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Ecotricity Greenbird
''Greenbird'' is a wind-powered vehicle that broke the land speed record for sail-powered vehicles at the dry Ivanpah Lake on March 26, 2009. It was built by the British engineer Richard Jenkins. ''Greenbird'' reached a peak speed of 126.1 mph (202.9 km/h). Construction ''Greenbird'', sponsored by Ecotricity, was described as being "a very high performance sailboat". It uses a rigid vertical wing, instead of the conventional sail, to generate thrust, in the same manner that the wing of an aeroplane generates lift. The only metal in the vehicle is in the wheels and the wing bearings; the remainder is made of carbon composite materials. The vehicle weighs about six hundred kilograms. According to Jenkins, the light weight and aerodynamic shape of the vehicle allows it to attain speeds three to five times faster than the speed of the wind. ''Greenbird'' is the fifth in a series of wind-powered land vehicles that Jenkins had constructed in his efforts to break the speed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wind-powered Vehicle
Wind-powered vehicles derive their power from sails, kites or rotors and ride on wheels—which may be linked to a wind-powered rotor—or runners. Whether powered by sail, kite or rotor, these vehicles share a common trait: As the vehicle increases in speed, the advancing airfoil encounters an increasing apparent wind at an angle of attack that is increasingly smaller. At the same time, such vehicles are subject to relatively low forward resistance, compared with traditional sailing craft. As a result, such vehicles are often capable of speeds exceeding that of the wind. Rotor-powered examples have demonstrated ground speeds that exceed that of the wind, both directly ''into the wind'' and directly ''downwind'' by transferring power through a drive train between the rotor and the wheels. The wind-powered speed record is by a vehicle with a sail on it, ''Greenbird'', with a recorded top speed of . Other wind-powered conveyances include sailing vessels that travel on water, and bal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivanpah Lake
Ivanpah Lake is a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California on the border of California and Nevada. Nestled in the Ivanpah Valley near Primm on Interstate 15, the lake is almost entirely within California. At the north edge of the lake lie the Nevada Welcome Center (closed) and a California Lottery retailer. It is a popular place for land sailing and kite buggying. On March 26, 2009, the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle was set here by the Greenbird, clocked at . Environmental contamination Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water carrying radioactive waste from rare earth element mining spilled into and around Ivanpah Dry Lake.Lisa MargonelliClean Energy's Dirty Little Secret "The Atlantic", May 2009. In the 1980s, the Mountain Pass rare earth mine began piping wastewater as far as 14 miles to evaporation ponds on or near Ivanpah Dry Lake, east of Interstate 15 near Nevada. This pipeline repeatedly ruptured during cleaning oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Jenkins (engineer)
Richard Jenkins is a year old engineer from Lymington, UK. He is known for engineering and sailing wind-driven vessels on land, ice, and water. In 1999, he founded the Windjet Projecwhile studying mechanical engineering at Imperial College. Since then he has designed, built, and tested four separate speed record craft. Jenkins is currently the founder and CEO of Saildrone, a company that designs, manufacturers, and manages unmanned surface vehicles that sail the world's oceans collecting science data. In 2019, SD 1020 became the first unmanned vehicle to complete a circumnavigation of Antarctica, crossing every longitude line in the Southern Ocean. Early years Jenkins was born in England to Australian parents. He was raised in Lymington, a small village near Southampton and on his grandfather's farm in Western Australia. He became interested in sailing and engineering at a young age: he was dinghy sailing at age 10, working on the last airworthy Short Sunderland flying boat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecotricity
Ecotricity is a British energy company based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, specialising in selling green energy to consumers that it primarily generates from its 87.2 megawatt wind power portfoliothe company prefers the term windmill rather than wind turbine. It is built on the principle of heavily reinvesting its profit in building more of its own green energy generation. The company was founded in 1995 by Dale Vince, who remains in control; in 2022 he announced an intention to sell the company, which has around 200,000 domestic and business customers. Besides the supply of gas and electricity, Ecotricity's initiatives include the creation of one of Britain's first electric vehicle charging networks, which was sold to Gridserve in 2021. History Ecotricity was started by Dale Vince in 1995 as Renewable Energy Company Limited, with a single wind turbine he had used to power an old army truck in which he lived on a hill near Stroud. From that, Vince went on to build comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wingsail
A wingsail, twin-skin sail or double skin sail is a variable-camber aerodynamic structure that is fitted to a marine vessel in place of conventional sails. Wingsails are analogous to airplane wings, except that they are designed to provide lift on either side to accommodate being on either tack. Whereas wings adjust camber with flaps, wingsails adjust camber with a flexible or jointed structure (for hard wingsails). Wingsails are typically mounted on an unstayed spar—often made of carbon fiber for lightness and strength. The geometry of wingsails provides more lift, and a better lift-to-drag ratio, than traditional sails. Wingsails are more complex and expensive than conventional sails. Introduction Wingsails are of two basic constructions that create an airfoil, "soft" and "hard", both mounted on an unstayed rotating mast. Whereas hard wingsails are rigid structures that are stowed only upon removal from the boat, soft wingsails can be furled or stowed on board. L. Fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon-fiber-reinforced Polymer
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon composite, or just carbon, are extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastics that contain carbon fibers. CFRPs can be expensive to produce, but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness (rigidity) are required, such as aerospace, superstructures of ships, automotive, civil engineering, sports equipment, and an increasing number of consumer and technical applications. The binding polymer is often a thermoset resin such as epoxy, but other thermoset or thermoplastic polymers, such as polyester, vinyl ester, or nylon, are sometimes used. The properties of the final CFRP product can be affected by the type of additives introduced to the binding matrix (resin). The most common additive is silica, but other addit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sailing Faster Than The Wind
High-performance sailing is achieved with low forward surface resistance—encountered by catamarans, sailing hydrofoils, iceboats or land sailing craft—as the sailing craft obtains motive power with its sails or aerofoils at speeds that are often faster than the wind on both upwind and downwind points of sail. Faster-than-the-wind sailing means that the apparent wind angle experienced on the moving craft is always ahead of the sail. This has generated a new concept of sailing, called "apparent wind sailing", which entails a new skill set for its practitioners, including tacking on downwind points of sail. History Frank Bethwaite offers the following chronology of key advances in sailing technology that provided the essential elements of high-performance sailing: * 1900s: Moveable ballast and planing hulls were emerging. * 1960s: Flexible masts, sail-shaping controls, and knowledge of exploiting wind shifts in racing were developed. * 1970s: Powerful rigs, including wingsails, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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