NNEMA

2/4/2007

Solar hype

Many folks don't understand the solar options available to us. High priced PV (photovoltaic- electricity producing) panels are mainly for the rich, and while practical in the future are but a fraction of our choices solarwise.
This is not what we'll be hearing in the very near future, now that our city councils and higher government are catching on to Green power. We will be persuaded by the vested greedy powers, that the only survival for us is high-priced solar PV panels.
Well, solar isn't high priced. Not if done right.
There are a myriad of other low-tech solar devices available to us. Many of them are inexpensive, and some ridiculously so.

One very practical application, which doesn't take a lot of high-tech is air heating.
Another is water heating. Solar can be used for cooking, baking, distilling water and other fluids, and even refrigeration. One tremendously overlooked tool is the focussing collector. These have the potential to provide enough heat for the smelter and re-use of aluminum cans, for cottage industries and other local manufacturing. A good source of high temperatures for industrial uses.
In the 1800's, solar hot air engines were used to pump water out of mines. Napoleon used solar cookers while trying to conquer the world.
In Pasadena in the early 1900's, many houses had solar water heaters. Then, one winter a cold snap froze many of them, and the gas and oil companies stepped in. They often gave free fossil fuel water heaters to residents with the stipulation that the customer would buy their fuel.
Modern solar water heaters are much more advanced. They are freeze-proof, and quietly work while the sun shines, adding free hot water into your tank. We installed our kit about 5 years ago, and it has now paid off the cost of installation. Now we'll have virtually free hot water for many years.
We paid around $3000 for it, and installed it ourselves. To have someone else install one will be more expensive, and probably double the pay-off time, but will save you bucks after it is eventually paid off.
Solar water heaters could (and should) be installed on all new housing, probably adding less than $2000 to the cost of the house, and would immediately start saving money and fuel. Perhaps this is something we can all work on. Contact your state legislatures and urge them to pass solar legislation, including mandatory solar water heaters on new housing. Call the Governor, tell him your views.
A local industrial effort of building local water heaters will not only help make Nevada energy self-sufficient, but create many jobs, and help us toward becoming a nation of savers instead of chargers.
There are so many advantages to using free energy, that it is obviously some tragic cosmic oversight that we're not heavily invested in it, or some machinations of certain vested human interests.
We're currently building a solar hot air box for the roof of the garage. It is separated from the house, on a slab, and gets pretty cool in winter. There are currently 4 small air heaters on the south wall, and, while they raise the ambient temperature about 15 degrees. Adding a few on the roof will significantly cut our fuel costs. This version of the air heater is being made of tin cans. We use a lot of canned milk for our coffees, and have been saving the empty cans. These are becoming metal tubes which are to be painted hi-temp black, and mounted on the roof under glass.
We should be able to add another ten degrees to the garage, and in theory in summer the upper end of the collectors will be opened, and should become a free vent to exhaust warm air from the room, all without using any electric. The natural pull of the heated air will suck the room's heat out through the collector and act as a vent. If anyone is interested in building one, write & we'll get together.
The Mother Earth News years ago published plans for a solar window box for very little cost. It claimed to have provided a quarter of the rooms heat, and was about the size of a piece of plywood.
While tin can collectors require a bit of labor to make, the point is that it was low-tech to build in its entirety. And used available materials, including saving good metal from the landfill. Our landfills are going to become the 'gold mines' of future generations.
Good air collectors can be build from already manufactured metal tubing, and be assembled and built locally. Perhaps some savvy business types will pick up on this action and start building these. They can retrofit onto existing houses, and will have many benefits for us all.
This might be a good NNEMA topic for your group. Let's all see about providing our own neighborhood power. Reducing our fossil use by retrofitting our houses is a major step.
There is almost one horsepower of heat hitting each square meter of roof during a sunny day. Someone once remarked that there is enough energy falling on one-third of our roof to power our whole house.
And while PV panels are a nice idea, the great majority of us who cannot afford them can, by building air heaters (and water heaters) get a huge jump on getting off-petroleum. AND off coal for those Nevadans among us.
Yes, Virginia, there is a free lunch. It is called solar.