Solar Fire Presentation at OK Festival

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• # On 24 September 2012 at 15:41, by Eerik Wissenz Replying to: Solar Fire Presentation at OK Festival

  I’d like to add here some extra information that we didn’t have time to go into. This is our first presentation of this kind, so it’s a prototype, we’ll be working to refine it, so don’t hesitate to add any comments, criticisms or suggestions.

  The "energy circles" are based on total available energy in those systems. So or the Sun it’s 174 petawatts. Of course, we couldn’t tap all that, but we decided to go with the total hitting the planet because what is "practical" is impossible to define, it depends on technology (including future breakthroughs) and economics. For instance, 30% of solar energy is reflected right back into space so it seems this would never be practical. However, some have argued for solar panels in space or on blimps above the clouds to get about the reflections, so to cite a lower solar energy figure would to be to make a judgment that these technologies aren’t practical to develop or deploy (a judgment I personally share). Likewise, over 4/5th of the energy falls on water, so again seems impractical, but their are companies working on ocean floating concentrators, so again lowering the available solar by 4/5th would be to make a judgment about that. Of course it would be interesting to go into all this, but that would take a whole other presentation, so for another day. Of course, it wouldn’t change all that much what estimate is used, as solar will still dominate. Solar also dominates energy used if we include the "ecosystem service" the sun provides us by heating the planet in the first place.

  Also, during the questions I mention that many factories shut down in the monsoon. I had in mind agro-processing factories, which slow down significantly as there is no harvest. Of course, many other factories run all year, and large factories may also run 24/7. But our focus to start are on the factories with the easiest requirements to meet, so was thinking about these.

• # On 24 November 2012 at 16:35, by Sam Klein Replying to: Solar Fire Presentation at OK Festival

  Beautiful. Hello Erik and all, I have been enjoying your work!

  I want to build a 100kW "solar acre" power center & solar-design exhibit for Burning Man in Nevada next summer... something which should entirely fit into 1 acre of land, 1 shipping container, and $100K in materials. Elegant and inexpensive design is key; not trying to maximize output per land area :) I would love to hear your thoughts, and to use some of your designs or collaborate on this. BM would be a great place to recruit interest for solstock.

  I expect we could find someone to buy the entire setup after the event and put it to more lasting use somewhere, if you don’t already have an idea for where such a solar rig should spend the year.

  Warmly,
  SJ