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Posted on 06/19/2008 10:58:18 PM PDT by neverdem
A new type of solar energy collector concentrates the sun into a beam that could melt steel. Researchers say the device could revolutionize global energy production.
The prototype is a 12-foot-wide mirrored dish was made from a lightweight frame of thin, inexpensive aluminum tubing and strips of mirror. It concentrates sunlight by a factor of 1,000 to produce steam.
"This is actually the most efficient solar collector in existence," said Doug Wood, an inventor based in Washington state who patented key parts of the dish's design - the rights to which he has signed over to a team of students at MIT.
To test the prototype this week, MIT mechanical engineering Spencer Ahrens put a plank of wood in the beam an generated an almost instant puff of smoke.
The thing does more than burn wood, of course. At the end of a 12-foot aluminum tube rising from the center of the dish is a black-painted coil of tubing that has water running through it. When the dish is pointing directly at the sun, the water in the coil flashes immediately into steam.
Ahrens and his teammates have started a company, RawSolar, to hopefully mass produce the dishes. They could be set up in huge arrays to provide steam for industrial processing, or for heating or cooling buildings, as well as to hook up to steam turbines and generate electricity, according to an MIT statement. Once in mass production, such arrays should pay for themselves within two years or so with the energy they produce, the students figure.
Wood, the inventor, said the students built the dish and improved on his design.
"They really have simplified this and made it user-friendly, so anybody can build it," he said.
Wood said small dishes work best because it requires much less support...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Why this is simply amazing, using a mirrored dish to collect sunlight! The whole energy industry in the U.S. will be in turmoil. Just astounding, isn’t it?
Oooooooooo thats hot.
I guess I don’t see how this is any better than all the other parabolic mirrors used for this before now.
Didn’t James Bond encounter one of these in ‘The Man With the Golden Gun’?
For the Renewable Energy Ping List.
This kind of technology represents the bar that other technologies need to beat in order to go into production. It’s almost like putting money into the bank and getting 5%. If you can’t beat the board, it’s time to fold.
I’ve had a concept in my mind about this type of collector.
What I had thought was that you could use reflective mylar and probably come up with something nearly as efficient, without having to use actuall mirror.
Can I burn ants with it? :-P
Miniature versions as a means of cooking while camping have been around for years.
It will come in handy if you are attacked by Them.
What am I missing here?
As for the commercial applications, that is also nothing new. There are two ways of using solar energy ....one is the typical solar cell, but that is not as efficient due to cost of producing the cells (although in the future that cost may go down). The second approach is the one depicted in the article, where you have mirrors that focus solar energy into a network of pipes that carry water, and that water turns into steam which is used to power turbines. Very cost effective and quite capable.
The only 'issue' is that it is ALREADY in use. There are entire farms that use that approach for steam generation in Europe, and even a couple in Africa. It is cost effective, maintenance free, and can be easily scaled up. The only metric required is to simply ensure that the sun focuses on the pipes running above the mirrors, and that the mirrors have some sort of simple motor that makes the mirrors turn as they track the path of the sun across the sky.
So, my question remains .....what is so amazing about this 12-foot mirror that warrants the hue and cry?
Goodness, even an episode of 'Myth Busters' (an interesting tv show on the Discovery Channel) had an entire hour devoted to the show hosts and other teams (including one from MIT, two ladies, and a very eccentric but bright man) come up with parabolic mirrors that had different tests given to them. One test was setting a replica of an ancient sailing ship on fire.
Why an ancient ship? To try and see if the ancient super-weapon called 'greek fire' that was allegedly invented by Archimedes was some sort of large parabolic mirror (maybe of polished metal).
Anyways, maybe someone can explain what the 'wow factor' is in this 12-foot mirror. Because this weekend i could make one that was 1-foot wider than this 12-footer, and maybe get some award if they are handing out prizes for rehashing ideas that are not only quite old, but are already in commercial use in other places.
Maybe i should try and 're-invent' the transistor radio.
Wow, they’re only about 2,300 years behind Archimedes, who first used parabolic mirrors to focus the sun’s rays.
Imagine how many ants you could burn with that thing...
I still think the guy that wanted us to put solar collectors on the moon to beam energy back to the world had the right idea for that. Unfortunately the left doesn’t actually want solutions since they would do away with all the taxes they want to heap on us at the pump.
The ASME killed this idea back in the 70s by declaring it pressure vessel and requireing that each one be tested and certified by insurance companies. That drove the cost way out of site.
Well, first you form a company called "RawSolar", capitalized with $10,000. You issue 100,000,000 shares of the company stock for yourself and your buddies. Then you list on a Canadian penny stock exchange.
Then you get an MIT grad to issue a bogus press release and get that picked up on a popular interactive web site (or better yet, post it yourself ).
Someone somewhere might want to start some action for a few pesos and buy 10,000 shares at 1 cent. Then you claim a 1000 percent price increase in another press release.
Or you buy 10000 shares from your friend just to get the ball rolling and claim, in a press release and web scam, that your doubled or quintupled you investment on this new hot solar invention.
yitbos
Equitorial mount, a small elelctric motor powered by a Photo cell array mounted around the edge of the mirror.
When the sun shines, the motor keeps the sun focused, and incidentally aims the cells at the same time.
Put a slewing control on it so that when it gets too near sunset to be useful, the whole thing slews to extreme east before shutting down, to await the dawn.
Also, wouldn't they use a better working fluid than water? I want to say liquid sodium, but that doesn't seem right.
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“I guess I don’t see how this is any better than all the other parabolic mirrors used for this before now”
I do.
Off to the drawing board.
Thank GOD!!! Finally something that will melt steel!! Rosie will be so happy!
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