This was linked to on another message board I frequent, and along with it’s too good to be true promises, it contains this little gem
Now, I’m a fairly avid reader of all kinds of “lost” technologies and I’ve never heard of anything like this. Anyone have any ideas of what the heck this could be, if it is legit? (That’s a mighty big “if” I realize.)
Hi Tuckerfan,
From what I know of Steven Harris (author of Sunshine to Dollars, from the ebay auction), these claims are bona fide, but more than a little vexing. It’s notable to add that many of his same ideas have been sold, in various formats, from the backs of Science News magazines for almost twenty years; Harris’ book appears to be a rather hit-or-miss compendium.
My father has personally implemented several of these “old technologies,” including scrounged, solar-powered garden irrigation, a solar shower and solar refrigeration. So I’ve seen them in clunky, onerous practice, and they’re out there on the Web if you’d like to look for them.
Here are some breadcrumbs:
and
I found these links on a site called halfbakery.com, one part blog, two part sounding board and one part crackpottery.
You might like to know I am throroughly obsessed with these practices, especially since the modern state of photovoltaics is a largely losing proposition: all of the cells on our farm, for example, cost far more in fossil fuels to manufacture than they will ever, in their lifetimes, replace. I believe the key to sustainability lies in the recesses of our minds, not in the thinness of wafers or the compactness of circuitry. It’s out there, and it’s up to people like you and me to find it.
Yours truly,
El Cid
What???
I’ve had freezers, icemakers, refrigerators, etc. running in my house for years, without ever needing a refrigeration license. I don’t even know where in City Hall I would go to apply for one, 'cause I’ve never heard of this!
Seeing something like this tossed in there just really raises warning signals to me. Tends to make me lean much more toward the sounds too good to be true position.
You need a refrigeration license to maintain or repair air-conditioning/refrigeration units. To get one, you have to pass an exam to prove you know how to handle freon & stuff. You need to be licensed to manufacture or sell them, too.
It’s not like a TV license. 
This doesn’t sound right at all. Do you have a cite?
[Aside] Uh, no. 
The HB is one part message board and one part thinktank. It’s a compendium for whimsical invention ideas that are similar to Japanese chindogu.[/Aside]
Carry on!
That’s not a refrigeration license! You’ve just scratched out “dog” and written in “refrigeration!”
Seems to me that it should be possible to build a solar fridge on the same principle as a propane fridge, no? Course, that would require licenses for handling refrigerants. But I can’t see why it wouldn’t work.
Yep. And that’s why I get a chuckle whenever an environmentalist says we should implement PV systems for power production. They believe a PV system is cleaning burning. :rolleyes: Note, however, that this could change in the future, if someone figures out how to make them more efficient…
It’s most likely something like this:
Dr Hu has already determined that the most practical, cheapest and least toxic chemicals to use in the system are methyl alcohol (or methanol) and a form of charcoal known as activated carbon.
NOT SO!
Methyl alcohol aka methanol is a deadly poison. A small percentage is added to ethyly (drinking) alcohol to make denatured alcohol.
Exposure to methanol can have disasterous consequences.
Dr. Hu is full of HUEEY!
I’d like to see some substantiation of these claims. I’ve done a little hunting around, and this study dating from 2000 says that the energy payback time on photovoltaic cells is around 8-11 years out of a typical lifespan of approximately 30 years. That’s a far cry from “far more fossil fuels to manufacture than they will ever replace.” Note that the study accounts not only for manufacturing costs, but also installation and decommisioning. Also note that the study does not assume the use of castaway silicon from integrated circuit chip manufacture, but calculates the energy costs as if the silicon was being refined from scratch solely for PV cells. Based on some assumptions, the study projects the energy payback time on PV cells in 2010 will be 2 years. I don’t know if those assumptions are being borne out, being nearly halfway to 2010 from the date of the study as we are, but in any event, it looks like your claim is simply false.
Care to back it up? Crafter_Man can feel free to respond as well, since he apparently believes the same thing.
Dude. Chill.
get it? chill?
Want another “study”? Here ya go:
The problem with these “studies” is two-fold. First of all, they are not objective; I believe the researchers have a vested in more $$ going into PV research and development. Secondly, they don’t even begin to take into account the true amount of energy it requires to make a PV array. Did they take into account the energy required to transport the raw materials? Nope. Those trucks burn a lot of diesel fuel. Did they amortize the amount of fossil fuel required to build and maintain the multi-million dollar equipment necessary to purify the raw materials? Nope. They just assumed these were “fixed costs” and ignored them. I could go on and on, but hope fully you get the drift.
Well, the raw material is pretty much sand and the cost per ton had got to be pretty low. I'm not sure that producing the PV array has to consume fossil fuels. If the company manufactures solar cells, couldn't they bootstrap part of their energy requirements onto solar cells?
I'm not sure why you're assuming that putting more $$ into PV research would be a bad thing -- certainly it appears as though more cost-effective technology is on the way. As you pointed out, the technology is promising if it can be made cheaper and more efficient, and that seems to be the case.
Just a couple of hits from Google:
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2019909
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/10/02/solar.cells.reut/
Even if these are just hype, there’s enough work going on so that I think cheap solar cells are only a matter of time. The fossil fuel > energy produced argument really only applies to existing silicon cell technology and is therefore pretty bogus.
Yeah, which tells you something about the other chemicals he tried! You don’t even want to know what they’d do to you.
Well, that’s possibly a decent point, but then raises the question of what are all the equivalent costs for whatever the PV is replacing? Mining, refining, transporting and building the infrastructure to burn fossil fuels (plus, as you point out, mining and transporting the raw materials for the turbines, dynamos, power lines, etc.) all require energy use as well. If you’re comparing, you have to look at the same costs for both sides.
And at any rate, with a calculated four-year or even ten year payback on a thirty year lifespan, you’d have to be leaving out a LOT of other costs to change the conclusion that energy-wise, they’re a good investment.
Finagle: There are other things they’re leaving out… for a PV array to compete with grid power, an inverter must be used, which gobbles up energy. Oh, and did I mention the room full of deep cycle batteries? Gee, I wonder if they forgot to determine the amount of fossil fuels expended to manufacture all the batteries.
But now I’ll let you in on a little secret: you really don’t have to do a study. You only have to understand economics. If PV arrays really generated net power, the power companies would build PV-based power plants and make a real profit selling the energy. But they don’t. Why? Because it’s not worth it; the economic reality alone tells you more energy is expended building a PV-based power system that what you get out of it.
No you don’t. They very fact that they’re doing it on a large scale proves that they get more energy out of it than what was expended to retrieve it. It would be virtually impossible for this not to be the case.
Tell you what, Quercus. Since you believe a PV-based power distribution system pays for itself after 3 years (or whatever), why don’t you “get off the grid” and invest in a home-based PV power system? It should pay for itself after a few years, correct? Sounds like a good deal to me! Just be careful not to smoke in your basement, since it will be full of lead acid batteries…
First, I will note that you have produced absolutely no evidence for your position.
Second, you obviously didn’t read my link.
Third, your economic argument is faulty. PV arrays generating net energy doesn’t mean they’d be in use by power companies, simply because their non-energy-related costs may more than make up the difference. Costs are not directly proportionate to energy inputs, you know. The cost of real estate for large arrays, for example, or the cost of labour for manufacture, installation, and maintenance. Anyways, it’s already possible to financially break even by going off the grid with PV panels. It’s just that most people aren’t in a position to pay their next 12 years or whatever worth of electricity bills up front, nor do they want the hassle of converting. Now, I’m not sure to what extent subsidies come into play here, or I’d be suggesting that this demonstrates conclusively that there’s a net energy gain. After all, it’s not like the transportation companies don’t charge for the fuel they use, or the manufacturing plants don’t charge for their capital investments in machinery. However, I don’t know how much the market is distorted by governments, so I’m not going to make that argument.
So, can you give us any real evidence?