September 28, 2007

ROOF-TOP HEAT TRAP STORES POWER FROM THE SUN (Feb, 1940)

Filed under: Ahead of its time — @ 12:31 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1940
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ROOF-TOP HEAT TRAP STORES POWER FROM THE SUN

HEATING homes in January with the warmth of last summer’s sunshine —that is the exciting goal of research now under way at Cambridge, Mass. Not far from the Charles River, scientists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently completed a white frame building, its sloping roof edged with a glistening battery of solar-heat traps.
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September 18, 2007

Contracting Wires Harness Sun’s Rays (Nov, 1932)

Filed under: Impractical — @ 7:22 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1932
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It doesn’t seem like much of that light would actually hit each individual wire does it?

Contracting Wires Harness Sun’s Rays

THE long, exhausting search of scientists for a method of harnessing the rays of the sun has yielded the solar machine illustrated in the artist’s drawing above.

Operation of the machine is based upon the principle of contraction and expansion of tungsten wires. These wires are arranged lengthwise of a revolving drum, and the sun’s rays are directed against them by means of a parabolic mirror on each side.
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July 27, 2007

CHINESE WINDMILL WATERS FARM (Oct, 1933)

Filed under: Cool, Useful — @ 12:26 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1933
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That’s a really nifty way to pump water!

CHINESE WINDMILL WATERS FARM
Adapting an Oriental idea for raising water for his own needs and to irrigate his fields, a California farmer has constructed the curious apparatus shown in the accompanying photographs. Power from a windmill, transmitted through gears, revolves a spiral-shaped tube of pipe open at both ends. The outside end dips into a water-filled ditch at each revolution. Water is thus picked up, and runs by gravity around the spiral to the hub as the wheel revolves. An opening in the hub dis-charges the water into a trough four feet above the level in the ditch, giving a sufficient lift for the irrigation purposes desired.

July 14, 2007

SUN’S RAYS ARE HARNESSED IN SOLAR FURNACE (May, 1924)

Filed under: General — @ 2:53 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1924
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SUN’S RAYS ARE HARNESSED IN SOLAR FURNACE

ARCHIMEDES, famous mathematician, is said to have set fire to the fleet of the Roman emperor, Marcellus, by the use of a series of concave mirrors concentrating the sun’s rays upon the fleet. John Ericsson, the designer of the Monitor, of civil war fame, constructed several engines having boilers provided with mechanical devices for effecting the necessary concentration of solar rays which, when collected from 100 square feet of surface, effected the evaporation of 489 cubic inches of water per hour, more than equivalent to one horsepower. This is, however, but a small proportion of the potential energy actually developed by solar heat hourly received upon an area of this size. Read the rest of this entry »

May 1, 2007

Giant Wind Turbines (Jun, 1932)

Filed under: Impractical — @ 1:00 am
Source: Science And Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1932
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Giant Wind Turbines

Currents in Upper Air Form Unfailing Source of Power for “Windmills” of Future

WIND, at the surface of the earth, is proverbially uncertain; but recent researches show that, a thousand feet or more above the ground, wind is comparatively steady and unfailing. This has given new life to the hope of finding a substantial source of natural power, even more universally available than water power; and the designs illustrated here have been prepared by a German engineer, Honnef, the erector of several huge radio towers. As shown here, the structure carrying the power plant would be higher than any other building man has yet been able to erect.
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February 7, 2007

Putting Nature’s Power to Work (Aug, 1932)

Filed under: Ahead of its time — @ 10:04 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1932
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Putting Nature’s Power to Work

Methods of Harnessing Natural Energy Described by DICK COLE

Upward of 40,000 inventions a year are granted patents by Uncle Sam, but not one of these offers a practical solution of the problem which scientists agree is the most pressing of them all— that is, how to harness natural sources of energy for power. Mr. Cole does not profess to have solved the problem, but the methods he describes here point out the trend of probable development.

WHAT is the most needed invention? Not television—not new kinds of airplanes—not speedier automobiles. Men of science are agreed that what the world needs most is a motor which converts the sun’s rays and other forms of natural energy into usable power. Orville Wright, Lee De Forest, Elihu Thomson, and other leading scientists are among those who proclaim the need for a new motor.
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December 29, 2006

Sunlight Powers Automobile (Aug, 1960)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 10:43 am
Source: Science And Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1960
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Sunlight Powers Automobile
POWERED by the same kind of solar cells used in space vehicles, this car—a 1912 Baker electric— has a top speed of 20 mph.

The 26 sq. ft. panel atop the car contains some 10,640 silicon cells which convert sunlight to electricity. The car was rigged with the cells merely to demonstrate the potential of solar power conversion, and the cells produce enough electricity in eight hours of sunlight to run it for only an hour.

The system was developed by Dr. Charles A. Es-coffery, technical assistant to the president of International Rectifier Corp., El Segundo, Calif. Cost of the solar cell panel is about $15,000. In mass production quantities of a hundred or so, it could be sold for $2,000 to $3,000, says Dr. Escoffery.

September 7, 2006

New Schemes for Harnessing the Winds (Aug, 1939)

Filed under: General — @ 11:47 pm
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1939
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New Schemes for Harnessing the Winds

INVENTORS PROPOSE STRANGE PLANS TO BRING THE OLD DUTCH MILL UP TO DATE

IS THE windmill coming back? With strange, unconventional types, inventors are seeking to adapt it to a modern age. Their experiments may bring new success in man’s effort for 800 years or more to harness the wind for power.

Centuries ago, people milled their flour, sawed wood, and pumped water with the picturesque European windmills whose enormous “sails” swept from earth to sky. This country contributed the smaller and more practical narrow-bladed type that pumps water on farms today. A new miniature design shaped like an airplane propeller charges storage batteries for radios and for lighting rural homes.
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August 6, 2006

Super-Windmills (Mar, 1952)

Filed under: General, Origins — @ 7:50 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1952
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Super-Windmills

Plans are being made to harness mankind’s oldest and cheapest source of power for industry by means of huge aerogenerators.

By Frank Tinsley

THE next few years may see a decided change in the landscape of our country. In certain strategic places which promise a constant, strong wind such as mountain passes, will grow strange structures resembling the Martian machines of H. G. Wells. But these will be instruments of construction, rather than destruction —tall, steel towers supporting fans to convert wind energy into electrical power.
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July 19, 2006

Sun Furnace Goes to Work (Mar, 1954)

Filed under: General, Science, Useful — @ 2:28 pm
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1954
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Make posted a few articles on solar furnaces yesterday. (link, link) Here’s a companion peice from 1954 with a few that get up to 8,000 degrees F. I particularly like the solar cigarette lighter on page two.

Sun Furnace Goes to Work
A man-made inferno tries out materials for jet and rocket engines—and shows one way to capture free solar power.

By Alden P. Armagnac

ATOP a 6,000-foot mountain near San Diego, Calif., they’re harnessing the sun to help build airplanes. A solar furnace newly installed there focuses the sun’s rays, with a 10-foot-diameter mirror of polished aluminum, upon a spot smaller than a dime. It surpasses by far the temperature of the hottest blowtorch or electric furnace.

Researchers of the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation apply the sun furnace’s terrific heat to materials under trial for jet and rocket engines and for guided missiles. Aim of their experiments is to develop substances more resistant to heat and thermal shock than any yet known—stuff that won’t soften and flow, say, when a long-range missile screams back to the earth from dizzy altitudes.
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November 21, 2005

Wind-Electric Plant Perfected (Nov, 1934)

Filed under: Ahead of its time — @ 4:14 pm
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1934
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Well, maybe not perfected. G.E. makes a wind turbine that generates 3.6MW; 36 times the output of this windmill. Of course it does have a diameter of 341 ft, making each of it’s blades almost as tall as this entire plant.

Mounting a 98-foot wheel atop a steel tower 82 feet high, Soviet Engineers have successfully operated a 100-kilowatt wind-electric plant in the Crimean sector for more than a year. The windwheel has self-regulating variable-pitch blades which are automatically operated by centrifugal force. The Entire machine rotates on a spherical pivot in the top of the tower. The device is kept into the wind by a small motor actuate by a weather vane.

November 30, 1999

Sun’s Rays Harnessed to Run Steam Engine (Nov, 1936)

Filed under: Origins — @ 12:00 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1936
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Sun’s Rays Harnessed to Run Steam Engine

One of man’s great ambitions— to harness the sun to a steam engine—has been achieved. Dr. C. G. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, has developed a solar heater and demonstrated that it would operate a one-half horsepower steam engine with sufficient efficiency for commercial purposes. The sun’s rays are his fuel. Caught in three parabolic cylindrical mirrors of sheet aluminum, the rays are reflected in high concentration upon tubes of Pyrex glass. Read the rest of this entry »

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