re: pjm - founder SOLAR.KnowledgePublications.com

re: pjm - founder
14 sep 2004
sir turtle wrote: 

>i did a little googling and nick your a solar powered hvac system designer
>like newton.

gee, thanks :-) solar heating is easier than vac'ing...

>...you may have some good ideal on solar powered heating systems but the
>public is just not ready for the cost to install them when fossel fuel
>is still cheap at under $100.00 a barrel for oil .

imo, solar heating is economical now, with polycarbonate-glazed sunspaces
or solar attics and lots of insulation instead of "solar heating panels"
and plumbing on the roof. (my 4 24'x96' "solar-heated tomato greenhouses"
cost less than $1000 each.) look at the soldier's grove solar today story
on my web site. that wisconsin town has been solar heated for 25 years
with blowers and simple attics with transparent south roofs. today, with
better materials and techniques, those systems can be improved a lot in
efficiency and cost-effectiveness.  

>paul , me, and others are freon people and your a sun people. your about 500 
>years a head of your time as to people really going solar power and not
>fossel fuel. we have about 500 years of fossel fuel in supply...

...500 years sounds too long to me. i wouldn't be surprised to see the price
of oil double in less than 10 years and double again in another 10. the real
cost of burning oil (including air pollution, acid rain, and gulf wars) is
already a lot higher than the pump price. 

>i don't think your wanting to wait 500 years to see the big move 
>so you will just have to live with us freon people till that time.

i'm happy to live with freon people. i'm not so happy to watch a few try
to change an official newsgroup charter without a usenet-wide revote...
sci.engr.heat-vent-ac was created with a negotiation. a contract. the
proposers convinced the usenet community that it was worth distributing
as an official newsgroup, which required resources (granted, they were
more expensive 10 years ago.) with a different charter excluding home
owners and others, it might not have been approved. i haven't checked
lately, but i imagine these rules still apply.  

nick

ps: it's not everyone's cup of tea, but here's one cost-effective
solar cooling system:

"unglazed collector/regenerator performance for a solar assisted open cycle
cooling system" by m. n. a. hawlader, k. s. novak, and b. d. wood of the
center for energy system research, college of engineering and applied sciences,
arizona state university, tempe, az 85287-5806 usa, in solar energy, vol. 50,
pp 59-73, 1993, described: "an ordinary black shingled roof [was] used as a
collector/regenerator for the evaporation of water to obtain a strong solution
of [lithium chloride] absorbent... experimental results [using a 36' x 36'
roof] show a regeneration efficiency varying between 38 and 67%, and the 
orresponding cooling capacities ranged from 31 to 72 kw (8.8 to 20 tons)",
ie about 1 ton per 100 square feet of roof area, 1 ton per square :-)

in the house "water [the refrigerant] is sprayed into an evaporator, evacuated
to about 5 mmhg of pressure, where it immediately flashes into vapor... cold
water, pumped from the bottom of the evaporator, flows through a fan coil...
that blows cool air into the conditioned space. the absorber acts as a vapor
compressor and condenser for the system. water vapor from the evaporator flows
over the absorber where it is absorbed by the concentrated absorbent. the
continuous absorption of water vapor maintains a low pressure in the system
and permits flashing of water in the evaporator... the product of the 
absorption process, a weak absorbent solution, collects at the bottom of
the absorber to be pumped [up over the roof] for concentration."

"the dilute licl solution was delivered to the collector surface through
a spray header spanning the top of the roof and made from 50.8 mm (2 in)
diameter cpvc pipe fitted with 35 evenly spaced brass nozzles. the
concentrated solution collected at the bottom... in a pvc rain gutter, and
returned via gravity feed to a 1608 l (425 gallon) fiberglass tank... in
the event of of a rain, fluid flowing off the collector could be manually 
diverted to a 946 l (250 gallon) wash tank or to a roof drain. during the
initial phase of the rain, residual salt would be washed from the roof
and collected in the wash tank to be stored for later regeneration. after
sufficient rainfall, the rainwater is diverted to the roof drain."