🚀 go-pugleaf

margot@cnwl.igs.net (David) wrote:

>GGPX63D@prodigy.com (Tricia Muscato) wrote:
>
>>Way back when I was in junior high, we constructed a solar cooker in shop 
>>class.  Now I'm a student teacher looking for applications to conic 
>
>I meant to add that I did this once with a class of "non-academic"
>pupils.  We used cardboard, glue, and tinfoil.  It wouldn't boil spit
>when finished, but there was a lot of fun and learning that went on
>none-the-less, an awareness that would otherwise have been missed
>altogether. (I gave the formula for drawing the curve, and the plans.)
>We had a cook-out when finished, with a gas BBQ on hand (just in
>case.)    :-)
>
>You might be able to use (older) car headlights effectively to some
>degree.
>
>David.
>
>

Doug Wood, CEO of Solar Steam Inc., modified the geodesic dome design
to make it parabolic (got a patent for it), thereby getting the 
triangular facets to focus sunlight on a coil of pipe.  His 2-story
prototype could be lifted from its face-down position because of 
a concrete counterweight.  The coil would get white hot and water
pumped through the coil would emerge as a jet of steam.

My friend Andrew Frank found out about Doug and arranged for us to
visit (not far from Olympia, Washington -- Doug was also living
in a geodesic dome).  

We inspected his two prototypes and looked at photographs of the 
hot coil, steam jetting out a hose, but that day was overcast 
so we didn't get to see the dish in operation (pity). Doug said
the dish was made, at least in part, from melted pop cans.  He
had a whole production process worked out, the details of which
I can't remember.

The idea was for the production versions to be harnessed into an 
electricity generating scheme (steam powered generators), perhaps 
to drive electrolysis (hydrogen production) -- or so is my 
recollection of our interview.

I haven't heard anything about Doug Wood since.  All I can track
down on the web is an article: Solar Steam, Inc. by John S. Gordon 
in the Dec 1988 issue of Venturer, the Journal of the Northwest 
Venture Group (citation only, no text).

Doug was living in a paranoid world as I recall, full of oil
company execs flying in from all corners of the globe trying to
buy the rights to his invention -- so they could shelve it,
keep it out of production.  

He claimed to be involved with some university campuses around 
some kind of global unveiling.  Never heard anything more about 
it.  If anyone out there has further info, I'd appreciate hearing.

The more standard solar concentrator is trough-shaped, though 
still parabolic.  See: http://www.chatlink.com/~soltherm/system2.htm

Kirby

----------------------------------------------------
Kirby Urner  "ALL realities are 'virtual'" -- KU
Email: pdx4d@teleport.com
Web:   http://www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/