It would appear that they have been running trials in an Ontario vineyard over the Northern Winter.
Follow the links for updated information and new pictures.
http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/technology/rtn09_tmpwv/index.html
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/06/25/raytheon-turns-swords-into-plowshares/
http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=news&content=73695
2 comments:
Thanks for bringing this news to our attention ... what an awesome way to fight frost ... but me thinks the early birds should wait for the sun to be well and truly up and beaming, before looking for worms.
Your second link is a scream ... their by-line is "Firearms not politics". Read some of the reader's comments ... there are some wags out there.
The picture of the 3 microwave towers in the Ontario vineyard doesn't look like a very big test site. The towers are 25' tall, so the distance between the towers looks about 60'. That makes an area of about 200 sq.m inside the perimeter of the towers .... and I suspect not all that area gets nuked ... maybe only 3/4 of it. So it's a piddly test area really. This would equate to about 1/50 to 1/70 th of a hectare. And I would imagine you would need about 6 kW of power to run these 3 microwave emitters. That makes 6 kW times 50 which equals 300 kW of power per hectare. Man, that's a lot of power ... you won't get that from the mains power line at the end of the road. So you will need a diesel genset ... a BIG diesel genset ... like 3,000 kW for every 10 hectares ... that's a 4,000 hp engine at 100% efficiency ... so maybe closer to 4,500 hp would be more realistic. And that's just for 10 ha, which is a little more than one frost fan can cover.
So the claims of this system being silent are a bit misleading ... the monstrous diesel gensets will put paid to that ... let alone the huge cost of diesel to run the microwave system.
Thanks for the comment.
The firearms link is a hoot! Hence the "Painless frost protection" dig.
I concur totally, the power requirements are not in-significant. Probably more than the electrical heater wire trialled here http://frostfans.blogspot.com/2009/11/that-man-deserves-methodes.html .
Having said that acoustically insulating a generator is always easier than a frost fan. I would be inclined to support the effort in its development phase and reserve judgement till a practical system is announced. Ultimately their heart is in the right place. (if not slightly warmed up)
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