cheap solar mills | |||||||||||||||||
Could a cheap solar powered steam engine be constructed mainly from trash components? Such as a pair of two (or three) liter bottles that cycles steam back & forth as one bottle is hit with mirrored heat? Keep all the water in the system, and even if the energy produced is low, since the device is very cheap to make & maintain, we could build a lot of them. Its all about the ROI, return on investment. The center would be a more expensive dynamo where the hottest temperatures are maintained, and the flow would pivot to/from different bottles as one gets hotter & the other cooler. I have a complicated design that could probably be improved enormously... but is there some fatal/fundamental flaw here? The key is CHEAP to design & run. By the way, there are many common solvents which have a lower boiling point than water, and thus they could enjoy a longer "day" of boiling. There are drawbacks as well... but it seems like millions of acres in Arizona or Mexico could be put to use using cheap "solar mills". As usual, constructive criticism is the best criticism... but if there is some huge flaw please let me know! Thank you-
wizard1961, Nov 22 2008
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I don't think you should use plastic bottles due to their low melting point. You could use glass bottles instead. Your design uses bottles as boilers and collectors. The problem is, the boiler and collector are some of the simplest and cheapest parts already. What you need are cheap steam engines, generators and condensers. For a cheap generator, you might be able to use a used car alternator. For a cheap condenser, you could try a used car radiator. The steam engine could be the tough one.
I don't know if having the system reverse direction (one bottle to the other, then back) is as practical as having it run in a continuous cycle. I wish you could post a diagram of how your system works so I could better analyse it.
I agree with Dwane, a diagram would be helpful.
The idea of using a plastic (PET) pressure vessel in direct sun seems like a short-lived system. I think it would break down quickly and the pressure would rupture it.
I like the continuous cycle idea, and keeping the boiling heat inside a metal chamber could work well.
The design could be all sots of things, but the idea is to use steam & reflection instead of solar panels, which are expensive, short-lived, and a bio-hazard. Think small & cheap.