Ground Cooling System

Electric Race Car Seeks New Pikes Peak Record

In recent years the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a long-running race near Colorado Springs, has become a high-profile marketing opportunity for car and motorcycle manufacturers who tout their results in advertising campaigns.

It is also a proving ground for emerging technology including electric power. Today electric drive-train designer and manufacturer AC Propulsion said one of its drive systems will power the current electric-vehicle record holder in this year’s hill climb to be held this Sunday.

Last year an EV racer, also powered by AC Propulsion and sponsored by Yokohama won the competition’s Exhibition Class and set a new EV record of 13:17:575.

For this year’s race, the company improved the cooling system of its 200-kW drive system. As a result the company expects it to help get the racer to the top of the climb even faster this year – perhaps in the 12-minute range. The vehicle is a rear-wheel drive, open-wheel race car driven by Japan’s Ikuo Hanawa. It will use Yokohama BluEarth tires, which are designed to conserve fuel. Power will come from Sanyo Electric Co. lithium-ion batteries.

Similar to the AC Propulsion AC-150 motor found in the BMW MINI E, the Pikes Peak AC-180 motor produces 268 horsepower (200kW) at 6000-7000 rpm and 258 lb.-ft of torque from zero to 5000 rpm.

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb  is in its 89 year and has long been known as the Race to the Clouds. The 12.-4 mile course begins at an altitude of 2,862 meters and rises to 4,301 meters at the finish line. The race is known for difficult conditions including thin air, rapidly changing temperatures and a variety of paved and unpaved roads.

Top competitors in the Unlimited Class have been trying for years to complete the course in less than 10 minutes. The current record is 10 minutes one second.

Driver’s Seat is a blog featuring news, views, and advice about cars, auto safety, driving, and transportation. Driver’s Seat is written by Jonathan Welsh with contributions from auto critic Dan Neil, Wall Street Journal staffers and others.

Jonathan Welsh joined The Wall Street Journal in 1994 on the spot news desk. He began writing auto reviews and features for the Weekend Journal section in 1999 and joined the Personal Journal staff in 2006.

Passive Ground Source-Based Cooling - Premier Indoor Comfort Systems

Although there are plenty of active ways to cool your home, sometimes a passive system makes the most sense. If you think about it, you know that the ground in the summer is cooler than the air. And the deeper you go, the cooler it gets. So wouldn’t it be great if you could harness that coolness in some way and use it to cool the air in your home?

How Passive Ground Source-Based Cooling Works

Well, the truth is that you can. That’s exactly what ground source-based cooling systems do. While similar to geothermal heat pumps in some basic ways, ground-source based cooling systems use much less energy to achieve their results. Instead of using coolant and a compressor to transfer heat from your home to the ground, passive ground-source based systems simply carry cold water from the ground to your home where it can then cool the air.

Traditional systems are more complicated in many ways. Air conditioners use coolant and electricity and even geothermal heat pumps use a condenser to transfer air into and out of your home. With a  passive ground source cooling system, the amount of energy put into the cooling of your home is reduced to practically nothing – there are  few systems that offer these results without costing you a lot in monthly bills.

System Requirements

Of course, if you want to put a system like this in place in your home, you need access to a naturally cooled supply of water. Unless you live near a large pond, lake or other ground level water source, this involves digging down to access the groundwater below your home. Depending on how far down you have to go to reach an acceptable water supply, installing this type of system can cost you quite a bit.

But if you do have easy access to naturally cold water, a ground source-based passive cooling system is an excellent option. And even if you have to spend a bit more on installation by drilling or digging, you’ll more than make up for that cost through what you’ll save in monthly energy bills. Air conditioners are great but they suck power, and if you can find a way to cool your home without one, you’ll be much better off in the long run.

Permafrost, Second International Conference, July 13-28, 1973 : USSR contribution

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