An Antarctic expedition is quite some challenge.
So what if you make it harder... being powered by solar only for a whole month?
And to build the vehicle base structure from waste material?
This couple just did that!
It isn't as crazy as it seems.
During autumn and winter it has permanent sunshine, and most of the time the sky is clear. The altitude also helps; the pack ice is miles high.
Waste plastic bottles were chipped, cleaned and molten into rods which were fed into an array of 3D printers, which made hexagonal building blocks from which they built the structure. Carbon plated it was strong and rigid enough to be practical.
While they did not reach the South Pole they basically showed it was possible with more time.
It does not stop there though. They actually showed that you don't need fuel to create drinking water, prepare food, etc; this can and probably will help other expeditions in the future.
Their decision to use bi-facial solar panels proved effective. The light that reflects off the ice contributes so much that the power the panels harvested often way exceeded what one side alone would produce in optimal conditions.
I'm blown away about what they did.
https://www.clean2antarctica.nl/en
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