Problem Statement
Too many people lack adequate food, water, and shelter and I saw insufficient effort being made to develop existing-technology solutions that empower people to provide for their own needs – and so preserve human dignity, self-respect, independence, and expectation of a better future. This project addresses these issues.
Images on menu pages link to more information.
Objective 1: Keep people warm in the winter
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Passive Solar Heating Panels can keep a structure comfortably warm while eliminating fuel consumption and air pollution. These passive panels have provided 100% of the heat needed to keep this building comfortably warm since 2007 – without oil, gas, or electricity – and with no moving parts to wear out.
Status: Development successfully completed. Final documentation underway.
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Objective 2: Develop capable solar engines
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Solar energy acquisition is accomplished using a parabolic reflector, an energy-absorbing target, and a tracking mechanism. These pages present experimental approaches to all three components.
Status: Prototypes working, improvements underway.
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Heat engines convert the acquired solar energy to the mechanical energy needed to drive pumps or generators. These pages describe experimental approaches to thermal engines whose only moving parts are air and/or water.
Status: Fluidyne prototypes working, other engine development underway.
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Objective 3: Apply solar engines to move water
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UN Human Development Report 2006
Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis
(8,271,408 byte PDF)
Status: The crisis continues to worsen.
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Simple pumps use the mechanical energy produced by the solar heat engine to raise and/or move water. This page presents an early design using a fluidyne with two one-way valves and a T-fitting to make a pump.
Status: Prototype working, additional check valve development needed.
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Objective 4: Apply solar engines to produce electricity
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Generators use the mechanical energy produced by solar heat engines to produce electricity. It appears possible to use a hydradyne (an enhanced hydrodyne) engine as a no-moving-parts magnetohydrodynamic generator.
Status: Research continues, development planning underway.
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