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Forum Index : Solar : solar generator

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jeff

Newbie

Joined: 29/05/2007
Location: United States
Posts: 4
Posted: 07:40pm 02 Jun 2007
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While surfing the web I found this article and thought it was interesting , I was wondering if anyone has tried this before.


http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17169&c h=biztech
 
Storm

Regular Member

Joined: 12/09/2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 43
Posted: 12:03pm 03 Jun 2007
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One of my previous projects was to build one of these heaters, I’ve still got the parts lying around incase I wanted to play again later. I had a machine shop bend a sheet of mirror stainless to my specs then I set it in an insulated box with a glass lid so the outside so air temp didn't effect the focus tube (they hotter you get something the quicker it sheds heat due to a natural equilibrium effect) I lost interest once I realised they only work well in direct sun unless built on very large scale. When it’s cloudy the system can’t heat enough to make the steam. The large power plants use huge oil reservoirs and computer controlled valves to hold the heat constant for long periods of bad weather. Now I can't say it wont work in africa or central australia its just that in colder climates like Vic, Tas, S.A. etc there just isnt enough constant direct sunlight to be viable.
 
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