I see there might be some of you out there that have an open mind concerning solar energy. If so, you might be interested in the raffle of the Tesla coming up in Illinois by the Illinois Solar Energy Association in a few months. I found it interesting that my accountant was interested in a Tesla. She is heavily invested in coal, natural gas and oil, so for her to come out in support of electric cars that can be powered by the Sun is something significant.
I'm not sure if the Tesla is metric or has metric speedometers or temperature measurements, but this might be a way to find out. I am not a $60,000 car guy, I am more of a $20,000.00 car guy (if I can get a loan) or maybe even $3,500.00 if I have to pay cash. Anyway, tickets for the raffle are $100.00 and you can get four tickets for $300.00. Just check out the Illinois Solar Energy Site at www.illinoissolar.org for details on buying raffle tickets. Years ago there was a strong metric proponent (besides me) in the Illinois Solar Energy Association, but I think Ken Woods might have died or retired by this time. Mark On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Mark Henschel <[email protected]> wrote: > Speaking of the planet Earth, there are some very quick solar energy > calculations that can be made using the fact that 10,000 km is the distance > from the North Pole to the Equator. > > Let's suppose the Solar Constant is 1 kilowatt per square meter. Thus for > every square meter of the planet Earth, we get 1,000 watts of energy. I > know it is actually a bigger number than that, but I want to make the math > simple. > > So let's look at a square kilometer. That is 1,000 meters by 1,000 meters > or 1,000,000 square meters. Thus, for every square kilometer of Earth, we > get 1,000,000,000 watts of energy from the Sun. All the time. For free. > Except at night, but that problem can be solved using pumped water storage > facilities such as are in place in Ludington, Michigan. But I digress. > > Now, if every square kilometer of the USA gets 1 billion watts of energy > from the sun whenever the Sun shines, (about five city blocks squared or in > Chicago, 25 square city blocks of area), how much does the USA get, and can > we be energy self-sufficient from solar energy alone? > > Well, suppose the USA is 4,000 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean to the > Pacific Ocean. Then 2,000 kilometers from Canada to Mexico. This gives us > 2,000 times 4,000 or 8,000,000 square kilometers,. Multiply 8,000,000 > square kilometers times 1 billion watts per square kilometer and we get, > wow, 8 followed by 15 zeros, or 8,000,000,000,000,000 watts, certainly more > energy than the USA uses in an entire year. > > Mark > > > > On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 10:09 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I reached 2 Mm upon arriving to work this morning (see photo of >> odometer). Two megameters is 5% of the circumfrence of Earth (see other >> photo). Just for fun, have a look at this survey >> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G9YG2VX and see if you can correctly >> answer quetsions 8 and 9 about riding a bike at 20 km/h (you can find other >> surveys at Metric Pioneer). >> >> ----- Message from [email protected] --------- >> Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 21:28:31 -0800 >> From: [email protected] >> Subject: Odometer >> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> >> Cc: Metric Pioneer <[email protected]> >> >> Greetings all. I installed a CatEye Velo 5 Bicycle Computer at end of >> July 2013 CE and Friday the odometer turned a thousand kilometers. I was >> inspired to take a photo, which is kind of blurry, but it reads 1000.0 on >> odometer. I peddle a little over five kilometers each way to work and back, >> so my daily commute is about the same distance (almost 11 km) from surface >> of ocean to bottom of Mariana Trench, which is currently deepest part of >> any Earth ocean. My weight was over 100 kg but since I switched from bus to >> bike and started eating less, I have brought my weight down to around 90 kg >> and hope to lose even more. I attach photo of blurry odometer reading and >> bike (that my son bought for me on Fathers Day) with Metric Pioneer bumper >> sticker proudly displayed. I would be happy to send any recipient of this >> email a free Metric Pioneer bumper sticker; just reply and let me know >> where to send it. Thanks. >> David Pearl MetricPioneer.com 503-428-4917 >> >> >> >> >> ----- End message from [email protected] ----- >> >> David Pearl www.MetricPioneer.com 503-428-4917 >> > >
