile battery swap facilities > connected to the grid in each field and be moved from field to field as the > work progressed. > > Just a thought! > > MW > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -- www.electric-lemon.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20140221/b05e4218/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
