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matrix solar dish by sunflower nonprofit

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Jeff Harti

Jun 24, 2014
07:14

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@sunflower, thank you for the proposal. If you could provide some additional details it would be appreciated in terms of evaluating your proposal.

Doug Wood

Jun 24, 2014
08:42

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What would you like to know? It is very simple. Simplicity requires time and energy. Complexity is entropy. The fundamentals: A dish is the most efficient type collector for radiant energy ~ glass mirror 96%, painted black boiler 95%. One m^2 costs $100. 30 to 50 year lifetime. 2-4% of capital cost O&M. One m^2 sunlight in Colorado climate delivers more energy than burning one barrel of oil per year. Developing-country primary market is food processing. Developed-country primary market is district heating with seasonal heat storage (90% efficient). Whole cities 100% supplied 24/365 with heat, hot water, and cooling. Cogenerated power would be like skimming the creme off the top of a total energy system. (Stand alone electric power generation is a waste of energy.) Climate requires massive parallel local production of open source technologies -- bottom-up not top-down.

Doug Wood

Jun 27, 2014
05:25

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I should add -- Clean energy at light-speed global scale must be derived from existing high-volume commodities, existing tooling, existing labor skills, existing technology. The goal is 100% global mitigation of fossil carbon emissions.

Mark Johnson

Jun 27, 2014
07:44

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Some interesting facts - free energy subscription: http://www.wcpsolar.com/solar-talk/41-oil-vs-solar http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/US-Energy-Department-Claims-the-Cost-of-Solar-Power-will-Fall-75-by-2020.html

Doug Wood

Jun 27, 2014
07:52

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Oil is the gold standard though I would not recommend its use in a grocery store. Energy economic comparisons are very sensitive to discount rates. What are fair interest rates for energy capital costs? And what currency? India spends local soft currency for solar and hard currency (like US dollars) for imported oil and methane gas. Massive new factories in places like India use oil for industrial process heat. Exergy, a term used in Europe, looks at cascading value of energy quality, something like entropy + economics. It makes more sense to use solar for cooking soup and save methane gas for super high temperature applications in the near term. Long term all energy must be free of carbon emissions. Saving just 80% of BAU through efficiency allows the emitters of 20% to eventually mine all fossil reserves and kill the planet.

Climate Colab

Aug 13, 2014
04:19

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