I'm a bit of a fan of Sci-Fi movies. Last night I watched Pitch Black with Vin Diesel. The film is a nice Sci-Fi in and of itself but it included a bit of engineering that I found quite fascinating. The shelter the characters used as well as the electric vehicle operated from electricity created by a Crookes radiometer.
Everyone has seen these little light bulb sized trinkets. They have 4 diamond shaped vanes inside a glass dome that holds a vacuum. One side of the vanes is painted white. The other side painted black and when light strikes the vanes they rotate on a spindle.
We don't get to see the guts of the system, only the Crookes radiometers, but one could assume that the spindle extends through a generator so light, only light, would be rotating a generator to make electricity.
It's really quite simple and pretty smart on the writer's part, I think, to consider that. I've never seen that type of application. Has anyone else?
I'm curious because I would think it would be quite inexpensive and very economical. The only problem I can think of is to have a spindle with a low enough friction coefficient to be able to turn the generator windings. The output could be much higher than photovoltaic cells and much cheaper. You could use an old alternator, for example, as your generator.
Thoughts?
Bookmarks