Homemade Concentrated Solar Power

Yes, but it all focuses on the amount of money you can pour in to start with!

Glad to hear that! Why don't you buy a big sun facing field, fill it with solar panels and get somebody to put the wiring and hardware in for you if money is no object!

Very helpful.

Sorry ronwagn, my reply was directed at the rather lame response by the guest! I'm looking into solar power for my home as well! Joe gave a good post a bit further down, but you've already replied to that!

I am happy for you, me either.

Gee thanks.

If money is no object to you, go to www.ausra.com for information on their solar concentrator system. They are in process of putting in a very large scale system for PG&E in California (our largest public utility). The caveat is, it also takes a LOT of land space in a sunny part of the world.

Great examples. I think I missed this when you posted it. See solarfireproject.com also. For using recycled materials. Low-high tech.

Home made concentrated solar power is now possible

Tell us more!

We're missing the question?

Joe: Please see solarfireproject.com for instructions on building your own system, if you are interested. It shows a low capital way of building concentrated solar systems of various scales. They could be linked to any size. This is not photovoltaic, but might be focused on photo cells. Usually steam turbines are run off the hot water, creating electricity.

Replacing the petrol generator with a steam powered generator would be more environmentally sound as forced-draft external combustion produces less pollution than an internal combustion engine. Also you need not use expensive petrol as fuel. It could burn low grade furnace oil, vegetable oil, or wood pellets or coal pellets with a mechanical feeder. A solar boiler could also produce steam for the engine, to reduce fuel use during daytime loads or just to provide more power. Using a water-tube boiler is very safe. A fueled boiler about 24 inches in diameter and 15 in high is big enough to power a 4.000 lb car at 85 mph and I doubt you need that much power. I have no research for a curved rectangular solar reflector heating a long helically spiraled tube, but that should also be easy to make.

Joe, if I were you, I'd put a wind pump on your 'pozo'. A slow-turning, high torque, high-solidity type like they used to use in the 'wild west'. They are still made and used with great success in various parts of the world.

Yes it could, as an example you could manage to produce hydrogen with the sun. The heat of the sun (3000°C with mirrors and lenses) is used to dissociate the H20 molecule at 2400°C. The pure hydrogen produced on demand goes to a fuel cell which produces electricity that you consume or sell to the grid. Best regards, Selles

Wow!

Is there any commercially viable device currently available for doing this?

It would be amazing to be able to do this here at the tip of southern Spain and run my car on it!

Joe

You need to wait another year and half to see the firt reactor which will dissociate water at 2400°C to produce pure hydrogen on demand to feed a fuel cell. Details are available upon request. Fundraising of Eur 3 mi has started. 1/3 is covered already and R&D has started on needed membranes

If there was a viable energy and cost efficient solar system I think it would be in wide use. The main problem is space - and ecologists- who just because you want to save energy may not be in favor of your plans.

Feel free to investigate www.sharpusa.com they have a solar calculator that presents a pretty fair estimate of current technology return on investment.

For USA residents please visit www.jointhesolution.com/nlvsolar this is a place where you can become part of a new business venture that plans to bring solar power to the public in a cost effective way.

Show me any large-scale source of energy and there will be organised environmentalist opposition to it. Show me any way for an individual to be energy independent and the government will oppose it because it would reduce their control, tax revenues and political contributions. If a government does push for a greener system, be sure that Big Business and Big Government will control it and get their money from it.

Does the focus of a beam of light as with a magnifying lens increase the obtainable usable/storable electric energy?

Regarding optically splitting water into hydrogen and Oxygen. I don't know, but it can supposedly be done in a microwave of saline solution. I am very curious if a large Fresnel lens could come close. You can melt metal with one. There are youtube.com videos on it. Large Fresnel lenses are available online. They are dangerous to mess around with. You can burn a hole in your foot, and be careful or you'll burn your eyes out. You really need a welders mask to mess with large Fresnel lenses. I was thinking about directing a parabolic lens at the Fresnel lens first, but it might destroy the Fresnel lens. Worth a try though. The largest are about 4'x4' for about $60.00. I would try the saline soln.

All true, but what are you going to do when the sun doesn't shine? Nights and cloudy days are when you need electricity for lighting. Sure you can have banks of batteries and use power converters, but that can be very expensive and still be unreliable. A long rectangular solar reflector can heat water in a helical tube into steam to run a steam engine to power a generator. The same steam engine can also be powered by a small fuel-fired boiler for times when there isn't sunlight. The excess heat can be used to heat the house or a hot water supply. Perhaps thermoelectrics could make it even more efficient.

The external combustion in a forced-draft boiler will produce less pollution than using an internal combustion generator using petrol or diesel fuel. Such an installation could make you totally independent of the utilities. Since politicians and governments depend on the utilities for revenues and contributions your main obstacle will be the government. Especially the restrictive laws concerning boilers.

Unless you are rural and keep a low profile, you may not be allowed to be energy independent. Producing excess power for sale to the utilities would require you to spend enough money to become a small utility. Some will buy your excess power and some want all the power you produce or none of it so they can sell you their power. It is something to check out first.

Yes indeed... Definetly, we can make an awesome use of all these tech out there and customized even a good system that work to your needs. Solar is great way to go and also wind turbines as backing up as well. Then you'll be on an energy back-up situation which it should help the enviroment and the pocket down the road as well. Lots of improvements in it's way on that arena by the way. I was recently checking all of this out at the "World Business Council for Sustainable Development" WebPage and this people seing in a very nice mission to help out move these 'Energy and Enviromental Matters' to the next level. Very good stuff to follow. Check it out at www.wbcsd.org big deal in agendas. Stay tunned... Deal or No Deal ?

We getting there...

MC

Thanks for the website. Sustainable development, appropriate technology etc. sounds boring, but is extremely important. I am especially interested in tech that can be adapted for individuals, families, and small groups. Don't forget to check out solarfireproject.com , it is aimed at helping poor rural people, but could be used by anyone.

I have video of making a new device at http://solarcooking.org/ (in recent news just below the arnold item). The idea I had in mind was a tracking solar accumulating barbecue. But I only got to tracking solar accumulating so far. I had to make a low tech tracker for it and it is at http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Tracking along with another of my tracker designs. The second design can be high tech enough to work big instalations of solar panels if people could only stop obsessing with tracking the sun! Current favorites in the marketing departments are photocells for searching for the sun. So on a cloudy day, the instalation freaks out. I believe that time based solar trackers are sufficent. You set up your equatorial mount, stick your solar panel on it and set it to rotate at 15 degrees per hour and thats it! You can tweak the panel once a week but that's it. People have been building clocks for hundreds of years so it should be possible to do this time based tracking everywhere and cheap too. 25% extra production from a panel with this setup is the low end of the estimates! If you got 25% extra interest at the bank if you invested an extra 5% more capital, would you do it? But people say, "nah, i will just keep adding panels" Easy if you have a moneywell in your backyard but most people do not have a moneywell. I honestly think that a minor effort on the part of CR4 forum members can make the backyard solar accumulating barbecue a reality by the end of the year. The bulk of the work is done. You just have to tweak things now! Brian

Waoouuhh.. Really you guys have the technology then and is nice to now all of this stuff which are very promising I agree. We'll getting there down the road I'll bet..

Nice Buddys,

MC