Power Systems

[Hyper]

I will open a discussion on power systems we will be using.
There will be solar panels. No moving parts and easy to ship and assemble and it's more or less free power.
I also think there will be fuel cells, since the fuel for them will more or less be a byproduct of other things we are doing.
Next is some iteration of a Stirling Cycle generator using some form of Isotope decay for heat. There are various forms of this tech out there and it does have the downside of moving parts to fail so it may or may not be something we can do.
Nuke will be the big thing. I am against it but NASA has spent alot of time and effort on making it safe. A Thorium based mini reactor will probably be the way to go since the waste is less volatile than the uranium/plutonium reactors.
Unless someone can come up with a good alternative this will be our power base.
Give me your thoughts....

[Marco2001]

I'am gathering more info about the subject. I currently review all I can found about mars-base power technologies. I'll edit the post as soon as I can. 

[profit004]

Until mankind can harness fusion power safely I kinda think that covers the possibilities for power on mars.

Ultra-long term (300+ years from now) perhaps Geosynchronous Solar power platforms and microwave energy transmission... but their cost and build time with the massive array's required for collection would be impractical for anything but a fully terraformed and completely inhabited mars.   I would think geothermaly  cooled thorium reactors will probably be the pinnacle of martian power production for the next century or so for us simple humans.

side note on the sterling's: while they do have moving parts, they are fully sealed and likely will run for decades.   Same as a refrigerators compressor likely will run for many years before breaking, because it is in a sealed closed system.   *happens to fix coolers sometimes and almost all coolers fail because their freon leaks out or a fan moter dies.  Compressors... 10-20 years of life most of the time.

[Hyper]

I like the sterling and we have a easy heat exchange since it's so cold on the planet all we really need is a good heater. To convert nuke energy to electric, conversion to steam to drive generators seems to have it's mechanicals more critical since the turbines and bearings would be a issue. I kinda lean toward a bank of sterlings so if any one fails it doesn't all fail and the sterling has a good heat to power converson ratio.

[Utini]

Various pros and cons:
Solar: easy to ship, comparatively light, "free" energy, no / few moving parts (stationary vs. sun-tracking), need lots of area to collect sufficient energy
Nuclear: (focusing on pebble beds as they're probably the most reliable for the situation) high energy density, no chance of meltdown due to design, refueling easy due to design, low radioactivity (more solar irradiation walking to the reactor than holding the fuel pebble) HEAVY (shielding, fuel etc.), chance of fire if pyrolytic graphite comes into contact with water, complex machinery (mm tolerances) for conversion of heat to power
Stirling cycle engines have been discussed previously here.

Fuel cells would probably be best used as energy storage devices at the present time.  With the above information, Stirling engines would likely be the best bet for most of what this simulation seems to be trying to cover.

[Marco2001]

Wind Power will be used on Mars for 100%.
It's a perfect backup-energy plan becouse martian conditions can disable other power sources (even nuclear).
For instance: dust-storms disables PVP energy.
NASA already plans using solar-wind as the basis for energy supply on mars base - this research program is called "NASA Cold Weather Wind Turbine Program" reseached currently on polar bases.

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"Wind power and solar power may complement each other on Mars. When you have a large dust storm blocking the sunlight on Mars, a wind turbine can still generate electricity," said scientist David Bubenheim of NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

"Only during dust storms on Mars is there enough wind energy to operate a wind turbine," said Michael Flynn, another NASA Ames scientist. On Earth about 10 meters (33 feet) per second wind speed is needed to make electricity with wind turbines; on Mars about 30 meters (98 feet) is needed because of the extremely thin air, according to Bubenheim.

"What we are proposing is a hybrid wind-solar system," Flynn said. "This system would use solar cells to generate electricity during sunny periods, and a wind turbine to make electricity during dust storms."

"We've looked at wind profiles based on atmospheric computer models of Mars," Bubenheim said. A scheme of complementary wind and solar power appears to be an option, he added.
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Article here: Space Daily - Polar Wind Turbines Could Be Used On Mars  ---> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-base-01e.html

Another article: Wind Power for a Mars Mission - NASA report ---> https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mragheb/www/NPRE%20475%20Wind%20Power%20Systems/Wind%20Power%20for%20a%20Mars%20Mission.pdf

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"David Bubenheim, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., envisions a Mars space station powered by solar energy during clear weather, with wind-generated power picking up the slack during the dark months. The small wind turbines that Bubenheim and his fellow scientists are considering for such a project are currently used for NASA projects in Antarctica, where the continent's six months of darkness each winter make it impossible to rely on solar power year-round."

"To understand how wind turbines make electricity, think of a wind turbine as rather like a fan, only backward. Instead of using electricity to make wind as a fan does, the turbines use wind to make electricity. The wind turns the blades, which spin a shaft, which connects to a generator that produces electricity. Utility-scale turbines vary in size; they're capable of generating from 50 kilowatts to more than 2 megawatts. The turbines being looked at for the Mars project generate about 100 kW, depending on the location and the thickness of the air. At an Alaska test site, the turbine clocked a maximum of 120 kW in a 36-mph wind. At a test site in Colorado, where air is denser, it averaged closer to the expected 100 kW, said an Alaskan utility company engineer."

"Turbines can generate big returns mainly because they can be easily located in remote regions of the globe—and, of course, potentially on Mars—where access to electricity is limited or non-existent, and where even small amounts of electricity can significantly improve the quality of life, the DOE says."
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Mechanical engineering power (2003) - "Mars Needs Turbines - Scientists look at powering a Mars space station with on-site wind."
Full article here: ---> http://www.memagazine.org/supparch/mepower03/marsneeds/marsneeds.html

Here's NASA article about Wind Generators ---> http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20020087640_2002143301.pdf
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I don't know how exactly that wind turbine on Mars would look like but on the articles I listed scientists say "the turbines tested are basicly the ones that could be send to Mars".
Here are some possible looks:
 
http://landscapearchiteck.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/mariah-power-windspire-wind-turbine-2.jpg?w=600&h=518

http://inlinethumb60.webshots.com/41915/2138042150104181437S600x600Q85.jpg

http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/-01m/287.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/149600main_1987_05991.jpg

http://www.spacedaily.com/images/polar-windmill-bg.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wOts_TNJPz8/SI1i0JTd3tI/AAAAAAAAABg/MTlFUQP-OKU/s320/loop+wing+wind_turbine.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wOts_TNJPz8/SI1VZol3PAI/AAAAAAAAABQ/Kj-YRZp6FO8/s320/wind_turbines_Darrieus_windmill.jpg


This one I find interesting ---> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wOts_TNJPz8/SI1pu7k-sGI/AAAAAAAAACQ/9rGbdIZLarU/s1600/mars-wind-turbine.jpg
It's basically a baloon that's easy to transport and generates much energy. http://www.magenn.com/images/marsIsTheFuture.jpg
Read about it here ---> http://www.magenn.com/

[profit004]

Martian atmosphere is so scant wind turbines will have real problems there.  I know they are looking into them, and the 250km/hour winds during some storms might make them possible but once again they have to be exceedingly massive to produce measurable amounts of power.  With a blade surface area roughly 80 times what a wind turbine on earth would need its not simple.   They seemed to forget that part when they were painting their picture that they only needed triple the wind speed not that they would need a massive engineering marvel to capture it.

  The Balloon turbines didn't work well on earth..   They have bad tenancies of folding and keeping them rigid is just barely possible on earth with exotic and expensive materials for weight savings... and they still have only been able to make tiny prototypes that didn't break immediately.  On mars with it's scant atmosphere they would never be able to get off the ground because the buoyancy is so tiny.    They had to specially design balloons just to carry a little air sampler they are sending to mars with them.   Maybe some year those types of floatable wind turbines will be able to produce enough power to you know do something on earth and they are a good idea... but probably not ever on mars.

Maybe after 2k years of terraforming mars might have the atmosphere to support these things.. or if we can make a windmill blade 40 stories high and 35-90 feet wide weighing less than a ton....

*on the assumption mars is even terraformable. I am unsure but I am concerned there is not enough gravity to prevent atmosphere from reaching escape velocity.   also radiation will always be a problem even with a thick atmosphere, because of Mar's lack of a protective strong magnetic layer.

[profit004]

And just something on the weight issue...

The smallest windmill they could get away with would be about 45,000 lbs Plus another 10,000 for pilings unless they could make them from martian materials *Without electricity =p* for about 60KW electrical.

* this assumes MASSIVE improvements in weight saving materials as the surface area needed of the blades and such was not taken into account with this. this is an earth turbine.

The smallest U-233 Reactor producing 60kw thermal power would be about 140lbs.  (most energy on mars will need to be thermal to keep habitats warm and plants growing.)

Cost to ship windmill at 10,000$US approximately per pound is... 550 Million dollars per windmill.

Cost to ship a reactor... About 1.4 million or 1400K dollars.

Cost to ship 100 reactors for 100 colonies... less than the cost of shipping a single windmill.

Cost to ship 200 reactors so every one of those 100 colonies can have a backup... Less than the cost of shipping a single windmill...

Cost to ship 300 reactors so every one of those 100 colonies can have a backup of their backup.. LEss than the cost of shipping a windmill..

Cost to ship 900 reactors so every one of those 100 colonies can have a backup of their backup of their backup of their backup and have 3 on a truck in case they want to start another colony with backups of backups... Less than the cost of 3 windmills.

Sources:

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/766566-ITPxxo/webviewable/766566.pdf

http://www.memagazine.org/supparch/mepower03/marsneeds/marsneeds.html

*edit calculator failed me!

[Hyper]

Have to agree on the windmills, I looked at those same articles and the only upside is the dust storms will cause the atmo to be dense enough to spin them. One of the primary reasons I took them out of the game. I think the weight could be mitigated with the air foil type of spinner rather than the blades but still I would rather take something more power per pound per dollar shipping.
It looks like the thorium unit from Toshiba may be heading in the right direction for compact safe use.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Toshiba's_Home_Nuclear_Fusion_Reactor

NASA has great interest in small safe units.

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/FissionSurfacePowerSystem.pdf

[profit004]

10 megawatts should cover it =)

* edit:  I like the NASA units, they actually look like they could do what they are designed for.  

Edit: on further thought I REALLY like the NASA designs, they have no readily apparent flaws... something that is a rarity for NASA anymore.  And even a couple ingenious things.

I an getting my further reading from the bottom of this article if anyone wants to read a little more.

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/TECB/fsp.htm

[Marco2001]

Tho' I don't exactly agree with you profit004 I understand your arguments becouse they'r logic. I think that in the future such obstacles like windmill sizes and efficiency will be dealth with. Since NASA conducts test on them for future Mars colonization it's safe to say that despite the obstacles you mentioned, some peeple still hopes to use wind as a good-emergency power suply. I would like to emphasis "EMERGENCY". In the worst-case scenario, the martian base is inside 6-month Mega Dust-Storm. In these 6 month they'r only source of energy would be the Nuclear Reactor(s), which MAY be broken (by a solar flare for instance) and repairing it may be impossible (or take many days). Without the energy from the reactor and PVPannels, the base would be without the energy to survive. Therefore as a precousion it would be wise to have a SMALL windmill (not as big as you mentioned) that would only generate enough energy to power Minimal Life Support so that in the meantime the astronauts can repair the reactor or wait for the storm to calm down. Windmill energy is immune to any form of Radiation/Dust storm becouse of it simplified construction, and even tho' it can only be used during Dust Storms, it's the only time we would actually like to use them. If enything goes OK the base would relly on standars power sources. The windmill could be about 5 times bigger that the one from the demo - it would only give enough energy to activate the HUB computer and keep one module warm with fresh air. It could start to give energy only when the wind speed is beyond certain point.
But I admit that using only reactors is temptiong becouse of the price. For the sake of the discussion I admit that using Thorium reactors would be better.


Other thing - we should reely consider using Nuclear Reactors not only for producing Electrical energy, but also Heat for the base.
It would mean that the reactor is connected with electrical cables to the base for energy, and water pipes that transport hot watter that would keep the base warm.
The reactor creates lots of additional heat that could be consumed instead of wasted. Using the reactor to only produce energy that would be send to base to produce heat from it is a huge waste of power. Even today the some heating plants are being replaced by the heat merely from the nuclear plants. It's safe, It's cheaper, It's economical - It's better.

*IDEA* Heat exchanger is the part that receives the heat given to the base by the reactor, and redistibutes it. If the heat exchanger would broke, you would only be able to heat the base using electrical power. Player would need to repair it to save power.

Yet another thing - reactor's placement. I think that the reactor should be a special module (like ERV from the demo), that would be about 100 m away from the base.
The reactor module would be descend from the orbit separately from the base.
Player would be able to enter the interior of the reactor, and even find shelter there.
It could look like this (the purple sphere on the bottom):




One last thing - what actions would be permited at the reactor? Would it simply be a static item that "magicly" makes power for the base? or maybe you can set some of it's parameters for better/worse function? Could it broke? If so would you be able to repair it? Would you need to maintain it just like PVPannels? or is it self-sufficient?

[profit004]

Yeah a smaller emergency wind turbine is not beyond imagination.. but I would like to point out *I think* they are far more vulnerable to something like a solar flare than a reactor.    Reactors already have shielding and grounding for most designs I have seen from NASA(because they are designed to be buried), and they have redundancy in banks of small stirlings and linear alternators so a single failure could be easily isolated. They would also be electromagnetically shielded by the radiators if they were to use them above them.

I am a little concerned with the windmills that their being on a long pole with massive exposed wires acting as antenna's would be highly susceptible to EM interference and possibly electrostatic discharge.  Perhaps even susceptible to massive ESD from buildup on the blades unless they were coated with a grounded layer of aluminum or something because the martian atmosphere has nearly no water to help prevent static they would be like giant Van de Graaff generators.  I have not thought the physics entirely through but I think as an emergency power source they would likely be one of the first things to be destroyed in any of those situations.

* any wires exposed on mars will get EM interference and would have to be buried or shielded with metal.

You are right about the problem though is from a game standpoint.. In real life a reactor will likely be a magic box that produces power year in and year out with basically no maintenance as they have done on the voyager probe for the past 32 years(RTG's but still).. It does kinda lack in the fun department...

[profit004]

* from a personal artistic standpoint I have to say a 40 story tall windmill with shimmering Mylar blades that looked like some form of futuristic pinwheel spinning like crazy above my head would be cool. (Thinner atmosphere on mars means they would likely operate at a higher RPM than earthbound ones.)

[Kumado]

If wind generation where to work, it would probably have to be more like the low wind speed designs,

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Gual_Industrie_StatoEolien_Vertical-Axis_Wind_Turbine

This is not the image / site I want, I will have to look more for it. I made a model from it. they used 4" PVC cut in half for the inside cups and a stationary set of 4" PVC cut in 1/4's as directional blades, increased the speed of collection by approx 3 times.
The PVC was mounted between 26" bicycle wheels for the demo.

Another power source that shows promise for low power apps is thermal couples. In an isolated panel the sun's radiation on one side with exposer to the atmo on the other. Thermal couples also can be lined around a reactor core to convert heat into power.
The Amish have a really neat fan that runs off the heat of the stove:

http://a1stoves.com/ecofan-for-gas-stoves-p-508.html

Also, a store dedicated one front window for a thermal heater. They boxed in the window, insulated it, painted the sunny side black. They used a small muffin fan powered by a solar cell panel to start air circulating, convection took over later but they heated a remote office with this method. If there is no sunlight, the fan does not push air. Again not the site I saw before, guess I need to book mark more.

http://www.arenergysys.com/solar_air_heating.htm

Another power storage device is a flywheel. I was working on a model of this with a friend and found China is already using them,. You spin a flywheel ( or many of them ) up with whatever you have to generate power, wing, solar, water ( pedaling a bike etc, and then those flywheels in-turn drive alternators when there is a demand for power. The base / bulk material for the weight can be gleamed from Mar's surface. If you use filed coils instead of permanent magnets, the only drag on the system is the bearings, hydraulic bearing systems are very good here.   

http://www.dg.history.vt.edu/ch2/storage.html

[profit004]

I think we have covered all those things to death in another thread.. Except storage..

As for flywheels... I just do not see enough high precision equipment to make a perfectly balanced to the gram 20 metric ton flywheel on mars.

 However.. your links did remind me of one thing which MIGHT work.  There could be a superconductive ring battery flown as part of the hab module.  the high flux would be dangerous if any metal were to be inside the module, but crew members could probably use it for shielding from radiation on the journey to mars.  when it gets to mars it might make a pretty darn good battery if it separated from the hab and dropped a ways away.   Could use a reverse Stirling cycle to keep it cool at cryogenic temperatures and being as mars has basically freezing cold temperatures anyhow it might be decent.

http://www.stirlingcryogenics.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMES
a small Superconductive bat might be able to store a couple hundred KW of energy. Enough to last a couple nights or so.