Solar Combined Heat Power System

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Solar Turbine CHP - this is the holy grail of the future world. Forget about expensive solar cells, nukes, coal, or hydro - utilize the heat of the sun directly, with solar concentrators running a power cycle that has been proven in geothermal plants. One key is to develop an efficient turbine - Jeff Sterling, who claims that a working, small scale system (kW power range) is within month from release - from Matteran Energy has told me that it took him 10 years to realize, and now solve, this problem. Conceptually - the problem is simple - capturing the energy of an expanding gas in a rotor, to convert the energy to electricity. A solar turbine is a tractable problem, and deserves full attention. With 1 kW of insolation from every square meter on earth, such a proposition must be consiered seriously. This includes possibilities of thermal storage when the sun does not shine - just do the basic feasibility calculations and convince yourself that this is possible - even for extended periods beyond 12 hour nights. Check out the http://www.shpegs.com/ open source project for further background on a large scale implementation. Note that technical drawings exist for a 50% efficient solar turbine - look for the C. Christopher Newton thesis at http://www.redrok.com/engine.htm#turbine - but fabrication costs need to be proven on such project. All in all, backup power - such as electricity derived from alcohol combustion in an engine - could be used - but it is more interesting to utilize a backup stove that can produce the necessary heat for the turbine cycle. This is especially useful in conjunction with space and greenhouse heating in the winter. Moreover, MIT's Fab Lab has done work in optimizing diesel engines produced by Vigyan Ashram in India (http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/apps.html) - and these may be available for opensourcing. If so, it would be instructive to fabricate diesel engines locally at OSE for backup power, and optimizing them for waste vegetable oil operation. Price predictions are $2-4k per balance of system kilowatt.

Collaboration

Review of Project Status

CHP- Current Work

CHP - Developments Needed

CHP - General

CHP - Specific

CHP - Background Debriefing

CHP - Information Work

CHP - Hardware Work

CHP - Sign-in

Development Work Template

  1. CHP - Product Definition
    1. CHP - General
    2. CHP - General Scope
    3. CHP - Product Ecology
      1. CHP - Localization
      2. CHP - Scaleability
      3. CHP - Analysis of Scale
      4. CHP - Lifecycle Analysis
    4. CHP - Enterprise Options
    5. CHP - Development Approach
      1. CHP - Timeline
      2. CHP - Development Budget
        1. CHP - Value Spent
        2. CHP - Value available
        3. CHP - Value needed
    6. CHP - Deliverables and Product Specifications
    7. CHP - Industry Standards
    8. CHP - Market and Market Segmentation
    9. CHP - Salient Features and Keys to Success
  2. CHP - Technical Design
    1. CHP - Product System Design
      1. CHP - Diagrams and Conceptual Drawings
        1. CHP - Pattern Language Icons
        2. CHP - Structural Diagram
        3. CHP - Funcional or Process Diagram
        4. CHP - Workflow
      2. CHP - Technical Issues
      3. CHP - Deployment Strategy
      4. CHP - Performance specifications
      5. CHP - Calculations
        1. CHP - Design Calculations
        2. CHP - Yields
        3. CHP - Rates
        4. CHP - Structural Calculations
        5. CHP - Power Requirements
        6. CHP - Ergonomics of Production
        7. CHP -Time Requirements
        8. CHP - Economic Breakeven Analysis
        9. CHP - Scaleability Calculations
        10. CHP - Growth Calculations
      6. CHP - Technical Drawings and CAD
      7. CHP - CAM Files
    2. CHP - Component Design
      1. CHP - Diagrams
      2. CHP - Conceptual drawings
      3. CHP - Performance specifications
      4. CHP - Performance calculations
      5. CHP - Technical drawings and CAD
      6. CHP - CAM files whenever available
    3. CHP - Subcomponents
  3. CHP - Deployment and Results
    1. CHP - Production steps
    2. CHP - Flexible Fabrication or Production
    3. CHP - Bill of materials
    4. CHP - Pictures and Video
    5. CHP - Data
  4. CHP - Documentation and Education
    1. CHP - Documentation
    2. CHP - Enterprise Plans
  5. CHP - Resource Development
    1. CHP - Identifying Stakeholders
      1. CHP - Information Collaboration
        1. CHP - Wiki Markup
        2. CHP - Addition of Supporting References
        3. CHP - Production of diagrams, flowcharts, 3D computer models, and other qualitative information architecture
        4. CHP - Technical Calculations, Drawings, CAD, CAM, other
      2. CHP - Prototyping
      3. CHP - Funding
      4. CHP - Preordering working products
      5. CHP - Grantwriting
      6. CHP - Publicity
      7. CHP - User/Fabricator Training and Accreditation
      8. CHP - Standards and Certification Developmen
      9. CHP - Other
    2. CHP - Grantwriting
      1. CHP - Volunteer grantwriters
      2. CHP - Professional, Outcome-Based Grantwriters
    3. CHP - Collaborative Stakeholder Funding
    4. CHP - Tool and Material Donations
    5. CHP - Charitable Contributions